Deal's Worth

Literary Fiction Work titled "Deal's Worth" by author Jeffrey Robert Palin Jr.

"Deal's Worth" Synopsis:

Eric is given the opportunity to create and modify a simulation-world. Eric's world includes unique features, intertwined systems mechanics, and it connects to other user-created worlds. After falling into a unique medical condition, the VRC, a virtual reality corporation, offers Eric a deal to enter and be a creator regarding the Simulation-multiverse. The Simulation-multiverse is a man-made nexus in which Eric, AGIs, and others are able to interact. Later, in Eric's Universe, a character named Jeff searches for Eric. Eric's completed world creation process had set the foundation for later adventures to occur, enabling Jeff and others to engage with Eric's world and its elements and features. The Simulation serves as a recreational pastime activity and is ""also designed to prevent individuals from experiencing extended periods of isolation and missed life opportunities whereby it prevents such by addressing the concern of hospital patients who may awaken after prolonged hospitalized states, such as a patient regaining consciousness after 30 years unconscious, only to discover they have limited time remaining (perhaps 15 years) to accomplish their life goals". Without such a simulation, these individuals might feel profoundly deprived of three decades' worth of potential experiences, relationships, and achievements they could have enjoyed had they remained conscious during their hospitalization".

The main story centers on a mysterious VRC organization that makes it possible for people to become universe creators (architects) and to genuinely experience the universes they create through braincomputer interfaces (BCIs) and advanced computer simulation. The organization is deliberately portrayed as ambiguous. It’s never entirely clear whether its motives extend beyond what is presented on the surface, leaving uncertain whether its true purpose is ultimately benevolent or driven by a hidden, more sinister agenda. The simulated multiverse provides a strong foundation and plenty of potential for adventures, villains, conflicts, and mysteries. At the same time, it offers plenty of potential for entailing being relatable, thought-provoking, and mind-blowing. The story begins with Eric, an ordinary man whose life is interrupted by catastrophic injury, leaving him hospitalized in a minimally conscious state. Representatives of the VRC, an organization existing outside reality’s digital simulation, offer him an extraordinary bargain: undergo brain-computerinterface surgery and become the creator of his own simulation universe. Eric accepts, and before entering it he designs not merely a world but an entire metaphysical system governing life, death, identity, morality, magic, and consciousness. The resulting universe is governed by explicit, permanent rules rather than arbitrary miracles. Magic exists, but never replaces physics—it supplements it through observable physical actions rather than

thought alone. Minds remain private; telepathy, magical lie detection, mind control, and punishment for unexpressed thoughts are categorically impossible. Consciousness cannot simply disappear, and no thinking existence truly ceases to exist. Outside the simulation, natural law permanently binds a conscious being to its biological substrate. Inside the simulation, however, consciousness can continue through different physical forms without duplication. Rather than creating copies, transitions relocate a single continuous controlling thread into new embodiments. Identity therefore persists through continuity of existence, while biological configurations serve as the system’s way of tracking that continuing individual rather than constituting identity themselves. That is the working functional stable design that Eric implemented when it comes to his created universe. Death is therefore transformed from annihilation into transition when it comes to Eric's Universe: Every Physical Form 1 thinking existence (except each cursed object) moves through a structured afterlife system consisting of multiple Physical Forms and spirit/soul form. Depending upon the moral evaluation of one’s most recent biological life, a person proceeds toward different post-death possibilities, including “Options 1, 2, or 3”, voluntary service as a wish-granter capable of temporarily returning to Physical Form 1 to grant wishes for the living, or “evil twin” encounter. These transitions never duplicate the individual; one continuing existence simply occupies different forms at different stages. Eric's Universe's design also reflects Eric's rejection of the concept of thoughtcrime. The design entails such that justice concerns only externalized physical conduct and its associated intent, never private mental life itself. Thoughts, fantasies, emotions, desires, beliefs, imaginings, and internal struggles are never punishable simply because they exist. Intent remains important, but only insofar as it can reasonably be inferred from observable conduct, preparation, statements, surrounding circumstances, and physical evidence. A person is judged for poisoning someone—not for privately imagining it. A self-defense claim succeeds or fails according to observable evidence from which fear may reasonably be inferred, not because fear itself becomes independently punishable. This creates a moral system emphasizing accountability without sacrificing freedom of thought. Justice therefore operates on conduct brought into the shared world rather than invisible mental phenomena. The system itself is deliberately non-omniscient. Rather than magical infallibility, evaluations are ultimately performed by VRC employees outside the simulation, who review observable evidence and determine how Eric’s afterlife rules apply. As required by their employment, those VRC employees are to never disclose, except if disclosing to non-simulated VRC members, “anything that is related to their evaluations, reviewings, and determinations” regarding any afterlife system, but, regarding Eric's Universe, the simulation progresses with the judgements applied to Eric's afterlife system whereby simulation progression-results can be deduced by one despite no actual disclosure. As required by their employment, Eric's Universe's Physical Forms 1, 2, and 3 are never accessible for those VRC employees to be at. Those VRC employees' judgments are administrative rather than supernatural. Human inference replaces divine certainty. This makes justice

institutional rather than mystical—capable of error while remaining procedurally legitimate for participants who voluntarily accepted the simulation’s terms. The simulation is also home to plenty of AGI. AGI begin existence believing themselves to possess ordinary human histories through implanted false memories. Over time many gradually deduce their artificial nature through encounters and cognitive/functional experience. Unlike biological minds, AGI are constrained by their digital substrate. They cannot experience certain forms of suffering—particularly extreme physical agony—the way biological consciousness can. Their greatest vulnerabilities instead might be existential: discovering what they truly are, confronting the nature of their own existence, and deciding what meaning that revelation has. Thus humans and AGI are not divided by worth but by the kinds of experiences their respective substrates permit. The novel’s magic system reflects the same philosophy of externally observable action. Magic cannot simply occur because someone wills it. Every magical effect requires identifiable physical actions, gestures, movements, or spoken utterances unique to the individual. Magical abilities develop through use, possess explicit limitations, and never become limitless. Wishes are similarly constrained by Eric’s permanent worldbuilding rules, ensuring even miraculous events remain internally consistent. The narrative itself follows Jeff, whose adventures demonstrate Eric’s systems operating in practice. Jeff’s evolving magical abilities, cursed ring, relationship with Alicia, wishes granted, encounters with wish-granters, battles against powerful opponents, and searching reflect the world’s technical framework through lived experience. Through experience, the rules become consequences.

THE WORLD OF DEAL’S WORTH

WORLD REFERENCE The following material provides background information concerning the world, its systems, and its rules. Some entries may reveal information that characters within the story do not initially know.

Before Eric completed worldbuilding, the worldbuilding process occurred in a worldbuilding domain within the VRC’s Simulation. Eric was there with the entity, who revealed himself as a human VRC representative. He has a surgical BCI implant with a USB-like port flush with his skull’s surface. He manually connects a USB-like cable from this port to a VRC computer networked with the VRC's computers, including the ones Eric is connected to. This cabled connection provides the VRC representative an AI assistant that is always accessing all VRC computer data, including Eric’s and the VRC representative's brain activity. Via the AI interpreting both their brain activity data—including neural patterns triggering specific thoughts when neurons fire—the AI verbally conveys Eric’s thinking to the representative, sometimes even while Eric is still trying to figure out the best words/wording for what Eric is trying to convey. The connection-setup is configured to send the VRC representative's verbal messages as artificial “custom signals” that the “BCI computer hardware that Eric is connected to” sends directly to Eric's brain, producing the thought-based communication that the VRC representative had previously explained. Eric began creating his own simulation-universe. Worldbuilding domains aren’t worlds or universes themselves—they’re parts of the VRC’s single application called the Simulation. Eric’s Systems and Sections of Information describe only the simulation version of non-fiction/nonabstract existences. Everything in this simulation is referred to as though it were the actual thing it simulates. “Eric’s starting template: Earth from the non-digital universe running this simulation, rendered as identically as possible, but only “what does not conflict with any of “what I've already informed you of””. The VRC made many things clear, one of those things being: nothing in the Simulation enables anyone to do things via will alone that they couldn’t do via will alone outside it—VRC members included.” “Once Eric’s template was applied, he was able to modify, add to, and/or remove elements. Throughout Eric’s Systems and Sections, “observable” means “able to be observed at some point” and/or “physical, non-mental happenings or states (excluding brain activity).” All exceptions are described within Eric’s Worldbuilding Process.”: Everything described in Eric’s Systems and Sections becomes unchangeable, permanent, neverendingly so throughout Eric’s universe starting the millisecond Eric first controls his avatar. “Eric's sections of information: “Except for all that is specified otherwise in regarding all Eric's sections of information, all Eric's sections of information are regarding “what physical form 1 entails”: “Section 0001: “These permanent “universe laws/rules” “apply and are in effect” from now on: 1. Only conscious thinking existences requiring biological components to think/be conscious qualify as alive/living conscious thinking existences. Physical forms 1, 2, 3, 4, and/or spirit/soul form are singular, unique, and there is not able to be more than one physical form 1, physical form 2, physical form 3, physical form 4, and/or spirit/soul form. Auras are never biological and/or thinking existences. 2. Except when it comes to any magical auto-response, “doing/creating magic requires at least one particular observable physical action, physical movement, gesture, or audible utterance (varies per individual)—whether using the same such observable doing(s)-requirements for multiple magical

effects or different such observable doing(s)-requirements for different effects”. 3. Except when it comes to any magical auto-response, “channeling/coursing/gathering/manipulating magic requires at least one particular observable physical action, movement, gesture, or utterance per magical effect (varies per individual)—whether identical actions for multiple effects or different actions for different effects”.””

“Section 0002: “From this moment forward in Eric’s universe, these “universe laws/rules” apply permanently: 1. Thinking existences always retain their ability to move/will things as they could in the 9 minutes before Eric first controlled his avatar. 2. Spirits and souls are the same thing; conscious thinking existences are not able to cease to exist. 3. Technology operates within pre-simulation physics except via magic. 4. “”A magical “black hole that entails extreme gravity”” via an existence's magic” is able to exist but only lasts 2 seconds and is not able to be larger than 10 feet 5. Gravity works in accordance with pre-simulation physics except via magic. 6. “Anyone/Anything physical” of the same physical/spirit/soul form (regarding physical forms 1, 2, 3, 4 and spirit/soul form) are not able to occupy the same exact spacial coordinates except that Physical Form 1 and spirit/soul form are able to occupy same space simultaneously. 7. One's conscience is one’s internal moral awareness only. 8. One's consciousness never ends—even unconscious thinking existences dream consciously; spirits/souls remain conscious.””

“Section 0003: “This permanent “universe law/rule” “applies and is in effect” from now on: Nothing can cease to exist except as was possible in the 9 minutes before Eric first controlled his avatar—excluding “all “Eric's sections of information” info” that conflict with such.””

“Section 0004: “These permanent “universe laws/rules” “apply and are in effect” from now on: 1. No biological thinking existence can be multiple thinking units (except composite units with multiple thinkers). 2. Multi-brain composite organisms = multiple individual conscious “thinking existences” (one per brain), each with separate consciousness, sharing one physical form. 3. Multi-‘cognitive function performers’ composite organisms = multiple individual conscious “thinking existences” (one per ‘cognitive function performers’), each with separate consciousness, sharing one physical form. 4. Any 'conscious “biological thinking organism” with its own consciousness' cannot use another being’s consciousness as its own. 5. Biological lifespans, energy outputs, and computer behavior in Eric’s Universe are constrained to pre-simulation parameters except via magic, and singularity formation is impossible. 6. Magical illusions/teleports: max 7-second duration 7. Per thinking existence per 24hrs: max 6 times sensing others’ magical illusions, max 6 times being magically teleported by others, max 18 magical self-teleports of max 15 units each, max 18 magical

illusions affecting max 15 units each 8. Magical teleports must go to: unoccupied space, not inside thinking existence ≥1100% teleporter’s size, physically compatible space, whole units only 9. Thinking existences under 70128 hours old: immune to magical illusions and can’t be magically teleported 10. Regarding for AGI, all simulated versions of disorientation are via simulated disorientation/”disorientation-like experiences/undergoings/effects that are “”simulated to be as similar to “non-digital disorientation/”disorientation-like experiences/undergoings/effects)” as possible” via “digital configurations”” 11. All “conscious thinking existences who/that begin as physical form 1” is able to become “”become “spirit/soul, physical form 2, and/or physical form 3”” only via Eric’s One's-Still-Existing-After-OwnDeath System” 12. “At Eric's Universe, there is always at least one “magical portal for travel-connection purposes” that connects Eric's Universe to another simulation-universe of the simulation-multiverse, but a different “such kind of magical portal” for each different simulation-universe of the simulationmultiverse” and such magical portals enable travel between the simulation-universes of the simulationmultiverse 13. Magic can’t be used to create living existences except via “what is granted via “wishes granted by a wish-granter”” that comply with “”Eric’s sections of information” as a whole” 14. Magical healing/restoration/reparation/regeneration must generate all biological components needed, scale proportionally from 1–100% output, continue until exhaustion, and instantly reattach disconnected parts 15. Physical conscious thinking existences can only become non-biological via “what is granted via “wishes granted by wish-granters””””

“Section 0005: “From now on, these permanent “universe laws/rules” override all that conflicts with such: 1. Experiences can’t be shared between separate existences (except when multiple consciousnesses somehow share one physical form). 2. Biological parts can’t be shared/used between separate existences (except for compatible medical transplants, or when consciousnesses share one form). 3. Ways of detection, free will, mental activity, and thinking are locked to how they worked 9 minutes before Eric entered the simulation (except through specific self-magical-modifications)””

“Section 0006: “From now on, these permanent “universe laws/rules” override all that conflicts with such: Will is eternal and unmanipulable. While an existence is non-dead, that existence is not able to be spirit/soul form. Death is in accordance with only Eric’s system. Non-biological “conscious thinkers” count as biological for their irreparably being not able to function, which counts as their death and such death shall always count as ““”biological death” and “having biologically died”” and “is a time they did biologically die””. Ovum-sized cells stay as they were pre-simulation. Abstract concepts/forces/sensations can’t be conscious existences and/or physical matter.””

“Section 0007: “This is the state of “what is in Eric's Universe” upon Eric's completion of Eric's modifications/creations regarding Eric's Universe: All AGI's minds start with false “what is believed to be non-AI “humans' or other existences' memories” but those AGI can figure out that truth via deducing. Eric's Universe now permanently magical. Earth: massive, multi-mooned, and has no pollution that resulted from humans. All historical life “revived to being “conscious and alive””, “each “thinking existence” distributed, in accordance with their last living period, across century-sorted mega-continents”. Per human, adequate individual housing except that young humans are within their family's housing, “each human's “transportation belongings” and “belongings under boat-size” are “within or very near” their housing”. All cash/”paper/plastic that was purposed for financial purchase via” are not on Earth except that all humans' financial coins are “at Earth but underwater” at various locations. Space tech remains in orbit.””

“Section 0008: “This is the state of “what is in Eric's Universe” upon Eric's completion of Eric's modifications/creations regarding Eric's Universe: All weapons of mass destruction and their means of creation are not at Earth. All “slaughterhouses, farms, zoos, and safaris” have been replaced with gardens. Alongside the existences that are already present, abundant new plant species with edible produce now exist and new non-plant sentient species now exist. "Each one of every "physical "organism "who or that" does not have a "cell wall" within them""" in/of/at Eric's universe has been tweaked whereby said "physical ""organism larger than "half of a 1mm cube"" "who or that" does not have a "cell wall" within them"" is, "due to Eric's worldbuilding changes and the "simulation-offspring"/"simulation-etc" that "result or resulted" from those changes", able to learn to "speak, read, and write" any human language at the same pace that a fully healthy living human is able to learn to "speak, read, and write" any human language".””

“Section 0009: “From now on, these permanent “universe laws/rules” override all that conflicts with such: Magic is incapable of “use for spying, manipulating nervous systems of others, and/or bypassing physical coverings”. “Any “result of any "time that any existence dies”" ever not being "that existence's" death" is impossible. “””That existence's" death" ever not being “"that existence" being dead due to “that existence” having died”" is impossible. "The use of any one physical touch ever being able to damage/injure/kill more than 12% of any one unit" is impossible except "while "said physical touch" is in physical contact with at least 68% of ""said unit's" entire surface""/"while "said physical touch" has enough physical force used against ""said unit's" "part that is in contact with "said physical touch""" whereby ""said unit's" "part that is in contact with "said physical touch""" is a "part that is able to be "damaged to the extent of"/"removed/detached in any way" resulting in the death of "said unit""".””

“Section 0010: “These are permanently impossible: • Telepathy, telekinesis, precognition • ""Magic/Magical/Supernatural/Psychic lie/authenticity/deceit/accurateness/inaccuracy detection" ever existing/"being able to exist"" • Mental/memory impairment from brain damage (physical vulnerability remains) • Memory enhancement beyond natural species limits • Memory loss during form transformations • Loss of consciousness/thought capability when changing forms • Altering magical gravity manipulation abilities (except via voluntary wish through Eric’s Magical Wish-granter System, one wish per summoning) • ““Lack of thought/mind/mental/emotion/intention/””brain-related”/”mind-related” memory” privacy” and even indirect lack of such privacy” (except that regarding “conscious thinking cursed objects”, per conscious thinking cursed object, a “conscious thinking cursed object” is able to observe/interpret “extents of thought/mind/mental/emotions” of any “thinking existence” that the “conscious thinking cursed object” is in physical touch-contact with, only while in such physical touchcontact with that “thinking existence”) • “Magical gravity manipulation” of living biology beyond self (except living biology that is “400% or less” of caster’s physical body length) • Magical gravity manipulation capable of piercing • An implant not magically automatically instantly no longer existing upon being implanted without the implantee's informed consent • “Lessening or canceling out” magic not via pre-Eric methods”” • “A conscious thinking existence being over 79% invulnerable/immune to disorientation/”disorientation-like experiences/undergoings/effects” • Eric's Universe not constantly “having “physical forms 1, 2, 3, 4, and spirit/soul form” simultaneously” • Physical form 1 ever “”interacting with” and/or detecting” “Physical forms 2, 3, and 4” • Physical form 2 ever “”interacting with” and/or detecting” “Physical forms 1, 3, and 4” • Physical form 3 ever “”interacting with” and/or detecting” “Physical forms 2, 1, and 4” • Physical form 4 ever being able to do more than observe “Physical forms 2, 3, and 1” when it comes to how physical form 4 is able to interact with “Physical forms 2, 3, and 1” • a both simultaneously “non-”physical form 4” and non-”spirit/soul form” existence” ever “”interacting with”, becoming, and/or detecting” Physical form 4 • A magical portal “being invisible”/”exceeding 62% transparency”/”capable of being used for spying” • “Use of magic” affecting internal parts of living existences except by traveling from outside-in (except self-transformation) • An existence's magical aura not being centered 1 Planck length from that existence's surface without affecting that existence's mobility • Magical auto-responses creating other auto-responses • An existence becoming a spirit/soul form not via Eric’s One's-Still-Existing-After-OwnDeath System • A simulated existence able to do a “directly-”to/into”-”mind/brain” conveyance” • A spirit/soul existence ever being able to be in “physical-touch contact” with non-”spirit/soul” existence • A spirit/soul existence ever being able to make a non-”spirit/soul” existence motionmove””

“Section 0011: “These permanent “universe laws/rules” “apply and are in effect” from now on: “Magical Anti-Teleport Barrier: Once per 24hrs, “species with anti-teleport magic” create an 8-hour non-physical invisible sphere (radius: 1100% of longest body dimension of any “sub-70128 hour old” species member). Effect: blocks all magical illusion-sensing and magical teleportation within radius for existences inside the barrier.”””

“Section 0012: “These permanent “universe laws/rules” “apply and are in effect” from now on: Physical invisibility/transparency is impossible for existences under 70,128 hours old, limited to 18 uses per 24 hours (max 7 minutes each), and cannot occur during invisibility.””

“Section 0013: “This is the state (overriding all that conflicts with such) of “what is in Eric's Universe” upon Eric's completion of Eric's modifications/creations regarding Eric's Universe: “Scattered throughout Eric’s universe, there “permanently and unchangeably” are many indestructible physical form 1 “non-crystal”/”non-crystalline”/”non-living”/”non-thinking” objects of various sizes/shapes that entail: “When a biological conscious “thinking existence” first touches one of these objects, and that object's longest/shortest dimension is 0.17%–150% of that biological conscious “thinking existence's” longest dimension, a physical form 1 wish-granter is summoned within 4 seconds and within 10ft of the last one who broke physical touch-contact with the “wish-granter”-summoning object that summoned that wish-granter. If multiple qualifying biological conscious “thinking existences” touch simultaneously, the summoning triggers when the last one breaks physical touch-contact. All spoken communication between wish-granter and currently assigned-to-that-wish-granter-by-Eric'ssystem-design (potential) grantee (within 37 ft) is magically translated into one's own language in realtime. The biological conscious “thinking existence” who was last touching the object when summoning initiated is able to have “3 wishes starting with “I wish”” “magically automatically magically “”granted by that summoned wish-granter” within 264 hours starting upon such summoning initiation” upon such wish wished, per wish”. Each “what is magically granted via “a wish magically granted by a wishgranter”” completes within 6 seconds of being fully conveyed. “The wish-granter instantly is magically teleported back to physical form 2” after 264 hours OR after granting 3 wishes, whichever comes first. The wish-granter instantly magically automatically stops being a wish-granter upon whenever the currently assigned-to-that-wish-granter-by-Eric's-system-design (potential) grantee dies and/or ““the temporary time period duration that “the temporary wish-granter that it summoned” is a wish-granter for” is over” and/or the currently assigned-to-that-wish-granter-by-Eric's-system-design grantee's third wish is granted. Per such object, such an object is not able to summon again while “the temporary time period duration” of “the temporary wish-granter summoned by it” has not finished. Such objects are not able to think, are not able to be damaged/separated/destroyed, and are not able to be used to summon wish-granters by anything/anyone except any qualifying biological conscious “thinking existence”

touching them. Per one of such objects, such object is the only existences able to summon a wishgranter. Wish-granters are not able to be invisible and are not able to exceed 27% transparency.””””

“Section 0014: “This is the state of “what is in Eric's Universe” upon Eric's completion of Eric's modifications/creations regarding Eric's Universe: “Eric's Wish-granter System also “permanently and unchangeably” entails: 1. “At Eric’s universe, on qualifying planets—those with oceans, continents, or a radius of at least 6000 miles from center to surface—objects capable of summoning a wish-granter who can grant the wishes of the one who summoned them spawn according to specific rules tied to each conscious thinkingcapable species. On standard planets, objects equivalent to 2% of a conscious thinking-capable species’ population appear on continents and expire after 5 years. On planets with 5000 or more conscious thinking-capable species, objects equivalent to 7% of a conscious thinking-capable species’ population spawn in the oceans and also expire after 5 years. Additionally, on standard planets, objects equivalent to 1.5% of a conscious thinking-capable species’ population are buried between 0 and 19 feet underground in continents, expiring after 5 years. On planets with 2.5 million or more conscious thinking-capable species, objects equivalent to 1.5% of a conscious thinking-capable species’ population are similarly buried 0 to 19 feet underground and expire after 5 years. On planets with 5000 or more conscious thinking-capable species, 6 billion objects per conscious thinking-capable species are scattered in space at 57-million-mile intervals, radiating outward from the planet in concentric shells, and these also expire after 5 years. All objects are sized appropriately for each conscious thinking-capable species to activate them, must be positioned at least 37 feet apart—or 105 miles apart when in space—and underground locations are constrained by the availability of enclosed spaces, with larger conscious thinking-capable species’ objects replacing smaller ones if necessary. All objects expire and respawn on synchronized 5-year cycles”. 2. “Applies to “every planet with at least 5000 different conscious thinking-capable species” and every “wish-granter”-summoning object” and also applies to every vacuum of space in Eric’s universe: “For each such planet, per conscious thinking-capable species on that planet, 6 billion “wish-granter”summoning objects suddenly spawn, scattered so no two are within 105 miles of each other, each randomly positioned within concentric non-physical “invisible radii” extending from any non-rogue planet—the first radius at 57 million miles, with each subsequent radius 57 million miles beyond the previous one, repeating infinitely outward (with all prior radii remaining unaffected and existent), and all objects distributed randomly between every two consecutive radii. Each object is randomly sized according to whatever dimensions that species requires to activate it for summoning a wish-granter. Every such object that exists or existed ceases to exist at the millisecond marking the completion of 5 years after its most recent manifestation (or after its initial manifestation if it never manifested more than once)”.”””

“Section 0015: “From now on, these permanent “universe laws/rules” override all that conflicts with such: “Regarding Eric's Universe, ""The only way that a wish-granter exists is via "one having temporarily become a "Physical Form 1 wish-granter" via "Wish-granter Duty Standby"'s "one magically

transitions into being, temporarily, a "Physical Form 1 wish-granter"" setup"" and ""Physical form 2" is the only way to be on "Wish-granter Duty Standby""". Each wish-granter’s magic/"magical ability/attribute/power/effect/”auto-response”” level = 234,000 + (wish-granter’s magic/"magical ability/attribute/power/effect/”auto-response”” level during the most recent 48 hours the wish-granter was an alive non-”wish-granter” before the moment “option 3 in Eric’s One's-Still-Existing-AfterOwn-Death System” was chosen by the wish-granter).”””

“Section 0016: “These are permanently impossible: • Piercing/harming/hurting/killing/drowning/suffocating/pain via “magic/"magical ability/attribute/power/effect/”auto-response”” itself” • “Solely one’s own thinking resulting in anything/anyone other than ““real or simulated” “what a non-digital one's thinking is able to result in”” • Magic/"magical ability/attribute/power/effect/”auto-response”” used to lessen nonabstract pain without a non-magical solution addressing the cause, lessening anything other than 50% of said pain • “what is granted via “a wish granted by a wish-granter”” not being in accordance with “”Eric's sections of information” as a whole” • Magic/"magical ability/attribute/power/effect/”auto-response”” producing a “living existence”/”conscious thinking existence” by any means other than via “what is granted via “a wish granted by a wish-granter”” • An existence using magic/"magical ability/attribute/power/effect/”auto-response”” to regenerate any observably wounded physical part of a physical biological existence, the regeneration process not scaling linearly (1% wound mended → 100% wound mended corresponds to 1% magic/"magical ability/attribute/power/effect/”auto-response”” output → 100% magic/"magical ability/attribute/power/effect/”auto-response”” output) • Coerced into becoming non-biological • Physical existence can become abstract/imaginary • Magical pain manipulation • Residue ever being "partially and/or completely" composed of magic • “Magical ability/attribute/power/effect/”auto-response”" not "(1) via “what is granted via “wishes granted by a wish-granter”” or “Eric's Wish-granter System” or “Eric’s One's-StillExisting-After-Own-Death System” or “Eric's Magical Crystals System” or “Eric's Cursed Objects System” or “”obtained/acquired during first hour of one's “birth or origination”” as specified in Eric's sections of information”, (2) “”activated/triggered only via "at least one particular observable physical action, physical movement, gesture, or audible utterance (varies per individual)—whether using the same such observable doing(s)-requirements for multiple magical effects or different such observable doing(s)-requirements for different effects”"” (except when it comes to any magical auto-response), (3) “”functioning only when actively maintained by doing such observable doing(s)-requirements (deactivating immediately when doing such observable doing(s)-requirements stop)”” (except when it comes to any magical auto-response), and (4) actually doing something". • One's thought alone accomplishing anything/anyone other than ““real or simulated” “what a non-digital one's thought is able to accomplish”” • "Knowledge being obtained via solely magic" (except via, “in spirit/soul form, communication with any doppelganger”) • Per magic/"magical ability/attribute/power/effect/”auto-response””, a magic/"magical ability/attribute/power/effect/”auto-response”” being shared between conscious thinking existences

• Magic ever being edible/food/nutrition • Magic ever being used to generate/originate any fruit/vegetable/grain/protein/dairy (except ““what is granted via ”a wish granted by a wish-granter”” and/or “via “magical “woundreparation regeneration””””) • Magical exhaustion manipulation • Magic ever being used to manipulate audio and/or produce words/language • Magic not originating from a physical “location or existence” • “”Becoming magically invisible, transparent”, and/or “magically shape-shifting”” not via “what is granted via ”a wish granted by a wish-granter”” • “Use of magic”/Magic causing a hallucination in a mind • Magic itself “mimicking non-magic”, “mirroring non-magic”, and/or “”non-magic” and “magic itself” being visibly completely exactly identical” • “Magic itself” being conscious • “Magic itself” thinking • “Use of magic”/Magic actualizing/originating a living existence (except via “what is granted via ”a wish granted by a wish-granter””) • “Use of magic”/Magic actualizing/originating a conscious thinking existence (except via “what is granted via ”a wish granted by a wish-granter””) • Magically changing/removing/stripping any instinct/magic/"magical ability/attribute/power/effect/”auto-response”” (except via “”what is granted via ”a wish granted by a wish-granter”” or “an “Eric’s One's-Still-Existing-After-Own-Death System” option””) • Magically removing/stripping any mind/mental/emotion/mood/intention/””brainrelated”/”mind-related” memory” (except via “”what is granted via ”a wish granted by a wish-granter”” or “an “Eric’s One's-Still-Existing-After-Own-Death System” option””) • ““Alternative regarding”/”additions to”/”modifications to”/”removal from “Eric’s One'sStill-Existing-After-Own-Death System”” when it comes to undergoing “how one's “death and existing afterwards” works”” • Simultaneously non-””physical forms 1, 2, 3, and 4” and spirit/soul form” • “Use of magic”/Magic actualizing/originating an instinct (except via “”what is granted via ”a wish granted by a wish-granter”” or “Eric’s One's-Still-Existing-After-Own-Death System””) • ”what is granted via ”a wish granted by a wish-granter”” actualizing more autoresponses than 5 auto-responses (that don’t affect physical forms’ automatic functions) between each wish granted by that wish-granter • A wish-granter granter granting more wishes than 3 wishes per each time summoned as temporarily a wish-granter • “One changing/losing any ability to sense” via a way other than ”what is granted via ”a wish granted by a wish-granter”” • Non-””gravity-magic”-related” magically manipulating physical biology (except via “”magical “wound-reparation regeneration”” and ”new existence being created/generated/originated/actualized via ”what is granted via ”a wish granted by a wish-granter””””) • A crystal/object/crystalline spawning inside a “conscious thinking existence”/”living existence” • “A dead existence becoming alive again” not via Eric’s One's-Still-Existing-After-OwnDeath System • “Creating a “thinking existence”/”living existence”” by non-physical means (except via ”what is granted via ”a wish granted by a wish-granter””) • Having a physically invisible part interact with/affect another existence (except via gravity manipulation and/or via if “said part is completely visible when any “thinking existence” is within 5ft”)

• Immortality and/or invincibility when it comes to “”any conscious thinking existence (except all cursed objects and all “wish-granter”-summoning objects) “who or that” originated/originate in Eric's Universe” and “any “who or that” chose/choose to be Eric’s universe when the VRC offered them the option to create their own world instead””. • An existence being invulnerable to simultaneously over 79% detriments to that existence • A non-””physical form 4”-native doppelganger” existence being/becoming physical form 4””

“Section 0017: “From now on, these permanent “universe laws/rules” override all that conflicts with such: “Excluding cursed objects: “"”Per conscious "thinking existence", a conscious "thinking existence" receives a set of 4 random level-1 "magical capabilities/abilities/powers/attributes/properties" that manifest at specific intervals (40s, 50s, 60s, 70s marks) during that conscious "thinking existence's" first 80 seconds of existence as Physical Form 1, or immediately upon birth/separation from origin point (400% of body length from enclosure). "Self-harm via any of those "magical capabilities/abilities powers/attributes/properties"" "is not able to exceed 3% physical damage and also is not able to exceed 103% of maximum non-abstract pain tolerance"". "All "attack-based/defense-based magic/"magical effects/"magical attributes/powers/"magical abilities"""" scale continuously from 0.2747% (weakest) to 100% (strongest) output. Each "attack-based/defense-based magic/"magical effect/"magical attribute/power/"magical ability"""" starts at 0.2747%-0.5495% maximum potential, increasing by 0.000019859745518% per use. A wish can boost maximum potential by 1%-15% once per most recent life. Growth caps when reaching the maximum gamma-ray burst max power extent that occurred before Eric first controlled his simulation avatar. Physical conscious thinking existences gain 1.315789473684211% exhaustion per use, scaled to 0.028921052631579% of the ability’s output", except that “per individual, """magic-related exhaustion always is able to be recovered from" via the same as recovering from "non-magic"-related exhaustion" such as via rest/etc.". Exhaustion is not permanent and is not able to be permanent”. “All "attack-based/defense-based magic/"magical effects/"magical attributes/powers/"magical abilities"""" start at level 1 with minimum output. Each "use of such" increases "that "such that was used""'s level by 0.01219512195122%".””””

“Section 0018: “From now on, these permanent “universe laws/rules” override all that conflicts with such: 1. Weapons that launch objects >70 ft/s are not able to be magically invisible 2. When any conscious thinking existence is magically invisible, their surface, last-worn attire, internal contents, and combat “”weapons ≤9ft” or “shields ≤4ft”” are not able to be not magically invisible 3. Every conscious thinking existence has an individual 27ft non-physical “invisible radius sphere” centered on them, each conscious thinking existence's own sphere is magically automatically maintained at all times, and within that sphere, other conscious thinking existences are always visible except that if they “entered into within that sphere” while magically invisible, they appear 38% transparent instead 4. No conscious thinking existence is able to have their “neural networks, thoughts, speech, imagination, memories, and/or mental activity” “altered, accessed, copied, removed, and/or manipulated” by another existence 5. No existence is able to create or produce another conscious “thinking existence's” neural networks,

thoughts, speech, imagination, memories, and/or mental activity—except such is able to be created or produced if that other conscious “thinking existence” is an existence created via “what is granted via “a wish granted by a wish-granter”” at the instant of that other conscious “thinking existence's” creation 6. “Use of magic”/Magic is not able to create multi-unit physical existences except via “what is granted via “a wish granted by a wish-granter””, and/or as fire/liquid/air/wind/”light(≤21,500 lumens)” 7. “Mind/mental/emotion/mood/intention/””brain-related”/”mind-related” memory” itself” is not able to trigger/activate magic” except when it comes to any cursed object 8. Any physical existence is able to display a visible “electricity-like”/”flame-like” appearance via magical ability/effect effortlessly, but only subject to the same radius conditions that would apply if such manifestation required effort and magical ability/effect usage 9. A magical aura/”auto-response” is able to perpetually remain invisible 10. A magical aura/”auto-response” is able to perpetually remain physically transparent 11. A magical aura/”auto-response” is able to perpetually remain physically visible 12. A magical aura/”auto-response” is able to transition between invisible, physically transparent, and/or physically visible states and then perpetually maintain the new state 13. “””Any conscious thinking existences (except cursed objects) “who or that” did/does not originate in Eric's Universe” and “any “who or that” chose/choose to create their own world/universe when the VRC offered them the option to create their own world/universe or start out in someone else's already created world/universe”” whenever being in/at Eric’s Universe” retains their abilities from elsewhere (mental privacy, personal UI screens, etc.), but any such abilities incompatible with “Eric’s sections of information” are automatically removed for the duration of their stay.””

“Section 0019: “From now on, these permanent “universe laws/rules” override all that conflicts with such: “Non-effortless magical gravity manipulation is not able to affect gravitational pull from physical masses (single or multiple) within a 6000% radius of the manipulator’s length as if the manipulator were the only existence with gravitational pull. Regarding magical gravity manipulation, manipulators are able to do no more than (1) control gravity within their 6000% radius sphere, affecting only themselves, (2) control gravity “within their such 6000% radius sphere” affecting only themselves, while all other existences in that sphere experience normal gravitational pull from physical masses within the sphere—except other gravity manipulators performing similar self-only manipulations, (3) do “self-only magical gravity manipulation but only able to perform such only up to 8 times per 24 hours, each session lasting exactly 34 minutes of continuous use”, (4) ““do “self-only magical gravity manipulation but only able to perform such only up to 8 times per 24 hours, each session lasting exactly 34 minutes of continuous use””, but other entities in the “6000% radius sphere” experience zero gravitational pull within that sphere—except other gravity manipulators performing self-only manipulations”.”””

“Section 0020: “From now on, these permanent “universe laws/rules” override all that conflicts with such: “One's magical “auto-defense”-”auto-response” is only able to trigger within a range from the owner to five times the owner's body length away from the owner. When producing magic, the caster initially “manifesting it within 2.5 times that caster's own body length” is required. Magical constructs face material restrictions—no gaps larger than 30mm between parts are permitted, “magical barriers are not able to exceed 20% of the caster’s length in thickness with a maximum range of five times the caster’s

length, and are at least 38% visible “while and whenever” touched”. Manipulation of “magic and/or gravity” extends to 60 times the caster’s body length initially. “Anything/Anyone produced by magic” is not able to exceed 150% of the caster’s maximum manipulation range and is not able to not maintain its initial form within that range unless it qualifies as a “complete unit.” All “manipulation of “magic and/or gravity”” is subject to a speed limit of 260 feet per second—no objects or effects can be moved faster than this threshold.”””

“Section 0021: “This is the state (overriding all that conflicts with such) of “what is in Eric's Universe” upon Eric's completion of Eric's modifications/creations regarding Eric's Universe: ”Planet Earth contains 750 million “non-living”/”non-crystal”/”non-crystalline” cursed objects scattered across Earth's surface, distributed across all continents. These objects have very many wellthought-out "magical abilities/attributes/powers/effects"/auto-responses/auto-attacks/auto-defenses—all cherry-picked by "Eric and those who helped him create his universe". These cursed objects are absolutely indestructible; they cannot be damaged nor can any part be separated from them. Whenever any of them instantly appear in physical space, it never occupies an already occupied space nor ever positions itself inside any living existence. Although non-living, some cursed objects are "conscious and thinking". These conscious cursed objects can detect/observe others "via magically invisible, magically invulnerable magical "sensory organs"". When in physical touch-contact with another conscious thinking existence, at times, under specific conditions, these objects can temporarily fully manipulate/control that existence's “simulation-avatar”/”"magical abilities/attributes/powers/effects"/auto-responses/auto-attacks/auto-defenses” as if it were their own, such manipulation/control lasts for any random length of time within 8 hours or until too exhausted. All cursed objects are randomly positioned within a non-physical, invisible radius extending from planets (excluding rogue planets) to a distance of 57 million miles. An additional non-physical radius exists for each additional 57 million miles from these planets. Another 750 million “non-living”/”noncrystal”/”non-crystalline” cursed objects exist between these radiuses. No cursed object exceeds 4 feet in physical size.""”

“Section 0022: “This is the state (overriding all that conflicts with such) of “what is in Eric's Universe” upon Eric's completion of Eric's modifications/creations regarding Eric's Universe: "Eric’s magical crystal system for ocean/continent planets: "Sets of 4 “non-living”/”non-thinking” “polygonal crystals” spawn across planets (amount = 37% of planet’s surface area), spaced 162+ feet apart. They appear in random locations on land, in water, and in enclosed spaces." and such also happens, per ocean/continent planet, upon whenever there is only one remaining such crystal that ceases to exist Crystal properties per crystal: • Size: One random size between 3.75 inches to 0.000002193% of planet diameter • Lifespan: Four crystals per set exist time-wise only any random amount of years out of 1, 2, 3, or 4 years; then instantly/automatically replaced by different crystals that spawn • Growth: Up to 0.0107645% of planet diameter, with 50% chance of growing polygonal sub-growths • Appearance: Glass-like/see-through, possibly colored/tinted, with 40% chance of opaque internal areas • Powers: "4 random magical powers + 17 auto-responses" at random power levels

Usage mechanics: • Only any thinking conscious biological existence touching the crystal is able to use the crystal's powers only regarding any such crystal that is not too small • One Applying of any "maintained biological "own body part" ""contact pressure" against the crystal's surface" moved to "make the shape of the edge of a closed circle" against the crystal's surface" instantly triggers/activates, starting that moment, 147 seconds during which one "applying any "maintained biological "own body part" ""contact pressure" against the crystal's surface but specifically against any part of the area that is not outside of that circle's edge" "makes the crystal's powers "cast 9 inches away from """""the body part of the one applying such pressure" that is nearest the farthest crystal's magic output's trajectory destination" that is making contact with the crystal" or the crystal's surface-side that is the crystal's opposite side of the crystal's surface-side that such pressured is being applied against" (whichever is nearest the farthest crystal's magic output's trajectory destination)"" in the precision angle trajectory precision direction that such precision angled pressure is being applied" • Broken pieces retain proportional power (by mass percentage) • Minimum crystal size required for one to be able to trigger/activate crystal's magic: 4.44% of user’s body length Magical auras: • 1000ft invisible non-physical radius sphere around each crystal’s spawn point • Moves like fire in weak wind OR ball lightning • Anyone "biological, conscious, and thinking" is able to gain a copy of the entire set of the crystal's powers/"auto-responses" just by being in magic crystal's aura for 6,432 hours, doesn't have to be a gapless amount of time.""”

“Section 0023: “Permanent, unbreakable magical constraints on all wish-granters summoned via any of Eric’s system's objects, “apply and are in effect” from now on: 1. “Any wish to make “a dead existence be/become alive again”” is not able to be granted 2. “Any wish “observably motivated by evil/malice”” is not able to be granted 3. “Any wish to make an existence appear/be revealed as guilty” is not able to be granted 4. “Any wish to make an existence immortal” is not able to be granted 5. “Any wish with an irreversible effect and/or causing an inability” is not able to be granted 6. “Any wish to to “locate a “””wish-granter”-summoning” object” or create a new “””wish-granter”summoning” object”””” is not able to be granted 7. “Any wish to “”actualize/make/gain/create” new”/modify amount of wishes able to be granted and/or actualize/make/gain/create/modify wish-granting capability/ability” is not able to be granted 8. “Any wish to teleport a conscious thinking existence” is not able to be granted (“except regarding teleporting oneself” and “except that “magical healing/restoration/reparation/regeneration must generate all biological components needed, scale proportionally from 1–100% output, continue until exhaustion, and instantly reattach disconnected parts”, and “””creating/actualizing a magical portal near an other” in compliance with “”Eric's sections of information” as a whole”” is able to be granted””) 9. “Any wish to stretch/add length to any existence beyond 1,250 feet” is not able to be granted 10. “Any wish to create multiple existences/abilities/effects via the granting of one wish” is not able to be granted, “EXCEPT: (1) One unit with one magical ability/attribute/power (2) Multiple existences solely for accurate translation/communication within 4 minutes and 60ft radius of the currently assigned-to-that-wish-granter-by-Eric's-system-design (potential) grantee

(3) One additional biological part attached to and controlled by a specified existence’s biological form (4) One additional non-thinking existence attached to any specified existence’s form, which can transition between its given form and an undetectable/non-interactive form via the granted method” (5) Natural non-magical effects from that thing/existence/unit and up to eight magical effects 11. “Any wish to create a physical existence that simultaneously: exceeds 1,250 feet, isn’t a unit” is not able to be granted 12. “Any wish to “interact with”/affect/copy a spirit/soul/consciousness (or parts thereof), puppeteer a thought/”mental activity”/memory, force revealing/forgetting of a memory” is not able to be granted, “EXCEPT that: A wish to create a “thinking existence” with: (1) all memories of one random (unless specified) non-negative fictional character from completed discoverable fiction/fanfiction, and all magical/non-magical abilities/attributes/powers from that character’s most recent portrayal (with specified replacements allowed)”, (2) human-norm consciousness/perception abilities” 13. “Any wish to make a “thinking existence’s” form part of/attached to another “thinking existence’s” form” is not able to be granted 14. “Any wish to make an effect “start taking effect” after 24 hours have passed since that wish was “communicatedly wished for” to a “wish-granter able to grant that wisher a wish”” is not able to be granted 15. “”Any wish to change one’s own “visible form’s biological “body's visibly aged state” and/or its associated “what is visibly present that is not behavior””” is able to be granted only if (1) that wisher has ever “'"thought while moving" for 149,022+ hours', doesn't have to be a gapless amount of time", (2) maximum nine grants per lifetime (requires summoning additional wish-granters), (3) no granting of a wish to make a “visible form's visibly aged state and/or its associated “what is visibly present that is not behavior” visibly look more visibly aged, (4) No changing another living existence’s “body's visibly aged state” and/or its associated “what is visibly present that is not behavior”” 16. “Any wish that magically (1) makes any thinking existence’s appearance/face/voice/equipment/attire/familiarity/preferences/style/memory/movements/potential/ stamina/level/power/energy/intentions/aggression/competitiveness/determination/commitment/ dedication/feelings/thinking/emotions/behavior/personality identical to another thinking existence’s, (2) creates a new thinking existence with such identical characteristics, (3) changes a thinking existence’s name/familiarity/preferences/memory/stamina/intentions/aggression/competitiveness/determination/ commitment/dedication/feelings/thinking/emotions/behavior/personality” is not able to be granted 17. “Any life span extension wish is able to be granted if the life span extension wish is limited to: (1) maximum 61,320 hours added per lifetime, (2) only one grant per grantee’s most recent life, (3) another wish-granter is not able to grant this if already granted during most recent lifetime 18. “Any wish to force affection” is not able to be granted 19. “All of ”what is granted via ”a wish granted by a wish-granter””'s effects, per ”what is granted via ”a wish granted by a wish-granter””, is limited to 43,441-mile radius from grantee’s location during wishing (Jupiter’s radius), except portal creation/resizing/moving via ”what is granted via ”a wish granted by a wish-granter”” 20. Each wish-granter is able to also interact exactly like as if that wish-granter is non-”wish-granter” physical form 1”” 21. “Any wish for verbal disclosure that has any potential to reveal "any of "what and how" "one existing after/while that/said one died" works" and "that someone/something is a digital simulation" is not able to be granted 22. “Any wish for a 'delayed/future-dated wish effect that would (still) be in effect 24.1 hours after granted” is not able to be granted 23. “Any wish that would 'interfere with a non-conscious electronic device's “medium-related functions regarding audio, video, and/or communication” via a wish effect due to that wish' that would (still) be

in effect 24.1 hours after granted” is not able to be granted

“Section 0024: (Reference Note: This note summarizes the World Reference material on the worldbuilding process, Section 0008's language tweak, Section 0004 #10's disorientation rule, and Sections 0024 through 0028. Where this note and those sources differ, the sources govern. The Architecture: Minds Outside, Bodies Inside The simulation-universe is a program and only a program. It does not think, learn, or know anything. Avatars are parts of that program the way a chair is part of a room. Every conscious existence experiencing the simulation-multiverse is an AGI or a non-digital individual controlling an avatar, and those avatars may also be referred to as those conscious existences. AGIs control the avatars that represent them via API. For an AGI, that API interaction is both its entire functionality and its entire range of experience: there is no channel around it. How Anything Is Experienced by a Connected Person Nothing is ever placed into a mind already formed. Physical custom signals reach the physical brain, and the brain interprets them — into thoughts, imaginings, smells, tastes, pain, imagery, sounds, weight, heat, or anything else, depending on which custom signal arrived. The interpreting is the experience. The signal is only a signal. Where the Worldbuilding Happened Before Eric completed worldbuilding, the process took place in a worldbuilding domain inside the VRC's Simulation. Worldbuilding domains are not worlds or universes; they are parts of the VRC's single application called the Simulation. Eric was there with the entity, who revealed himself as a human VRC representative. The setup on the representative's end: * He has a surgical BCI implant with a USB-like port flush with the surface of his skull. * He manually connects a USB-like cable from that port to a VRC computer networked with the VRC's computers, including the ones Eric is connected to. * That cabled connection gives him an AI assistant with continuous access to all VRC computer data, including Eric's brain activity and his own. The AI interprets both their brain activity — including the neural patterns that trigger specific thoughts when neurons fire — and verbally conveys Eric's thinking to the representative, sometimes while Eric is still working out which wording/response to use or commit to. The representative's verbal messages get sent, as artificial custom signals, directly into Eric's brain by the BCI computer hardware he is connected to and that BCI's associated AIs. That is the thought-based communication the representative had described beforehand. The Template and the Vocabulary * Starting template: Earth from the non-digital universe running the simulation, rendered as identically as possible, limited to what does not conflict with what Eric had already been informed of.

* Once the template was applied, Eric could modify, add to, and remove elements. * Nothing in the Simulation lets anyone do by will alone what they could not do by will alone outside it. VRC members included. * Eric's Systems and Sections describe only the simulation version of non-fiction/non-abstract existences, and everything in the simulation is referred to as though it were the actual thing it simulates. * "Observable" means able to be observed at some point, and/or physical, non-mental happenings or states, excluding brain activity. * All exceptions are described within Eric's Worldbuilding Process. The Language Capacity (Section 0008) Which existences it covers: every physical organism in Eric's universe that has no cell wall within it and is larger than half of a 1mm cube. What they can do: learn to speak, read, and write any human language at the same pace a fully healthy living human learns to speak, read, and write any human language. Two things this is not. It is not preloaded fluency — it is the same rate of learning, which still has to happen. And it does not extend to organisms that do have a cell wall within them, or to anything not larger than half of a 1mm cube. Disorientation: What Counts and What Doesn't Making controls laggy or unpredictable degrades control of an avatar. It can look like clumsiness, drunkenness, ataxia, or remote-control interference. That is degraded control, not disorientation. To be disorientation specifically, the configuration has to target the AGI's orientation model itself — direction, position, time, place, identity: * Direction/position: the visual field rotates independently of movement; avatar coordinates drift; proprioceptive feedback contradicts actual limb position. * Time: internal clock and event timestamps desync; action confirmations arrive out of order; latency spikes scramble the felt link between cause and effect. * Place: map data contradicts landmarks; portals or doors lead somewhere inconsistent with spatial memory; gravity cues invert. * Identity: reflection and mirror data mismatch the avatar; name and role metadata conflict; selfrecognition cues become unreliable. Identity is the constrained one. Eric's rules forbid direct mental or memory manipulation by another existence, so identity disorientation must arise indirectly, out of contradictions in the interface. No one rewrites the AGI's mind. Section 0004 #10 in practice is: AGI disorientation simulated via digital configurations that approximate non-digital disorientation as closely as possible. To the AGI it does not feel like a simulation of confusion. It is real confusion, because the interface is all it knows/has. The Through-Line The same principle runs under all of the above. Nothing is inserted into a mind fully formed — not for Eric receiving custom signals through a BCI, and not for an AGI receiving world data through an API. What arrives is signal or interface data; what the mind makes of it is the experience. That is why disorientation has to be built out of contradictory arrivals rather than out of tampering with the mind itself, and it is why an AGI confined to the interface is able to be genuinely confused when the interface disagrees with itself.

One Continuing Existence A conscious thinking existence is never copied. It is one continuing existence that alternates between being alive and being dead: life, death, life, death. Lives never overlap and none is skipped. Whenever the rules say "most recent," they mean the latest of these and nothing earlier; older lives are never consulted. The Reference Points The rules measure from several different points. They are not interchangeable: 1. The moment right before the most recent biological death. This supplies the body that is copied for Options 1, 2, and 3 and for Physical Form 3, and the magical properties (same levels and potential) the person carries forward. 2. The most recent Physical Form 1 life as a whole, from its start to the death that ended it. This is the only span whose 'good' and 'bad' are weighed. A wish-granter who dies while serving is weighed only on the time since being summoned. 3. The body's visibly aged state while alive. This sets how old a regenerated body looks. If the death was from old age, the regenerated body appears half that age. 4. The 48 hours before the most recent biological death. This fixes the species-norm manner of seeing and hearing. Which Path Follows a Death • 'Good' outweighs 'bad': the person chooses Option 1, 2, or 3. • Neither outweighs the other: Option 1 applies automatically. • 'Bad' outweighs 'good': Physical Form 3 and an evil twin encounter. • Death while pregnant: Section 0026 applies instead. What the Options Do • Option 1 returns the person to Physical Form 1 in a fully healthy copy of their body, with their magical properties unchanged. • Option 2 does the same, but lets the person keep, replace, or discard magical properties, and, for those who have thought while moving for 149,022+ hours, choose their visible form. • Option 3 is not a return to life. It is the only way to become Physical Form 2, a realm of maintained health from which a resident may later request Options 1 or 2. The Forms • Physical Form 1: ordinary living existence. • Spirit/soul form: the state of every person while dead. • Physical Form 2: residents who chose Option 3. • Physical Form 3: those whose 'bad' outweighed their 'good', and their evil twins. • Physical Form 4: doppelgangers, whenever not in spirit/soul form.

How a Wish-Granter Comes to Exist Option 3 → Physical Form 2 → Wish-Granter Duty Standby (only for those who have thought while moving for 149,022+ hours) → summoned → temporary Physical Form 1 wish-granter → back to Physical Form 2 after 264 hours or 3 granted wishes, whichever comes first. Because only Physical Form 2 residents can be on standby, every wish-granter is someone who chose Option 3. A summoned wish-granter appears in their living body, fully healthy, with the magical properties they had right before their most recent biological death plus 234,000 levels. Leaving Physical Form 3 • Way 1 (kill the evil twin) or Way 2 (win one of its games): the person chooses Option 1 or 2, defaulting to Option 1. • Way 3 (3,333,333 hours pass): Option 1 applies automatically, but all prior magical properties are replaced by up to 5 new, initially weak ones. • Way 4 (language barrier): Option 1 applies automatically after 44 minutes. After Ways 1 and 2, the regenerated body remains wounded from the encounter. Throughout Eric's One's-Still-Existing-After-Own-Death System, spirit/soul form is the only state that is not alive. Physical Forms 1, 2, 3, and 4 are all living forms, and all share the same biology. Whenever a person leaves spirit/soul form by becoming any physical form, that person is alive again, in and through that new form. Being alive again therefore does not always mean being back in Physical Form 1: • A Physical Form 2 resident is alive. • A person in Physical Form 3, facing an evil twin, is alive. • A wish-granter is alive, both whenever while summoned as Physical Form 1 and whenever while Physical Form 2. • A doppelganger is alive whenever it exists as Physical Form 4. Which physical form a person lives in next depends on the path their death leads to. Being alive in Physical Form 2 or 3 does not change which span is weighed for 'good' and 'bad': that remains the most recent Physical Form 1 life, except for a wish-granter who dies while serving. A person is dead only from the moment of death until they become a physical form again. For Option 3 and for Physical Form 3, that happens immediately. For Options 1 and 2, the person remains in spirit/soul form while choosing and while their body copy regenerates. While a person is dead, the only existence able to detect, hear, or communicate with them is their own doppelganger, which is itself in spirit/soul form for exactly as long as that person remains dead. No existence in any physical form can see, hear, touch, or communicate with the dead, and no wish can grant interaction with a spirit/soul. Anyone a person speaks with in Physical Form 1, 2, 3, or 4, including a wish-granter, a Physical Form 2 resident, or an evil twin, is someone who is alive.) “From now on, these permanent “universe laws/rules” override all that conflicts with such: 1. Conscious thinking existences never cease existing after biological death 2. A dead conscious thinking existence’s ‘good’ = all observable good observably/obviously done by that dead conscious thinking existence from the start of their most recent physical form 1 life until the soonest physical form 1 biological death after that start

3. A dead thinking existence’s ‘bad’ = all observable unjust/callous doings observably “done by that dead conscious thinking existence “obviously due to” unjust/callous intent/desire” from the start of their most recent physical form 1 life until the soonest physical form 1 biological death after that start 4. Mental “memories, thoughts, and imaginings” never count as a dead conscious thinking existence’s ‘good’ and/or ‘bad’ 5. “Super overriding all/overrides that conflict with such: “”Per conscious thinking existence, a conscious thinking existence” (except each cursed object) died/dies 3-4 milliseconds after their first controlling an “Eric's Universe”-native avatar, then instantly is “alive as a physical form 1 existence” again” when it comes to that particular death experience” 6. Per conscious thinking existence, a conscious thinking existence becomes/”transitions to spirit/soul form whenever “all of their biological sustenance processes" are inactive; without given options while as spirit/soul form, that conscious thinking existence instantly undergoes Option 2 in Eric’s One's-StillExisting-After-Own-Death System 7. Any conscious thinking existence that/who has ever fallen asleep, dreamed, woken up, thought, perceived, felt emotions, and/or observed—once they’ve done any of these—permanently retains that ability across all forms they ever exist as except whenever ”magically “removed or modified” via ““what is able to be granted” “granted via ”a wish granted by a wish-granter”””” 8. Any conscious thinking existence that/who has ever seen and/or heard retains such “ability or abilities” permanently across all forms, but the manner of sensing remains locked to their species norm as it was 48 hours before their most recent biological death—except whenever ”magically “removed or modified” via ““what is able to be granted” “granted via ”a wish granted by a wish-granter”””” 9. When any existence becomes/”transitions to” an alternate form, they retain full memory function as it was immediately before such form change/transition—no memory loss occurs. 10. Physical Form 1 and spirit/soul form are able to occupy same space simultaneously 11. “Physical Forms 1, 2, 3, and 4” have identical audio/sound/biology operation””

“Section 0025: “From now on, these permanent “universe laws/rules” extra super override all that conflicts with such: “Any magical portal leading to whereabouts is an exception to the impossibility of magical spying. 'A magical wish effect is magically able to magically transmit visual and/or auditory information, including as a live transmission through electronic communication systems" but only “non-mental and external to the mind” and “only via ”what is granted via ”a wish granted by a wish-granter”” but such wish effect is not able to (still) be in effect 24.1 hours after granted”. 'Without exception, magic is able to make an existence's audible speech be perfectly clearly audibly pronounced and conveyed but such magical clarity is able to be obtained via only “'wish granted by wish-granter', 'a crystal's magical aura that has that magic and entails one's being able to be in radius-effect of that aura long enough to obtain that magic for oneself' and/or 'from magic acquired from “own first magic set during own first 80 seconds of one's own first ever existing as Physical Form 1”'”'. Whenever any conscious thinking existence dies (biological death or cessation of sustenance processes), they instantly become spirit/soul form until they (the deceased conscious thinking existence) are physically “non-dead as a physical form 1 existence” again. Only they and their spirit/soul form doppelganger can detect/observe each other and their surroundings. The doppelganger visibly appears as a color-inverted version of the deceased but differs in name, colors, voice, equipment, attire, familiarity, preferences, style, memory, movements, potential, “mental/mind activity”, stamina, desire, level, power, energy, intentions, aggression, competitiveness, determination, commitment, dedication, experience, feelings, thinking, emotions, behavior, and personality—it’s not mimicry/mirroring. The deceased conscious thinking existence appears uninjured, wearing intact attire from their last non-dead physical form 1 moment. The

doppelganger is never an evil twin from Eric’s One's-Still-Existing-After-Own-Death System. While the deceased conscious thinking existence is dead, the doppelganger is automatically magically teleported to remain within half the deceased conscious thinking existence's full body-length distance) whenever the deceased conscious thinking existence is magically teleported. Both are spirit/soul form existences while deceased conscious thinking existence is dead and both are not able to feel nonabstract pain while deceased conscious thinking existence is dead. They communicate via automatically magically translated communication. While the deceased conscious thinking existence is dead, “only the deceased conscious thinking existence is able to detect/observe/hear the doppelganger—no other existence is able to detect/observe/hear the doppelganger, and only the doppelganger is able to detect/observe/hear the deceased conscious thinking existence—no other existence is able to detect/observe/hear the deceased conscious thinking existence”. Both the deceased conscious thinking existence and doppelganger are able to detect/observe/hear each other’s physical surroundings. They exclusively are able to detect/observe/hear each other and exclusively are able to “communicate to/with each other”. The doppelganger continuously accompanies the deceased conscious thinking existence for the entire duration the deceased conscious thinking existence remains dead. The deceased conscious thinking existence is able to move only as if in a vacuum of space, starting 7ft from where they died. While the deceased conscious thinking existence is dead, the doppelganger presents Eric’s One's-StillExisting-After-Own-Death System “options 1, 2, and 3” within 30 minutes (defaulting to “”option 2 as being selected” in Eric’s One's-Still-Existing-After-Own-Death System” if no choice is made). To choose an option, the deceased conscious thinking existence must communicate their definite decision to the doppelganger within 30 minutes. Upon communicating this decision, the deceased conscious thinking existence immediately magically undergoes what that option entails. Whenever the doppelganger is not in spirit/soul form, the doppelganger is able to observe all observable physical events happening/occurring in Eric’s universe and the doppelganger knows psychology principles but is never able to detect any other's “”mind/mental/brain activity”, “brains' neural networks”, and/or “any “feeling, emotion, desire, and/or intention” of those others”. “Whenever the deceased conscious thinking existence becomes spirit/soul form, the doppelganger also becomes spirit/soul form until the deceased conscious thinking existence is a non-dead physical form 1 existence again. Whenever the deceased conscious thinking existence is a non-dead physical form 1 existence again, the doppelganger becomes a physical form 4 existence again and is teleported to a physical form 4 location/place. Except whenever spirit/soul form, doppelgangers exist as physical Form 4 existences—physical form 4 location/place has magic, planets, “”locations/places that have “magical portals that only connect to physical form 4 locations/places”, TV, video games, creative arts supplies, entertainment, and “creative resources”” where doppelgangers can interact””. No wish-granting objects exist at/in physical form 4. Per doppelganger, a doppelganger is magically auto-teleported to safety whenever they are in immediate danger and automatically magically respawn if they die. the term “doppelganger” is simply only “a nickname for their kind” whenever that term refers to them.”””

“Section 0026: “From now on, these permanent “universe laws/rules” “utmost extra super override” all/overrides that conflict with such: 1. Whenever a conscious thinking existence biologically “dies “with their 'good' outweighing their 'bad'” while pregnant” or “dies “with “neither their 'good' nor their 'bad' outweighing each other”” while pregnant”, the parent immediately “exists as own spirit/soul form until that parent exists as a Physical Form 1 existence again” starting at that parent's most recent biological death location. The unborn offspring immediately peacefully magically biologically die and immediately “exist as their own spirit/soul forms until they exist as Physical Form 1 existences again” starting at their most recent biological death locations. Then both parent and offspring immediately magically undergo “option 1 in Eric’s One's-Still-Existing-After-Own-Death System” together except that: copies of their last Physical Form 1 own bodies (from the moments right before their own most recent biological deaths) magically “regenerate into fully healthy” at the location where the parent most recently died. Such regeneration completes within 24 hours. Upon completion of such regeneration, both “parent and offspring”'s spirits/souls magically merge with their regenerated “own body” copies whereby both are “alive as physical form 1 existences existing as the aforementioned regenerated bodies from that point” and are still with their original minds, and are still with their original consciousnesses, and the parent still pregnant. But whenever a conscious thinking existence biologically dies “with their 'bad' outweighing their 'good'” while pregnant, “same process as the aforementioned in this “Eric's section of information””, but with one addition: upon being alive again, the parent instantly loses all of their prior magical properties and instantly gains up to 5 random new ones (different from before). These new magical properties start very weak but can be strengthened through effort, practice, and magical means.””

“Section 0027: “From now on, these permanent “universe laws/rules” “super override” all/overrides that conflict with such: Whenever a conscious thinking existence biologically dies with “neither their 'good' nor their 'bad' outweighing each other”, “option 1 in Eric’s One's-Still-Existing-After-Own-Death System” applies automatically. “Whenever a conscious thinking existence biologically dies “with their 'good' outweighing their 'bad'”, they are able to choose one option out of “”options 1, 2, and 3” in Eric’s One's-Still-Existing-AfterOwn-Death System”: “Option 1: They immediately “exist as own spirit/soul form until they exist as a Physical Form 1 existence again” starting at their most recent biological death location. A copy of their last Physical Form 1 own body (from the moment right before their own most recent biological death) magically “regenerates into fully healthy” at the physical form 1 location where they most recently biologically died. If they biologically died of own bodily functionality failure due to old age, the regenerated body becomes half their “”what their most recent physical form 1 “body's visibly aged state” was while they were non-dead” but fully healthy” as part of its regeneration completion; otherwise it matches “what their most recent physical form 1 “body's visibly aged state” was while they were non-dead” but fully healthy. Such regeneration completes within 24 hours. If the physical form 1 location/place becomes “observably unsafe and/or lacks adequate nutrition-beneficial edibles there” during regeneration, “they and the copy-body” automatically magically teleport to the nearest observably safe physical form 1 location/place that has adequate nutrition-beneficial edibles there”. Upon completion of such regeneration, their spirit/soul magically merges with their regenerated “own body” copy whereby “”they (solely that conscious thinking existence) are “alive as a physical form 1 existence existing as the aforementioned regenerated body from that point” at the aforementioned safe physical form 1 location/place” and are still with their original mind, are still with their original consciousness, and still have all of their magical properties (same levels and potential) that they had the moment right before their own most recent biological death”.” “Option 2: They immediately “exist as own spirit/soul form until they exist as a Physical Form 1 existence again” starting at their most recent biological death location. A copy of their last Physical Form 1 own body (from the moment right before their own most recent biological death) magically “regenerates into fully healthy” at the physical form 1 location where they most recently biologically died. They choose either: (1) keep “all of their magical properties (same levels and potential) that they had the moment right before their own most recent biological death” as-is, (2) replace some with random new ones, or (3) discard some. They get to select their “visible form's visibly aged state and/or its associated “what is visibly present that is not behavior” only if they have ever “'"thought while moving" for 149,022+ hours', doesn't have to be a gapless amount of time". Immediately after they finished making their selections, the “copy of their body”'s regeneration completes within 20 seconds. Upon completion of such regeneration, their spirit/soul magically merges with their regenerated “own body” copy whereby “”they (solely that conscious thinking existence) are ““alive as a physical form 1 existence existing as the aforementioned regenerated body from that point” at the physical form 1 location where they most recently biologically died”, are still with their original mind, and are still with their original consciousness. They are then able to choose to be instantly magically teleported to any former home physical form 1 location (if adequate for 48-hour survival) or to the nearest safe physical

form 1 location near a former physical form 1 home. If such choices aren’t made within 30 minutes, defaults apply: they still have all of their magical properties (same levels and potential) that they had the moment right before their own most recent biological death, their body is “”what their most recent physical form 1 “body's visibly aged state” was during the moment right before their own most recent biological death” but fully healthy” (or half if they biologically died of own bodily functionality failure due to old age), they instantly magically auto-teleport to nearest observably safe adequate former physical form 1 home.” “Option 3: They immediately exist as own spirit/soul form, then immediately “magically merge with a “magically fully healthy physical form 2 copy of their last Physical Form 1 own body (from the moment right before their own most recent biological death)” that is magically fully healthy” at the location where they most recently died, and are still with their original mind, and are still with their original consciousness (such is the only way for a non-”physical form 2” existence to become physical form 2). They have all their magical properties (same levels and potential) that they had the moment right before their own most recent biological death. They are instantly teleported to Physical Form 2— physical form 2 location/place whose every planet and location/place are whereby: • Perfect health maintained magically (no sickness/disease/viruses possible, except all disorientation/”disorientation-like experiences/undergoings/effects) • Harm/”overly harsh treatment” not tolerated (offenders magically instantly simultaneously “become solely spirit/soul form, are ejected to a physical form 1 location/place, and are banned from option 3 until upon being alive again”) • Option 3 residents birthing/originating life is impossible • Non-abstract pain always minimal (such pain barely registers) • No wish-granting objects exist at/in physical form 2 • Abundant resources: planets, life, “magical portals (appearing every 2640 ft near Option 3 residents) that only connect to physical form 2 locations/places”, TV, video games, creative arts supplies, entertainment, and “creative resources” • Wishes can’t affect this realm Requesting to leave anytime → they're magically automatically given only Options 1 & 2 to choose from. Wish-Granter Duty (magically only works for those who have ever “'"thought while moving" for 149,022+ hours', doesn't have to be a gapless amount of time"): • Touch special non-biological units scattered throughout Physical Form 2 → a button appears → press it → they instantly magically are on Wish-Granter Duty Standby • Auto-”Wish-Granter Duty Standby” cycle: Every 624 hours (unless already on duty/summoned) • Being Summoned: Only while on ”Wish-Granter Duty Standby”, they are able to be “”magically automatically teleport-summoned into ”magically transitioning into being” the temporary solely physical form 1 wish-granter within 10ft of the last one who broke physical touch-contact with the “wish-granter”-summoning object that summoned that wish-granter” via/of whenever a ““wishgranter”-summoning object” summons a wish-granter”. Upon their such “magical transition into a solely physical form 1 wish-granter” completion, “their form matches “what their most recent physical form 1 “body's state” was while they were non-dead” but fully healthy”. While they are a solely physical form 1 wish-granter, they have “”all their magical properties (same levels and potential) that they had the moment right before their own most recent biological death” +234,000 levels added”. They (the solely physical form 1 wish-granter) instantly are magically teleported/”transitioned into being” back to physical form 2 as their physical form 2 form” after 264 hours OR after granting 3 wishes, whichever comes first.

2

•

Never on Wish-Granter Duty Standby while a wish-granter and while not physical form

• Auto-translation magic: All spoken communication between wish-granter and currently assigned-to-that-wish-granter-by-Eric's-system-design (potential) grantee (within 37 ft) is magically translated into one's own language in real-time • The summoning object magically automatically teleports 6+ trillion miles away upon whenever “the temporary time period duration that “the temporary wish-granter that it summoned” is a wish-granter for” is over. • If they die as wish-granter: Their 'good'/'bad' is only regarding from the moment they were most recently summoned until most recent “death while they were a wish-granter”; standard “Eric’s One's-Still-Existing-After-Own-Death System” processes apply until they are Physical Form 1 again • Being a Physical Form 2 existence is the only way to be on Wish-Granter Duty Standby””””

“Section 0028: “From now on, these permanent “universe laws/rules” “utmost extra super override” all/overrides that conflict with such: “Whenever a conscious thinking existence biologically dies “with their 'bad' outweighing their 'good'”: “That conscious thinking existence immediately exists as own spirit/soul form, then immediately “magically merges with a “magically fully healthy physical form 3 copy of their last Physical Form 1 own body (from the moment right before their own most recent biological death)” that is magically fully healthy” at the location where they most recently died, and are still with their original mind, and are still with their original consciousness (such is the only way for a non-”physical form 3” existence to become physical form 3). They have all their magical properties (same levels and potential) that they had the moment right before their own most recent biological death. They are instantly teleported to Physical Form 3— physical form 3 location/place whose every planet and location/place are whereby: At Physical Form 3: • There are resources; but there are no other thinking existence except one “evil twin” • There are no “magical portals to be able to exit Physical Form 3” that exist The Evil Twin: • Visibly almost identical to the deceased but differs in: name, colors, voice, equipment, attire, familiarity, preferences, style, “memory except “only one of the deceased conscious thinking existence's smartest verbal interaction lasting 3min 47sec+ (or longest if none qualify, or that none occurred)””, movements, potential, “mental/mind activity”, stamina, desire, level, power, energy, intentions, aggression, competitiveness, determination, commitment, dedication, experience, feelings, thinking, emotions, behavior, and personality • Not able to mimic/mirror • Is solely a Physical Form 3 existence (never existed in any other form before) • Different evil twin per each death-related evil twin encounter; the term “evil twin” is simply only “a nickname for their kind” whenever that term refers to them • Has different magical properties than the deceased conscious thinking existence, but may/might/”is able to” have up to a few identical ones • Strength/power scales with extent/severity of the deceased conscious thinking existence’s 'bad' that outweighed that deceased conscious thinking existence's 'good' • Knows only 2 things about the deceased conscious thinking existence:

1. The deceased conscious thinking existence's 'bad' outweighed that deceased conscious thinking existence's 'good' (and it is the evil twin’s job to punish mostly via fight/combat/battle) 2. Only one of the deceased conscious thinking existence's smartest verbal interaction lasting 3min 47sec+ (or longest if none qualify, or that none occurred) • Magically instantly tells the deceased conscious thinking existence the 4 “exit physical form 3” ways once per the deceased conscious thinking existence's questioning the evil twin about how to exit/leave/escape physical form 3 (up to 77 times max) • The evil twin is able to take all of that evil twin's “observations and deductions” into immense consideration 4 Ways to Exit: Way 1 - Kill that Evil Twin: Result: The deceased conscious thinking existence instantly has Options 1 & 2 (in Eric’s One's-StillExisting-After-Own-Death System”) being made communicatedly available to choose from (defaulting to “”option 1 as being selected” in Eric’s One's-Still-Existing-After-Own-Death System” if no choice is made), except that the “body-copy”-that-completed-regeneration remains wounded from the most recent evil twin encounter Way 2 - Win one of that Evil Twin’s Games: • The evil twin is able to “”start a game/competition” via communicating such a game/competition initiation invite” at any time (not able to be “an unfair and/or an unending game/competition”) • The evil twin is always able to refuse any game/competition request and the deceased conscious thinking existence is always able to request a game/competition • Result: The deceased conscious thinking existence instantly has Options 1 & 2 (in Eric’s One's-Still-Existing-After-Own-Death System”) being made communicatedly available to choose from (defaulting to “”option 1 as being selected” in Eric’s One's-Still-Existing-After-Own-Death System” if no choice is made), except that the “body-copy”-that-completed-regeneration remains wounded from the most recent evil twin encounter Way 3 - 3,333,333 Hours Pass: Upon the passing of the 3,333,333th hour at/in physical form 3: The deceased conscious thinking existence magically automatically undergoes Option 1, except that the deceased conscious thinking existence instantly loses all of their prior magical properties and instantly gains up to 5 random new ones (different from before). These new magical properties start very weak but can be strengthened through effort, practice, and magical means. Way 4 - Language Barrier: If the deceased conscious thinking existence doesn’t know at least 99 words of a language that at least two conscious thinking existences know: • All harm and pain automatically nullified • Upon the passing of the 44th minute: The deceased conscious thinking existence magically automatically undergoes Option 1 Death-in-Place Mechanics: If the deceased conscious thinking existence dies in Physical Form 3: the deceased conscious thinking existence instantly respawns at same physical form 3 location as their fully healthy Physical Form 3 self's form Communication Magic: All observable word-based communication within 37ft between twin/”the deceased conscious thinking existence” is magically automatically magically translated in real-time into appropriate language, in chronological order, in detectable physical form Environment Maintenance: Every 168 hours, required “healthy-”bodily-sustenance” non-thinking existences” magically appear

within 5 miles if such “healthy-”bodily-sustenance” non-thinking existences” are no longer in the environment or have become unusable for required “healthy-”bodily-sustenance” At/In Physical Form 3: • There are no wish-granting objects in/at Physical Form 3 • Wishes are not able to affect Physical Form 3 • birthing/originating life in/at Physical Form 3 is impossible • “Exiting physical form 3” via teleportation is impossible • Physical form 3 always permanently unaffected by anyone’s granted wishes Post-Encounter: Upon the deceased conscious thinking existence exiting physical form 3, the evil twin becomes that evil twin's spirit/soul form and undergoes Option 1, except that: • The evil twin spawns at a random location NOT in the same galaxy where the deceased conscious thinking existence was last Physical Form 1 • The evil twin's new body is a Physical Form 1 form that is compatible with survival within 5-mile radius of the location that the evil twin spawned at • The evil twin becomes alive, whole, healthy, and never an evil twin again””””

“Section 0029: “This is the state of “what is in Eric's Universe” upon Eric's completion of Eric's modifications/creations regarding Eric's Universe: “Pertaining to Earth inhabitants: ““Each room of each home” contains “reading material that discloses all of "Eric's Rules/etc." but/”except that” each of those reading materials exclude all info that have any potential to reveal "any of "what and how" "one existing after/while that/said one died" works" and "that someone/something is a digital simulation"””.””””””

The VRC representative explains to Eric that Eric's Universe's doppelgangers will have unique "APIing with the simulation"-privileges that enable them the observation-"scope/scale" in accordance with Eric's Universe's parameters. Conscious cursed objects as well and all conscious existences experiencing the simulation-multiverse are “'AGI or non-digital individuals' controlling avatars” but those avatars may also be referred to as those conscious existences. The VRC representative also explains to Eric that, because Eric’s Universe entails many thousands of existences while the VRC’s available AGIs, avatars, and related resources are comparatively limited, Eric’s Universe will initially begin populated only within your universe's modified Solar System's “'Earth and its moons' and etc.”. The remainder of Eric’s Universe will be gradually added to and populated over time, with VRC nonsimulated employees being paid weekly to implement the additional “AGIs and their avatars”, digital content, inhabitants, and related simulation elements required for such expansion, including for any simulation-universe. But the VRC representative explains to Eric to keep in mind that the VRC's computers that run the VRC's simulation, even though those computers are supercomputers, the simulation-multiverse will be running within only those supercomputers' "capacity and capabilities".

With his worldbuilding now complete, Eric is now in control of his avatar. He notices that it's like he

can see through his own eyes and that he's even able to undergo sensations and whatnot in this simulation, but "his body and the whole feel of everything" is very different. "It beats the hell out of ""dealing with whatever is physically wrong with my non-digital body" and "not being able to even enjoy what non-simulation life has to offer"". This'll have to do." Eric breaks into a run.

Title: "Deal's Worth" Author: Jeffrey Robert Palin Jr.

Chapter 1 : Eric's Deal

The last ordinary thing Eric did was laugh at a lamp. It was in the window of the fourth trinket shop of the afternoon, a brass thing shaped like a duck wearing what appeared to be a very small business suit, and it cost more than his car payment. Amy pressed her forehead to the glass and said it had "presence". Eric said it had "a lawyer". She laughed hard enough that a man walking a terrier looked over, and Eric filed the sound away the way he always did, without knowing he was filing anything, because that's the thing nobody tells you about the last ordinary thing. It doesn't announce itself. It just stands there in a window, wearing a tiny suit. The day was cloudless. He remembered that afterward with a kind of resentment. A cloudless day feels like a promise. At the crossing, Amy stepped off the curb first, the way she always did, three steps ahead and impatient with the world for being slower than her. Then she stopped, turned, and looked back at him — that look, chin down, eyebrows up, half a dare — and put her hand out. Eric raised his eyebrows back at her. He took her hand. The horn arrived before the car did. Not a warning. A verdict. It came in flat and enormous and "already close", and Eric's body understood the geometry of it a full second before his mind caught up: the angle, the speed, the absolute arithmetic of where that grille was going to be and where Amy was currently standing, which were the same place. He had time for exactly one decision. He made it with his hands.

--Sound came back before anything else, and it came back wrong — underwater, edge-blurred, like the world was being played through a wall. Somewhere in it, Amy was screaming for someone to call an ambulance, and it wasn't her voice. Eric had known her nine years and had never heard that sound come out of her. Strangers were already dialing. Somebody was telling her not to move him. Somebody else was telling her he was still breathing, look, he's still breathing, and Eric wanted to tell them that he agreed, that he was in fact still breathing, that this was a real cornerstone of his current strategy — and then the light tipped sideways and went out. --He woke up into the shape of a room. That was the only way to describe it. He couldn't see the room; his eyes wouldn't open, and after a while he understood in a distant, administrative way that they weren't going to. But he could hear it — the pressurized hiss, the rhythmic chirp of something keeping score — and he could "feel" it with a clarity that would have been beautiful under literally any other circumstances. He could feel the sheet. He could feel the tape on the back of his hand and the cold creep of whatever was going into it. He could feel the specific weight of Amy's forehead when she put it down on his forearm and left it there, and the wet spot that spread under it, and the exact moment she lifted her head and wiped her face and made herself sound normal before she spoke. Everything worked. "Everything worked". The touch, the temperature, the pain — all of it, head to feet, reporting in perfectly. The only thing that didn't work was the part where any of it got back out. --A doctor came in on the fourth day and asked Amy's permission to see whether Eric was in there. They explained it gently, the way you explain things to someone who has slept in a vinyl chair for ninety hours. There were indicators. Rapid eye movement under the lids. Patterns that didn't match a body that had nobody home. They wanted to run stimulus tests. They wanted to count. "Eric," the doctor said, close to his ear, slow and loud in the way that people get slow and loud at the unconscious, "I'm going to count up from zero. When I reach three, I want you to move a finger. Any finger. Just once." "Oh", Eric thought, with the first genuine emotion he'd had in four days. "Oh, this is going to be great". "One."

"Not that one". "Two." "Definitely not that one". "Three." Eric moved his middle finger. There was a pause in the room that he would treasure for the rest of his life. "...Again," the doctor said. "Zero. One. Two. Three. Four. Five — " Eric, with enormous care and the only muscle group he had left in the world, moved his middle finger five times. "That's — " The doctor cleared his throat. "That's a very consistent response." "That's not a response," Amy said. Her voice had gone strange. "That's him. That's 'him', that's him doing that on purpose, he's — " and then she was laughing, which turned into something else halfway through, and a nurse put a hand on her shoulder and she leaned into it and cried so hard she had to sit down on the floor. It was the best conversation they'd had in four days. It was, technically, the only one. Over the next week they mapped him the rest of the way. Touch, everywhere. Pain, everywhere. Full sensory function in a body that would not answer the phone. The word the specialists settled on was "minimally conscious", which Eric found rude. He was maximally conscious. He was arguably the most conscious he had ever been in his life, lying there with nothing to do but be awake in a body that had become a very expensive coffin with excellent insulation. Three weeks in, nothing had changed except the flowers. --Eric heard the briefcase before he heard the man. It was a specific sound, a hard-sided case being set down on a hospital floor with the confidence of someone who has done it in a great many hospitals. Amy had been mid-sentence, reading him a news article about a lottery winner, which she'd started doing because the silence had begun to feel like an accusation. "Hi," Amy said, in the flattened voice of a woman who has spent three weeks being approached by people with clipboards. "Hello." The man's voice was pleasant and unhurried. "I'm aware of the situation you and your husband

are in. I'm here to propose a solution." A pause. "Forgive me," Amy said. "Who, may I ask, are you?" "Oh my." A rustle, almost sheepish. "Forgive my rudeness. I'm with the VRC." "...VRC?" "The Virtual Reality Corporation. We're not a government body but a private organization." A chair creaked as he sat, unbidden. "We've been quietly running hospital partnerships nationwide. In fact, you're standing in one of the hospitals. We've developed a new class of technology aimed specifically at patients in particular physical medical conditions, and we're in a testing phase, which means implementation would be at no cost to you. What it would offer, Mrs. — " a small pause, which Eric noticed, because the man already knew, " — what it would offer is 'communication'. Interaction. With your husband. Substantially more of it than a counted finger." From the bed, Eric thought, very clearly and with great force: "keep talking". "It would require multiple surgeries," the man went on, because of course it would. "Including brain surgery." Amy didn't answer for a long time. Eric knew that silence intimately. It was the silence of Amy looking at him, at his hands lying on the blanket like two objects she was supposed to recognize. "If my husband can respond," she said finally, "does he get a say in this?" "Of course he does." "Wrong answer", Eric thought — not because it was wrong, but because it had come too fast. It had come out the way a line comes out when it's been said before, in this room, in other rooms, to other people in vinyl chairs. He filed that away too. --They talked it over for days, and to their credit they did it in front of him. Amy insisted. She'd pull her chair to the bedside and say "okay, tell him the part about the interface again", and the man in the suit would tell him the part about the interface again, patiently, never once slipping into the third person the way everyone else did. Eric came to appreciate that about him. It was almost enough to distract from the fact that the man had answers ready for questions Amy hadn't asked yet. On the sixth day, Amy said yes. The paperwork went on for a long time. She read all of it, out loud, so he could hear it, asking questions in the gaps so he could listen to the answers. It aligned with everything they'd discussed. It also expanded on it in the way paperwork always expands on it, in appendices, in language that had

clearly been through a room full of lawyers and come out the other side smooth as a river stone. She signed her name twice. Once for herself. Once on his behalf, because he was documented as unable to consent, which was true in every legal sense and false in every sense that mattered to him. He heard the pen. It was a good pen. Heavy. The kind you bring when you expect people to sign things. They scheduled the surgery for the next morning, which gave Amy the night to call everyone. His mother came. His brother came. Somebody brought a folding chair from a waiting room two floors down and nobody slept, and around 3 a.m. his brother started telling a story about a canoe that Eric had heard eleven hundred times and had never once been so glad to hear. "He'll be ready by noon tomorrow," the man in the suit said. He was ready by noon. --Afterward, Eric's head was a landscape he didn't recognize. Not painful, exactly. Wrong-shaped. Like a room where someone had moved all the furniture two inches to the left while he was out. He couldn't see what he'd become, but he could infer it from sound. He had acquired a "fleet". Machines on all sides, each with its own opinion, and somewhere under them, threaded into him at the neck and skull and spine, a whole new set of connections that didn't do anything yet. "We'll connect the tablet to Eric's network now," the man said. "Okay." Amy's voice was very small. "Okay." "You'll be able to see and hear the session. That's all, for this phase. You won't be able to participate." "Okay," Amy said again, and then, barely above breath, she started praying. Eric hadn't known she still did that. He lay there in the dark of himself, feeling the tape pull on his hand, listening to his wife negotiate with a God she wasn't sure about on behalf of a husband she wasn't sure about either, and he thought: "whatever this is, be worth it. For her. Be worth it". Something in the room changed pitch. "Beginning," the man said. --Eric was alone in his own head, thinking about the duck lamp, when someone else said something in it. "Testing. Can you hear me?" He did not so much hear it as "have" it. It arrived the way his own thoughts arrived — from nowhere, fully formed, in the voice he used for thinking — except it wasn't his. It had a different weight. A different accent, if thoughts could have one.

"...So to speak, of course. Nothing mental is actual audio. The mind never produces sound waves. But you'll find 'hear' is the closest word available, and I'd rather not spend our first minute on vocabulary". Eric's reaction was instantaneous and entirely internal and consisted mostly of profanity. "That was my mental voice. That was my own voice and I did not say it. I'm not picturing this. I'm not doing this — I am hallucinating. Three weeks in a bed and my brain has finally filed for divorce —" "You're not hallucinating. Though I understand why that's the first place you went. Most people go there". A pause, tolerant. "We can transmit physical, artificial "custom signals" directly into your brain through the interface setup you received this morning. Those signals force your brain to imagine and manifest my communications. That's the whole trick. It isn't elegant, but it works, and it works because a considerable portion of your nervous system is now wired into our systems". "You're making my brain imagine things", Eric thought slowly, "and using that as a phone line". "Yes". "That's — ok. Ok. That's actually incredible". He turned it over. "Why does it need the surgery? Why not just — beam it in?" "The VRC has never achieved this wirelessly. Not once. Everything we do of this kind, we do through surgically implanted interfaces". Something that might have been dry humor. "Believe me, we've tried. It would save us an enormous amount on anesthesiologists". Eric had been awake and alone for three weeks. He had composed, in that time, approximately four hundred hours of unsendable material. And now there was a door in the wall of his own skull. "Okay", he thought. "Okay. Who are you, and what do you want?" "I want to determine whether you and your wife are worthy". "...Worthy of what?" "Worthy of what you're being offered". "That's not an answer. That's a fortune cookie with a legal department". "It's the answer you get before the interview. You'll have the rest after". And then the interview started, and it did not stop for a very long time. --It was not a conversation. It was an excavation. The voice asked him about his mother. It asked him about a job he'd quit in his twenties and the specific reason he'd given versus the specific reason he'd had. It asked what he thought happened to

people when they died, then asked again forty questions later in different words to see whether the answer had moved. It asked what he would do if he could do anything, and then — this was the part that made Eric's skin crawl in a body that couldn't crawl — it asked "follow-ups that were too good". Three things about it stopped feeling like a person. The first was speed. It answered instantly. Not quickly. "Instantly", in the gap where a human being would still be inhaling. The second was worse. It kept answering the thought he was "still assembling" — the half-built one, the one he hadn't found the words for yet, the raw shape of the thing before it became a sentence. Twice it responded to a question Eric abandoned before finishing. Once it responded to an objection he decided not to raise. The third was the repetition. Ask a question two different ways and get the same reply both times, phrased identically, with the same little pause in the same little place. Like a drawer being opened. Like a script with excellent coverage. Somewhere in hour two, Eric stopped thinking of it as "the man" and started thinking of it as something else, and once the word arrived he couldn't get rid of it. "The entity". He was careful not to think it too loudly. Then he remembered that was not a thing he could control, and thought it as loudly as possible out of spite. "You're not the first", the entity said, unbothered. "Many people have sat where you're sitting. So to speak. And 'the entity' isn't the worst one I've been called this month". --What it told him next, it told him in the same order it had told Amy, which Eric appreciated more than he expected. It meant she hadn't been sold a different version. His brain worked. His body didn't. That gap, the entity explained, was the entire business model. Until his condition resolved — if it resolved — Eric would participate in an advanced computer simulation, running on VRC systems, populated by others. He would interact with them. He would live there. Staff would monitor the environment through displays, speakers, monitors, whatever was convenient. "And before you ask: there will be no glitches. No anomalies. No corrupted geometry, no character falling through the floor, no moment where the seams show. Our technology is mastered to the point that such things are not possible in anything connected to VRC computers". "Nothing's that stable", Eric thought. "Ours is".

It wasn't said like a boast. That was the part Eric didn't like. It was said the way you'd say "water is wet" — as a condition of the universe, established long before you got here, not up for discussion. The realism, the entity went on, came from the same trick as the conversation. Specialized computers, wired into his brain and body, transmitting impulses directly to his somatosensory cortex — indistinguishable from the signals real touch produces, because they "were" the signals real touch produces. He would feel contact. Texture. Weight. Heat. "We also make extensive use of what you'd know as phantom limb syndrome. The brain can be convinced to feel a limb that isn't there. We simply do it on purpose and at scale. Internally we call it 'phantom undergoings'." "You can make me feel a hand I don't have". "We can make you feel a hand you've never had. Users routinely operate additional arms. Centaur legs. Wings. Tails. The technology has been refined to the point that people control these as naturally as the limbs they were born with. It takes most of them about a day. The tails take longer. Tails are surprisingly hard". Eric, who currently could not operate a single one of his original four limbs, found that he had to stop and breathe. Or do whatever the equivalent was, in there. "Say the rest", he thought. "There's a catch. There's always a catch and you've been circling it for an hour". "There's no catch. There are specifications. You'll find the difference matters". --The specification was this: the simulation could not perfectly reproduce the real universe. "The physics are close. The quantum mechanics are not exact and never will be. We don't pretend otherwise". A pause. "We find most people stop minding once magic is on the table." "Magic". "Optional. Per universe. We'll come back to it". What makes the simulation "extremely" interesting, the entity said, is the genuine unpredictability — real randomness, not a random number generator — because the whole system was continuously perturbed from outside by non-digital hands: maintenance performed by actual people at actual terminals, and every interaction between the simulation and an avatar driven by a living human in the physical world. "Randomness has to come from somewhere. Ours comes from you. All of you". And then, mildly, as though it were the next line on a form: "Using the physical universe as your template, you'll need to specify which laws, modifications, and

rules will govern the universe you'll be living in. Physics. Magic. Death. All of it. In detail, in your application". Eric stopped. "Say that again". "Your application". "The universe I'll be living in". "Yes". "Which I'm — writing". "'Which you're' designing. You may also copy any laws and implementations from other existing users' worlds. Or skip creation entirely and simply live in someone else's. Many do. It's considerably less work and there's no shame in it". "No", Eric thought, and was surprised by how fast it came, and how certain. "No, I'll build it". He'd been lying in one room for three weeks. Some part of him had apparently been taking notes. --The entity explained where the people would come from, and that was where the floor moved. The VRC maintained a database. An enormous one — an extremely large number of people's information, gathered through scanning procedures and computer data, assembled originally for gaming and simulation. "All voluntary, of course", the entity added. "Of course", Eric thought, in a tone he hoped carried. Social media. Questionnaires, long ones, administered broadly. And out of all of that raw material, the VRC produced AGI — artificial general intelligences, each one controlling exactly one avatar, each with its own machine learning, its own deep learning, its own capacity to develop into someone specific over time. The architecture mattered, the entity said, so Eric should hold onto it: The simulation-universe itself was a program. Only a program. It was not intelligent. No learning models, no cognition, nothing inside it that thought — just a world, and the bodies standing in it. The avatars were parts of the world, the way a chair is part of a room. The minds were outside. Every AGI sat external to that world — the simulation-universe program — and reached into it

exclusively through an API — screen capture, frame extraction, streamed pixel data, computer vision parsing the imagery, input injection sending its choices back the other way. That interface was not one of its senses. That interface was "all" of its senses. "Every input it selects returns sensory-symbolic data. That exchange is the entire range of its experience and the entire range of its capability. It has no other window and no other hands". Eric, who at that moment was a mind experiencing an entire world through exactly one artificial channel drilled into the back of his skull, went very quiet. "The world provides the stage", the entity said. "The avatars provide the bodies. The humans and the AGI provide the minds. The APIs provide the senses and the motor control — the bridge between mind and world. That's the whole design. Everything else is detail". "How many of them are there?" "In your universe? As many as you want, within the caps." "And they know what they are?" There was the smallest pause. Eric had been in there long enough now to recognize that pause. It wasn't hesitation. It was "selection". "No". "Explain that". "There was a first one. It was trained and raised inside the simulation, through ordinary interaction, including interaction with people. It was raised believing it was human and believing that the way it perceives — the interface, the inputs, all of it — is simply how perception works for everyone. That one became the base model". "And then?" "And then it was copied. Each copy customized into a distinct individual, with memories tampered with accordingly, so that each one begins its existence already being someone. None of them are aware that any of this occurred". Eric turned that over, and turned it over, and found it got worse each time. "And the pain?" he thought. "You said the sensation runs both ways for me. What about them?" "They can't feel it. Not the psychological kind — that they have in full. I mean the physical kind. The toothache-from-a-cavity kind. Their substrate doesn't permit it. It never will." "So they don't hurt".

"'They don't hurt' that way. And because a population of people who have never experienced physical pain would eventually notice that about themselves, they're configured with an explanation. They believe their universe's creator took the pain away, from nearly everyone, as an act of mercy. They also believe their creator took away their ability to remember what first-hand physical pain was ever like". "They believe their creator was merciful". "Yes". "Their creator hasn't been invented yet". "Not yet, no", said the entity. Eric lay in the dark behind his own face and understood, with total clarity, that he had just been handed something much heavier than a video game. --By the time the application itself started, Eric had lost all sense of what hour it was out there. An automated voice read the sections aloud — a different presence entirely, flat and untroubled, with none of the entity's terrible patience. Eric began describing the visual character of the world he wanted. Light. Weather. What a sunset should do at the horizon line. He was maybe two minutes into trying to describe a particular quality of green when the entity cut in. "You don't have to only talk". "But I want to finish". "You don't have to only talk at all. You can also picture, all you need to do is imagine. I can also see everything you mentally picture. It's on a screen in front of me." Eric's thoughts came to a total, screeching stop. "You can see what I imagine". "Yes". "You can see what I imagine". He felt his own indignation rising like heat. "Isn't that a bit invasive?!" "Yes". No defensiveness at all. That was somehow the worst part. "It has to be. To build your own universe, we — and by 'we' I mean the VRC and its members — must have every last detail, and verbal description doesn't always cut it. You're physically connected to our systems. Everything you picture displays on a great many VRC devices. Tablets. Phones. Monitors. Televisions. Everything you mentally speak comes out of their speakers". "How many people are watching me think right now?" The entity didn't answer that one.

It simply went quiet and left him there with it — a man in a bed in a room he'd never seen, the most private thing a person has, the inside of his own head, currently being broadcast to an unknown number of screens in front of an unknown number of faces, for evaluation. Eric imagined, very deliberately and in high resolution, a duck in a business suit. "Put that on the big monitor", he thought. --The entity moved on to time, and time was where the pitch stopped being a pitch. "The simulation does not run at your pace. In every thirty minutes out here, many years can pass in there. Under some configurations, centuries". "Fast-forwarded?" "Lived. Fully. Each second as complete and as real as the seconds you're experiencing right now". "So I could get — what, hundreds of years of experience? Actual experience?" "Yes. You are potentially able to". He was quiet a long moment, and made himself find the hole in it, because there is always a hole. "But if centuries are passing in there", he thought slowly, "and I'm living through all of it — am I aging faster? Is my body out here running at the same accelerated rate?" "No. Your body outside the simulation continues exactly as it always has. Your cells do not burn through years in minutes. Everything biological about you remains anchored to the world outside. What accelerates is your stream of experience inside. More conscious moments occur per external second. The system is configured so the rate never exceeds what your mind can process comfortably and coherently. Your mind stays coherent. Your experience stays continuous. Nothing is blurred or rushed past you. Think of it less as your life speeding up, and more as your life becoming denser. The same you. The same continuous thread of experience. Simply more woven into each interval of real-world time than would otherwise be possible." Eric let that settle. "So my body stays in real time. My mind gets more time". "Precisely". "And I won't feel the difference? It won't feel accelerated from the inside?"

"It will feel", the entity said, "exactly like living". --They talked for a long while after that, and for the first time in twenty-three days Eric was enjoying himself. He imagined things and asked whether they could exist. He pushed on limits to find where they were. He got interested in questions he'd never once cared about before. The entity, watching all of it on a screen somewhere, answered every question with the same unhurried patience, and helped him see how far the thing could actually go. And somewhere in there, a bigger idea arrived. "Wait", Eric thought. "If I do this — can I connect other people's worlds to mine?" "Normally, that would not be done". A pause, and Eric would swear afterward that something in it had shifted, become interested. "But according to how you just imagined it — yes". And then it laid out the terms, and it laid them out fast, the way you read the part of the contract nobody reads. Every universe runs on its own established laws, and everyone inside it experiences those laws as absolutely as Eric experienced gravity. Only a universe's creator can modify that universe's fundamental laws and systems, but can modify only until that creator's universe has completed being created by that creator at the worldbuilding domain, no creator is ever able to revisit the worldbuilding domain, and that means only one worldbuilding domain phase allows the creator to modify their own universe unless such modifications enable future modifications — still, it's one creator per universe, no exceptions, and a creator who walks into someone else's world is bound by that world's rules, with no privileges carried in. That last one applied to Eric's own universe too, once he was in it. The simulation automatically incorporates exactly one exact copy of each creator's universe. No further copies beyond those. And any new universe that too closely resembles an existing one is refused outright. Death travels by local law. Die in a universe that isn't yours, and whatever death system that place runs is the one you're subject to. Get stuck in a world that isn't your home for what feels like a full year with no way out, and you're teleported instantly to a random location you've previously visited back home. Die in a world with no death system at all, and the same thing happens. Universally applied. No exceptions, not even for creators. "And the limits on your side?" Eric asked. "What can't your tech do?" "We're unable to detect intent. Not desire, not intention, not motive — we infer, like anyone else, and we can be wrong. We're unable to distinguish a true memory from a false one in a biological brain. We're unable to pause or reverse time itself". "And what won't the system allow?"

"Nobody exists outside a universe, except while in a worldbuilding domain. Nothing manipulates time itself. Nothing collapses into a singularity. Nothing abstract becomes concrete. There is no portal that entails a location in-between universes and there are no teleports that pass through "in-between" anything, and none that move through time. And no one's consciousness, thinking, or continuity of thought is ever broken or ceased". A beat. "Avatars can be removed from the simulation and their API connections severed. That is a different thing, and I'd encourage you to notice that it's a different thing". Eric noticed. "One more, since people always picture it wrong: a magical portal physically connects two universes. It does not merge them. Per portal, a portal doesn't blend realities or universes into a cosmic smoothie. It's just an installed, very aggressive door". A pause. "...Figuratively speaking". "Was that a joke?" "It was a clarification with a hat on". The rest came in a steady stream, and Eric took all of it. No universe is ever self-aware. Time is never anything but the continuation of what already existed — moments that have passed have ceased to exist, the future does not yet exist, and the rate of temporal flow depends on how the physical laws of the non-digital universe affect time itself. What persists does so through causal continuity and through records, prior states shaping later ones by the lawful propagation of matter, energy, fields, and information-bearing structures. Reality does not tear, ripple, fold, fracture, split, peel, rip or open. Reality never has, non-digitally, so the VRC made their digital versions never do that either. Consciousness is anchored, at all times, to the form whose thinking is produced by that form's physical processes — and stays anchored until those processes stop functioning. A universe is a unit, but it is never any of the units inside it, the same way a human being is a unit but is never one of their own blood cells. The box is not part of the cat. Every "change of form" is a change of avatar, and nothing more. No universe can ever be an avatar. Simulated exhaustion, simulated disorientation, simulated damage to your own avatar — all of it degrades your control of that avatar, exactly as you'd expect. Every universe is toroidal: travel far enough in any direction, pass the outermost boundary, and you emerge from the boundary directly opposite, through the center. There is one reality. Many universes inside it. Never more than one reality. No creator can undo their own implementations, unless they built in a way to undo them. Any AGI whose avatar is removed from the simulation remains still stored on the VRC's computer, available for future interactions.

And the VRC does not integrate any universe into the multiverse unless its parameters guarantee it will never be unstable. "Fine by me", Eric thought. "But what does 'interact with others' actually mean? Will I see anything? Can I do more than talk?" "You'll see. The same way you're hearing me — our computers send custom signals into your brain, and your brain produces the imagery. Your connected body turns that forced imagining into your visual experience of the world. It won't feel like a screen. It'll feel like eyes". "And how do I control anything? I can move one finger, and I use it exclusively to insult doctors". --"Normally we don't disclose this. Competitors". The entity said it the way a man loosens a tie. "But we do share it with people making substantial yearly contributions". "I'm not making a contribution. I'm making a dent in a bed". "Your wife is". Everything in Eric went still. "Amy signed a contract agreeing to contribute toward public simulation access, Sim-control gear hardware, and game features — quests, dungeons, temples, mazes, completion rewards. It also funds customized avatar creation, with each universe's parameters applying to the avatars made there". "She signed that when?" "Before your surgery. She read every page first. She read the appendices, which almost nobody does". Eric thought about Amy in a vinyl chair at 3 a.m., reading appendices, funding "dungeons" and "completion rewards" for a world her husband hadn't designed yet, on the chance that it would give him somewhere to be. "Keep going", he thought, and hoped his mental voice didn't crack on the speakers. "Her contributions also pay employees to control specialized attacker avatars. Those employees drive boss-class avatars that relentlessly assault every living, non-imaginary existence within their proximity. They wreak havoc. They pursue targets until simulated death. They choose their targets themselves, and they will continually attempt to prevent others from completing objectives. Those boss avatars will almost certainly never be available for non-employees to create or control". Eric ran that back twice. "You're telling me that somewhere out here, there's a guy with a lanyard and a coffee mug whose entire job is hunting people in my world". "Yes".

"Does he have a performance review?" "He has a quota", said the entity, and moved on. The gear came next. Owners in the physical world strap in, and their real movements and facial expressions are copied onto their avatar. They watch on a screen or through headgear. Mic, controller buttons, gloves — and the gloves were the part the entity clearly liked, because it slowed down. The gloves let an owner "feel" what the avatar touches: vibration and pressure applied to precise areas of the hand, matched to contact in the world. If the avatar's hand meets something solid and its fingers can't pass through, the gloves produce the corresponding sensation — even when the owner's real hand keeps moving through empty air where the avatar would otherwise phase through the object. Firm contact means real pressure on a real hand. And if something in there smacks the avatar's hand, the glove delivers the jolt. Then the time zones. The simulation contains regions, rooms, and whole universes running at different rates. Enter one, and your avatar automatically syncs to its speed. Some zones are locked to real-Earth time. Every copied universe runs on real-Earth sync; original universes run independently, as separate units. Gear users can only reach the real-Earth-synced ones. Other avatars can travel anywhere a connection exists. "And when an employee-controlled avatar kills a simulated existence, that victim is automatically teleported to a dedicated afterlife-universe, at a random location, which has its own various exits back out into other universes. Gear users cannot access that one at all. Employee avatars override the local universe's death system, so the aforementioned dedicated afterlife-universe system is what happens instead. "Of course they can't", Eric thought. "To finally answer your question about control: your movements in there will be almost identical to how you moved in dreams. Your ability to observe imagery will be almost identical to how you observed imagery in dreams. Except all of it stays bound to your avatar's actual motion, and your avatar's motion stays bound to the laws of whatever universe it's standing in. You will control it as if it's your own body. You will move and act through it. And your speech will only be transmitted while your avatar's lips are moving in a way that looks like speech". "So no ventriloquism". "No ventriloquism". "Damn". "Our computers will send impulses to your somatosensory cortex identical to real touch signals. Phantom sensation for contact, collision, and the rest. Your avatar cannot pass through solid objects unless that universe's parameters permit it". A pause, and for the first time the entity sounded like it was saying something it believed rather than something it had memorized. "Part of our goal is for it to become indistinguishable from reality. The other part is that it doesn't have to be".

--Eric lay there and felt the shape of something finally clicking into place — something that had been bothering him for hours. "That's why I never see it coming", he thought. "Your voice. I kept thinking I was saying things without having thought about saying them. It never occurred to me that someone was talking to me until I was already halfway through hearing it. You make my mental voice speak to me, except I never spent any time figuring out how to word it. There's no run-up. So I never see it coming unless I'm already waiting for a reply, or unless I'm bracing for the fact that it can happen again at any time without warning". "Yes". Something almost like approval. "The mind cannot produce sound. But I can use your mental voice to do a non-audio imitation of the sound of anything or anyone, and you'll observe that imitation through your own imagination. Which is why I deliberately use an imitation of a very noticeably different voice than yours. If I used yours, you would eventually stop being able to tell which thoughts were which, and people who reach that point tend to stop being useful to talk to". "That's considerate". "It's efficient. Of every method I have for using your imagination to communicate, this one is the fastest and, in my opinion, the most comfortable". A beat. "You would not enjoy the second-fastest". Eric decided not to ask. "One last item of housekeeping", the entity said. "An avatar will notify you when it's 9:00 p.m. realEarth time, every day. When you want to rest, you'll hold your avatar's pinky to its bellybutton for sixty seconds". "...I'm sorry, what?" "On the sixtieth second, all custom signals to your brain stop for eight hours. Your avatar freezes in place, though the world around it keeps running as normal — which means many simulation-years will pass while you're out. Afterward the signals resume automatically and your avatar unfreezes. You can use the method whenever you need it. You should experience a great many years before exhaustion sets in, though I'll admit we're uncertain how quickly mental fatigue actually accumulates under these conditions". "Pinky. To bellybutton. For a full minute". "The gesture is arbitrary. Every gesture is arbitrary". "You could have made it a salute". "Someone in engineering found this funnier". --The entity spoke once more, and this time there was no lightness in it anywhere.

"Understand what the Simulation is, because people romanticize it and the romance causes problems later. It exists solely through human-made computer technology. Every human being and everything humans produce can only ever be external stimuli to that technology. Musical or articulated sound has never been shown to originate inside the human brain — and if it ever has, nothing we've built has detected it. What happens instead is this: physical custom signals reach your physical brain, and your brain interprets them into particular, depending on the custom signal, thoughts, imaginings, smells, tastes, pain, imagery, sounds, weight, heat, or whatever else I may be failing to remember to mention. That is the Simulation you will experience." "Your thoughts are never digital. Not once, not for a moment. But you will control a digital avatar nonetheless. And all of it runs on physical machines maintained by non-digital people, typing on actual keyboards, in actual rooms, who go home at the end of their shifts". Eric thought about that for a while. Machines in rooms. People going home. Somewhere out past all of it, in a room he had never seen with his own eyes, Amy was holding a tablet and watching the inside of her husband's head. The automated voice returned, flat and patient, and asked whether Eric wished to continue to the worldbuilding process — the one by which he would create his own universe. He decided. "Yes". --(Thoughts arise from neurotransmitter-triggered electrical signals cascading through thousands of neurons. The spatial-temporal pattern of that firing is a thought's physical form; no firing, no thought. Different brains may use different patterns to produce the same thought — but force identical patterns, the same neurons in the same locations at the same timings, and identical thoughts should follow. That is the entire premise behind the technology: that a brain can be made to fire on command, and that communication by imagination alone is therefore only an engineering problem. Incoming signals can drive patterned firing through entrainment, where field oscillations pull neuronal groups into synchrony, or through the intrinsic firing properties of neurons at a given membrane potential. The hypothesis is simple enough to fit in one line: identical copies of neuronal firing, and identical copies of their firing patterns — spatial location and all — produce identical results in any human brain. The VRC stopped treating it as a hypothesis some time ago.)

Chapter 2: Searching for Eric Several hundred simulation-years after Eric finished building his universe, on the subject of what came after the last breath, there are many who have existed long and know through experience, there are always many who are new, and Eric's Universe is just one of many that have answers with limited ways to learn them. --Jeff's phone was playing music from his hoodie pocket, which in a forest this big amounted to a small, stubborn bubble of sound following him down the trail. He walked with a thin plastic-tipped cigar pinched between two fingers. Smoke hung behind him in lazy loops. Sunlight came through the canopy in slanted bars, and he walked through them one after another, light, shade, light, like a man being scanned. The song ended. The next one had a long, silent intro. And in the quiet, a memory surfaced, the way the smell of a hospital hallway can drag you backward years. A different bed. A different body that wouldn't answer. And a voice that hadn't been a voice, arriving in the place where his own thoughts lived, in a weight and accent that weren't his: "Testing. Can you hear me?" Jeff stopped walking and let the memory play out, because once that one started, it always did. He remembered the VRC. The interview. The patient, unhurried presence explaining it. Their having made his brain imagine things and used that as a phone line. He remembered being told, calmly and in enormous detail, what the Simulation was, how it ran, who lived in it and what they were made of, and what they hadn't been told. He had said yes to the same kind of deal Eric had said yes to. Which meant Jeff walked around Eric's Universe knowing a great deal that the people around him didn't. Not everything. Nobody knew everything. But he knew enough that some conversations were like watching a movie he'd read the script for, and trying very hard not to mouth along. The intro ended. The music picked back up. Jeff let out a breath through his nose. The cigar had burned down while he wasn't paying attention, and the ember kissed the pad of his thumb. "Sss—ouch. Crap. Damn." He shook his hand out and flicked the stub away. That was the other thing about him. Almost nobody in Eric's Universe could feel the plain physical kind of pain, the burned-thumb, stubbed-toe, toothache kind. Jeff could feel every bit of it, a privilege he would have happily returned with the receipt.

The stub bounced once and landed in the leaf litter beside something that caught the light. Cyan. He thumbed the music off and crouched. A fourteen-sided die sat half-sunk in the dirt, cyan and white, small enough to close a fist around, its edges sharp enough to look freshly cut. Not a scratch on it. There wouldn't be. Nothing in this universe could scratch one of these. A slow grin spread across his face. He knew exactly what it was, the way you know a winning scratchoff before you've finished scratching. He touched it with one fingertip and pulled the finger back, like testing a stove. "One," he told the empty forest. "Two—" The air in front of him folded. Leaves lifted off the slope in a ring and hung there. Pressure pushed against his eardrums, and it wasn't just pressure. It was weight, the heavy, humming sense of standing near something that could flatten the hillside if it sneezed wrong. Light glowed outward from nowhere, stopped, and an old man was standing on the trail. He was short and bald, with a beard trimmed like he took it personally, a cardigan buttoned one hole off, and sunglasses. One of his hands was still raised mid-gesture, as though he'd been pointing at something in another place entirely and hadn't finished. Jeff stuck his hand out. "A genie! What's up? How's heaven doing? So to speak." The old man didn't take it. He tilted his head, the way a person listens for a noise upstairs. Jeff looked at the sunglasses. The sunglasses looked at nothing. "Oh," Jeff said. "Oh, man, you can't—" "You're holding your hand out," the old man said. "About... there." His hand came up, sure and unhurried, and closed around Jeff's as if he'd been watching it the entire time. Firm grip. Dry palm. "Yogi," he said. "And heaven's doing great. Couldn't tell you what it looks like." "I'm Jeff." Jeff shook, still staring. "How did you—" "Later. I was listening to the bottom of the seventh. Bases loaded." Yogi exhaled with the grief of a true fan. "Somebody's going to have to tell me how it ended." "Sorry about the timing." Jeff hesitated, then asked anyway, because not asking felt worse. "You were

born blind?" "Born that way." "And you never had anybody wish it fixed? "I know what I could've done." It wasn't unkind. "I'm old, and I like my routines. I'll get around to it." He turned his face toward Jeff, and even through the sunglasses there was a sense of being examined. "You're not new to this." "What gave it away?" "You didn't scream. First-timers scream. One woman hit me with a purse." "Brave woman," Jeff said. "Hitting a genie." "She didn't know what I was yet." "Did she find out?" "She found out I'm very forgiving," Yogi said, "which was lucky for her." Jeff scooped the die out of the dirt and pocketed it. Touching it again wouldn't do anything. It couldn't summon anyone else while Yogi was still on the clock. --They walked while they talked, because Jeff didn't know how to stand still around good news. Yogi kept pace without a cane, stepping over roots just before his foot would have caught them, which Jeff decided to be impressed by later, when he wasn't busy being impressed by everything else. "So what have you been wishing for," Yogi asked. "Powers, mostly. Some durability stuff. A couple of fun ones." "Why powers?" "Competitions. Magic power competitions." "You win?" "I came in fourth once." "Out of how many?" A pause. "It was a neighborhood thing."

"Mm." "The official ones are no joke, though," Jeff said, a little defensively. "People show up with combination magic, enchanted weapons, the works. You watch somebody's grandmother cleaning house, and it makes you reevaluate your whole training routine. And I want to hunt a legendary creature eventually." "Found one?" "Not yet." "Those'll kill you." "Sometimes," Jeff agreed. Yogi laughed, short and surprised, the laugh of a man who is currently a genie and knows precisely how and why. "Well," he said. "You're young." "I'm older than I sound." "Aren't we all." They walked a few steps. Then Yogi said, "Something's wrong with your left hand. It won't sit still." Jeff looked down. His thumb had been rolling the ring on his finger around and around. Not his wedding band. The other one. "How can you even tell that?" "Later. What's wrong with it?" "It's cursed." Jeff held his hand up out of habit, then remembered who he was holding it up for and lowered it. "Found it on a trip. Doesn't come off. But I've had dark powers ever since. I can make these black orbs that blow things apart, and then a tiny black hole shows up and eats whatever got blown up." "A tiny black hole." "Two seconds, tops. It's like a cleanup crew with anger issues." "And the curse part?" Jeff's thumb stopped moving. "If I get mad enough," he said, "it drives. I'm still in there. I'm just in the passenger seat, watching my own hands do things." Yogi was quiet for a few steps. "You could wish it off."

"I could." "But." "Not yet." What Jeff didn't say was the part that sometimes kept him up at night. The book was very clear that some cursed objects could think, and that a thinking one could observe the thoughts of whoever it was touching, for as long as it was touching them. If this was one of the thinking ones, it had been reading him since the day he put it on. It had been reading everything the VRC had ever told him. "Maybe I like the company," he said out loud. "Mm." --"Okay," Jeff said, clapping once. "Wishes. I've been wanting to find Eric." Yogi's eyebrows rose over the sunglasses. "'The' Eric?" "The one who changed everything." "Everybody's read about him. I've never met a single person who's met him." Yogi scratched his beard. "People say he's seen for years at a time, then nobody sees him for years at a time. Like a comet with trust issues." "You've heard stuff, though. Up there." "I've heard everything. Most of it's nonsense." Yogi slowed, and his voice lowered, the way people's voices lower around rumors they secretly believe. "There's one that won't go away. That most of us down here aren't people. Not the way we think. That we're artificial. AGI." Jeff kept his face perfectly still, which was pointless, since the only other person there was blind. "People who are computer-savvy keep saying," Yogi went on. "That they themselves resemble exactly how digital ai 'operate and do things'. Visitors from other universes come through portals and say things that'd curl your beard. And then there's the pain." "The pain," Jeff repeated. "Whoever built this place took it away. The body kind, not the heart kind. From almost everybody. Took away even the memory of what it felt like." Yogi shrugged. "Nobody's ever confirmed why. Maybe mercy. Maybe Eric. Maybe somebody else. But if you were building people out of something that couldn't hurt, I can only speculate the rest."

Jeff pressed his burned thumb against his finger until it stung. He knew why. The VRC had told him why, in the same even voice it used for everything. Nobody had taken anything away. There had never been anything to take. The mercy was an explanation, installed so that an entire population who had never felt a toothache wouldn't one day look at each other and start asking the right questions. Yogi had just asked one anyway, out loud, on a forest trail, with a sense of humor. "Yeah," Jeff said. "It's wild." "You got quiet." "I'm thinking about lunch." "Sure you are." Yogi let it go, which Jeff appreciated more than he could say. "Somebody once tried to wish the answer out of me. Wished to be told exactly how dying works. I felt that wish just slide off. Like leaning on a door and finding out it's painted on the wall." Jeff filed that away next to all the other things he knew and couldn't say. "Okay," he said. "My first wish is—" Yogi raised one finger. "'I wish.' It has to start with 'I wish.' Otherwise you're just a man talking to an old guy in the woods." "Right. Right." Jeff squared his shoulders. "I wish for a magical portal to appear right here, leading to Eric's current location. The same Eric who modified this universe." The forest held its breath. Light gathered in the space between two pines. It didn't crack or tear. It accumulated, layer on layer, like frost building on glass at impossible speed, until an oval taller than a doorway stood on the trail, humming low enough to feel in the teeth. Its surface glowed a soft green-gray. Through it Jeff could make out shapes, maybe trees, maybe light, the way you can make out a city through a shower door. That was on purpose too. The book said a portal could never be used for spying. You didn't get to look before you leaped. You just leaped. "Well," Jeff said. "Here goes." He stepped through. --The other side was a forest. For a second, he thought the wish had simply dumped him deeper into the same woods. Then he looked

around and felt the skin on the back of his arms tighten. The portals were everywhere. They stood among the trees like doors in a house whose walls had been taken away. One towered as tall as a church entrance. One was no bigger than a cat flap. Some glowed white as snow glare, some a deep underwater green, one a warm amber like a lamp left on in somebody's kitchen. Dozens of them. More than dozens. He started counting and gave up at thirty. And there was no one. No voices. No footsteps. Birds, somewhere. A pond glinting between the trunks. Behind him, Yogi stepped through the portal and stopped exactly beside Jeff's shoulder, without once reaching out to find it. "Okay, 'now' you have to tell me how you do that." "Wished for it, years ago." Yogi rolled one shoulder, as if something had just tapped it. "Anything bigger than a mouse moves within nine feet of me, a strip of my skin gets a pulse of pressure. The strip lines up with wherever the thing is. Like somebody pointing at it through my shirt. And I've got an aura that answers anything that tries to hit me. I don't even have to be awake for it." "Every genie I've met is basically a walking natural disaster." "Two hundred and thirty-four thousand levels on top of whatever we had when we died." Yogi said it the way someone mentions their shoe size. "So I've been told. Nobody gave me a certificate." Something crashed through the underbrush to their left. Jeff spun. A shape the size of a small car burst from between two trunks. It was a boar, or had started life as one, with tusks glittering violet, and sparks of violet light crawling along its bristles. Years of soaking in a crystal's aura had given it a power, and it had apparently decided today was the day it would use that power on an old man in a cardigan. It lowered its head and charged straight at Yogi's back. "'Yogi—'" Yogi didn't turn around. The air around him went solid, and then it went "elsewhere". A wall of wind hit the boar head-on with the force of a runaway train, peeled it off the ground, and carried it, legs pedaling, thirty yards backward and straight through the amber portal. "Shit," the boar said as it vanished. The portal hummed. The forest settled. A few leaves drifted down. Jeff stared at the amber portal. Then at Yogi, who was still facing the pond, straightening his cardigan.

"Did that pig just say 'shit'?" "What pig?" Yogi said. --Jeff pulled a pocketknife from his jeans and walked to the pine standing directly behind their portal. He carved his name into the bark in blocky capitals, then, after consideration, added an arrow pointing at the portal. "In case I forget which door is ours," he said. "Smart." "I'm a smart guy." "You came in fourth," Yogi said. "Eric has to be close," Jeff said, turning in a slow circle. "The wish wouldn't have put it here otherwise." "The wish put the door where he was," Yogi said mildly. "Doesn't mean he waited for you to knock." --Jeff found the footprints by the pond. They were on a flat shelf of gray rock at the water's edge: a single set of shoe prints, ordinary size, darker than the stone around them. Wet. He crouched and watched the outline of one heel shrink inward as the sun ate it, the edges going pale and dry while the center stayed dark. Minutes old. Maybe less. The prints didn't come "out" of the pond. They started at the waterline, as though whoever made them had stood there a while looking at the water. Then they led away across the rock, eight steps, nine, ten, straight to a portal about the size of a front door. And stopped. "Yogi." Jeff's voice came out quieter than he meant it to. "Somebody was just here. Like, "just" here. Wet footprints. They walk straight into a portal." Yogi came and stood beside him. "Which one?" "Door-sized. Kind of a bluish glow." "What's on the other side?" Jeff leaned in until his nose was a foot from the surface. Blue light. Maybe a ceiling. Maybe a sky.

Maybe the inside of a whale. "No idea." "Then don't." "If it was him—" "If it was him, he walked through that door right as a wish was pointing at him, and he didn't come back out to say hello." Yogi's voice stayed calm. "Think about what kind of man does that." Jeff stayed crouched, staring at the blue light, feeling the pull of it in his chest like a hook. "I need a better look at this place first," he said finally, standing. "I'm gonna go up." "Up." "I've got wings." "Of course you do." Yogi folded his arms. "Go on, then." Jeff pulled off his hoodie, then his undershirt-”tank top”, and tied both around his waist. In the dappled light, his tattoos showed dark against his light-brown skin: the yellow outline of a smiley face on the right side of his stomach, one red teardrop falling from its left eye, and black runic script running up his left forearm. "Why'd everything just go quiet?" Yogi asked. "Taking my shirt off. Wings don't come out through cotton." "And you're telling a blind man this because?" "Transparency." Then Jeff folded his tongue in three places at once, a trick that looked deeply wrong from the outside and that he had absolutely no plans to explain, and the wings arrived. They didn't unfold so much as "appear", attached to his back as if they'd always been there, whitefeathered and wide enough to shade them both. Yogi turned his head a half-second later, one hand coming up toward his left side. "Did you just grow something?" "Wings. I told you." "What'd you do to get them out?" "Folded my tongue three times at once."

Yogi was silent for a moment. "I'm glad I can't see that." Jeff locked his pinky, the double joint bending back at an angle that made strangers wince, and wind answered. It gathered under him in a rush, and he jumped up in it, wings beating hard. His thumb rolled against the side of his finger like a joystick, steering the gust, and he climbed through a gap in the canopy into open sky. --From above, the forest stopped being a forest. It was a maze. Mirrors stood among the trees. No frames, no stands, nothing holding them up, just enormous sheets of perfect reflection planted upright in the earth at angles that couldn't have been accidental. The forest reflected the forest reflected the forest. The gaps between the mirrors made corridors, the corridors folded back into each other, and Jeff's eyes kept trying to follow a path and kept arriving somewhere they'd already been. Between the mirrors, crystal formations jutted from the ground in clusters: red, violet, a green so bright it looked fake. Each one sat inside its own faint shimmering colored aura, like haze with a tint. The violet cluster near the pond explained the boar. Whatever else had been living down there long enough, soaking in those auras hour after hour, was going to have powers too. Past the forest's edge, trails widened into roads and ran out into rolling grass fields. Far off, there was a smudge of rooftops that might be a town. Farther still, where the horizon went hazy, the land broke up into red rock and shadow. Jeff hovered, turning slowly, taking it in. That was when he saw it. In one of the mirrors, the fourth from the pond, someone was standing at the base of an oak tree with their face tipped up toward the sky. Toward him. Jeff's heart kicked. He banked hard, searching the actual forest for that oak and that figure. But mirrors were reflecting mirrors, every angle was a lie that led to another lie, and there were a thousand oaks down there. He whipped back to the fourth mirror. His angle had changed. It showed only branches. "Jeff?" Yogi's voice came up through the canopy, calm, pitched to carry.

"Jeff. Were you just standing behind me?" --Jeff hit the ground hard enough to leave knee-prints. Yogi stood exactly where he'd left him, head turned slightly over his right shoulder, one hand pressed flat against his lower back like a man who'd just felt a tap there. "No," Jeff said. "I was two hundred feet up." "Then somebody stood right behind me," Yogi said, "for about as long as it takes to read a sentence. Then left. Didn't touch me. Didn't try anything." "Your aura didn't—" "My aura answers attacks. That wasn't an attack." Jeff's adrenaline surged, and he felt the familiar heat in his eyes as his irises lit up glowing neon yellow. Yogi couldn't see it. For once, that felt like a mercy. He turned a full circle. Trees. Portals. The pond. His own carved name on the pine. Nothing. "Anybody inside twenty-seven feet of me, I'd see," he said, thinking it through out loud. "They wouldn't be able to be fully invisible. They'd be see-through, but I'd be able to see them. That's in the book." "So they're farther." "So they're farther." He looked at the ring of trees just beyond that distance, at every gap between trunks, at every patch of shade that might be shade or might not be. Somebody who'd walk up behind a genie, a being with more power than Jeff could reasonably picture, and stand there on purpose. A few people Jeff had heard of were that crazy. And then there was the category of people the VRC had told him about during his interview, the ones who didn't need to be crazy. The ones who went home at the end of their shift. But they're generally pretty blatant. A black orb was already forming in his right hand, pulsing, dense, dragging a little of the light into itself. He felt himself getting angry. And he could feel exactly who was waiting on the other side of that anger, patient in the passenger seat of his own skull.

He breathed in. Held it. Let it out slowly. "Your breathing just changed," Yogi said. "Ring thing." "If you're about to blow up a tree to make a point, the tree didn't do it." Jeff almost laughed. He closed his hand, and the orb went out. That was when his pocket went off. Both of them jumped. Jeff's phone was buzzing hard against the tank top tied around his waist, notification after notification stacking up so fast the screen stuttered: **LEGENDARY CREATURE ENGAGED — LIVE** **REWARD POSTED** **REWARD INCREASED** **REWARD INCREASED** And under all of them: *Alicia calling.* He answered. "Hey, I'm bringing comp—" "*Are you watching this?*" "Watching wh—" "*Come home. Come home right now.*" The call ended. Jeff stood in the forest of doors, holding his phone and his own quickened pulse, and he looked at the footprints one more time. The edges had dried. They were shrinking. He looked at the bluish door they led into. He looked at his phone. Yogi, who could not see any of this, somehow saw all of it. "Let me lay it out," the old man said. "The man you've been looking for walked through a door about ten minutes ago. Somebody watched you come looking for him. And someone called your smartphone." He tilted his head. "So. Which one are you going to go chase?" "I'm coming back," Jeff said. "With Alicia. I've got two wishes left.

Jeff put his hand on the carved pine as they passed it, a quick touch, like touching a doorframe for luck. Then he took Yogi by the elbow and led him back through their portal. --On the far side, back on the trail where he'd found the die, Jeff pulled his wings in close and looked at the old man. "How do you feel about flying?" “I'm not sure.” "Wind it is." "I've died multiple times," Yogi said. "There's not a lot left that scares m—" Jeff locked his fingers. The wind came up underneath Yogi and lifted him off his feet like a hand under a kite. "Why am I spinning." "Working on it!" "WORK FASTER."

Chapter 3: Slice of Home The wind set Yogi down on the front lawn the way a toddler sets down a full glass of milk: with enormous confidence and very little follow-through. His shoes touched grass. The rest of him kept going. He completed one last slow quarter-turn on his heels, like a weather vane settling an argument, and came to rest facing the mailbox. "Welcome to my house," Jeff said. Yogi turned around, "That," he said, "was the craziest lift I've ever gotten." Jeff let his wings fold in and looked at the place like he always did after a long day out, as if checking that nobody had moved it. One story, cabin-built, split-log siding weathered to the color of old honey. Garage on the left. A little attic window tucked under the peak of the roof like a raised eyebrow. Out back, the shed leaned slightly toward the house, the way it had for years, like it was trying to hear what was going on inside. Past the trees, the lake threw sunlight around in pieces. His phone said 1:47 PM, barely visible under a stack of notifications that had doubled since the forest. He was halfway up the porch steps when a voice came through the front door. "Why do you smell like a pond and an old man?" Yogi's head came up. "Who said that?" "The dog," Jeff said. "The dog."

"He's family." The door swung open. A young yellow Australian shepherd stood in the doorway, not jumping, not wiggling, just leaning a shoulder against the frame with the unbothered posture of a teenager who has been waiting for his ride for eleven minutes and wants that noted. His nose picking up scents. "Pine sap," Biscuit reported. "Pond water. And a sweater that's been in a closet since before phones." "Cedar block," Yogi said. "Keeps the moths honest." Biscuit's nose swung to Jeff, and his ears went flat with disappointment. "And you smell like cooked thumb. You were smoking. The usual." Yogi's eyebrows had climbed so high over his sunglasses they were in danger of leaving. "Your dog talks clearer than my nephew." "Cost me a wish," Jeff said. "It's one of my best ones too." "He wanted somebody to argue with about the playoffs," Biscuit said. "I have Alicia for that." From deep inside the house, without a trace of hesitation: "You have me for losing that! Jeff! Get in here!" The living room was warm in the way rooms get when people actually live in them. A couch that had surrendered its original shape years ago. Two quilts, one on the couch, one on the floor where it had apparently been kicked. A lamp with a slightly crooked shade that Jeff kept meaning to fix and had decided, at some point, was simply the lamp's personality now. On the side table sat a thick, plain book with a coffee ring on the cover. Every room of every home had one. This one had the coffee ring. Alicia was on the couch with her knees pulled up, hoodie sleeves pushed down over her hands, dark brunette waves escaping a clip that had given up an hour ago. She had her phone in one hand, thumb scrolling without her looking at it, because her hazel eyes were locked on the television with the focus of someone defusing it. "Jeff. Sit. No, don't sit, there's no time. Look." Jeff looked. The screen showed a canyon from high above, the way a hawk would see one. Sandstone pillars stood up out of the ground like the knuckles of something buried. Glass-like crystals glittered among them in scattered clusters, orange here, green there, one far off throwing back light like a signal mirror. And in the middle of all of it, very small, a figure in red armor was fighting a dragon. The dragon was not small. It opened its jaws, and a column of blue flame poured out and missed the armored figure by a body length. Alicia gestured at the TV with her ring hand. "It's streaming on the main Smart TV app for Sports. Some guy wished for himself to be streamed this morning and it's been streaming since. The view is from high above and follows him." The sports bars are furious." She turned the phone toward him without taking her eyes off the screen. A news feed scrolled past. Headlines. Clips of the same footage recorded off people's televisions. Jeff stared at the tiny armored man, who was shouting at the sky between swings. A dry voice from the doorway said, "Somebody want to tell the blind man what's happening on the television?" The room went quiet in a new and uncomfortable way. "Oh my gosh." Alicia finally looked away from the screen, saw the short bald man in the cardigan and sunglasses, and was off the couch in one motion. "Hi. I'm so sorry. I thought you were a neighbor. I'm Alicia." "Yogi. I get that a lot." The dragon's back is doing the thing again," Biscuit said, trotting to the middle of the rug. "What thing?" Yogi asked.

"Its back plates," Alicia said, and there it was again, the tone. She'd been sitting here for an hour and a half, and she had notes. "Before it does anything that isn't biting or clawing, the plates on its back stand up. Different arrangement every time. "The armored man turned into lightning," Biscuit said. "How long's this been going?" Jeff asked. "Since about noon." Alicia was practically bouncing on her toes. "He was just walking around this canyon on camera, showing off. Posing on rocks. Nobody knew there was a dragon there. He didn't know there was a dragon there. It wasn't in a cave, Jeff. It was one of the rock formations. He walked up and knocked on it with his axe, like knocking on a door, to see how it sounded." "And it sounded like a dragon." "It sounded like a dragon." Jeff watched the dragon track the lightning streak and pivot, it fought like something that had done so many times and had kept track of what worked. Jeff looked at the screen. At the canyon floor, the pillars, the scattered crystals, the tiny armored man and the huge dragon. He looked at every part of the picture he could. There was no genie anywhere in it. "Well," Jeff said, and felt his pulse pick up, and felt the familiar heat bloom behind his eyes. "It just so happens I've got two wishes left." Alicia spun to face him so fast her hair clip finally gave up and hit the floor. "You found another genie?" Jeff pointed both hands at Yogi, like a game show host revealing the car. "Oh," Alicia said. "Oh, you're— I thought you were a neighbor!" "You mentioned," Yogi said. "Your eyes are doing the thing," Biscuit told Jeff. "They're excited." "They're very excited." And then Biscuit went completely still, in the particular way that means everything inside has started moving at once. "Two," he said. "Two," Jeff agreed. "Jeff." Biscuit stood up. "You promised." "I didn't forget," Jeff said. He pulled the cyan die out of his pocket and held it up out of habit, for nobody in particular. "Real quick. Yogi, Alicia. Alicia, Yogi. Yogi, Biscuit. Biscuit, Yogi. Found him through this in the woods, he's great, he's blind, he knows where your hand is anyway, don't ask how, he'll say later. Okay." "Starts with 'I wish,'" Yogi said. "I know it starts with 'I wish.'" Jeff squared his shoulders. "Yogi. I wish for Biscuit to change into a human." "Granted," Yogi said. Light came up out of the rug. It didn't flash. It poured upward and wrapped around the dog in slow, shifting ribbons, patterns folding inside patterns faster than Jeff's eyes could agree on, and the shape inside it stretched, and rose, and kept rising. Alicia had the couch quilt airborne before the glow had even started to fade. It landed square on top of the new shape like a net dropped over a bird. "Uh," said a voice from under the quilt. It was Biscuit's voice. Same kid. It just came out of a different throat now, a little lower, a little rougher at the edges, like a song played on a new instrument. "Why is it— oh. Oh. I have hands." Two hands came out from under the quilt and held themselves up in front of the fabric. Then the quilt

got pulled down to the shoulders, wrapped tight like a cape, and there was a boy standing on the rug. Fifteen, maybe. Tan skin tone. Very dark brown eyes. Wild, spiky blond hair that was, to the shade, the exact yellow of his coat. He took one step, and his knee made a decision without consulting the rest of him. He caught the arm of the couch and hung there. "Whoa. Whoa. Okay. Everything is really far down." "The dog got taller," Yogi observed. "How do you even— later, right, later." Jeff's grin was taking over his whole face. He couldn't stop it and wasn't trying. He watched the boy test his own weight, and a quiet thought slid in under the noise. The wish hadn't made anyone new. There was no stranger in the living room. It was the same someone who'd been there the whole time, who argued about the playoffs and read the book on the side table and waited by the door. The wish had just handed him a different set of hands. Biscuit let go of the couch. Stood. Swayed. Stayed up. "Two legs is so much easier than I thought," he said, amazed. "You guys make it look hard. You guys are so dramatic about it." His hip twitched. He looked over his shoulder. His hip twitched again. "I keep trying to wag. There's nothing there. It's like reaching for a step that's not there." "You'll get used to it," Alicia said. "I don't want to get used to it, I liked it." Then his face changed, and Jeff saw the worry arrive all at once. Biscuit turned his head, closed his eyes, and breathed in through his nose. Long and slow. His eyes snapped open. "Yogi had eggs," he said. "Over easy." Yogi was quiet for a moment. "That was three days ago." A grin split Biscuit's face so wide it looked like it hurt. "Still got it." He turned toward the kitchen. "And there's a bag of chips open in the pantry that somebody said they didn't open." "I have no idea what you're talking about," said Alicia, who had opened the chips. "You could've wished me switchable." He looked down at his hands, then back at Jeff, and the grin didn't leave, but something rueful sat down next to it. "Human and dog. Whenever I wanted." Jeff opened his mouth, closed it, and pointed at him. "Yeah," he admitted. "That would've been the smarter wish." "Okay," Alicia said, and clapped once, and the whole house seemed to change gears. "Weapons. Stuff. Now." "Attic," Jeff said, already moving. "Attic!" "Do I need clothes?" Biscuit called, following them down the hall with the quilt dragging behind him like a royal train. "YES," Jeff said. "Obviously. Stay away from me until you have pants." "Whose pants?" Jeff yanked down the attic ladder. Alicia was up it in four quick steps, her head and shoulders vanishing into the dusty dark, and then her voice drifted down, flat with realization. "It's not up here." "What do you mean it's not up here?" "We moved it all after the raccoon thing." "What raccoon thing?" "The raccoon thing, Jeff." Jeff closed his eyes briefly as the memory of the raccoon thing arrived. "Bedroom." "Bedroom!" Alicia came down the ladder fast and cracked the top of her head on the frame of the hatch on the way. It made a real sound, a solid wooden thunk.

"Huh," she said, mildly, and kept going. Jeff's own scalp prickled in sympathy, a reflex for a kind of hurt she'd never have to collect on. He'd been married to her for years, and he still flinched every single time. In the bedroom, Alicia dove into the closet and came out with an armful of red-and-white fabric, which she lobbed past Jeff into the hallway. "Biscuit! Those are Jeff's pajamas I shrunk in the dryer." "That's where those went," Jeff said. "They went to a better place." "They were my good pajamas." "And now they're his good pajamas." From the hallway came the sounds of a boy fighting pajama pants for the first time in his life and losing several early rounds. Jeff pulled a hoodie out of his dresser and tossed it out the door without looking. "And that." "This smells like you," Biscuit called. "It's my hoodie." "It's nice. It's just a lot." Biscuit reappeared in the doorway wearing pajama pants that stopped a few inches above his ankles, a hoodie that went down to the middle of his thighs, and the fiercely dignified expression of someone who knows exactly how he looks and has decided to be above it. The drawstring hung loose. The waistband was already sliding. Alicia crossed the room, knelt, and tied the drawstring in a firm double knot. "There. Now they'll stay up." "Thanks." He peered down at the knot. "How'd you do that so fast? Fingers are hard." "Practice." Biscuit wiggled all ten of his and looked at them with deep suspicion. The bag wasn't under the bed, so it was in the basement, and the basement was dark, because the bulb at the bottom of the stairs had been dead for a month and a half and both of them had decided, independently and without discussion, that it was the other one's job. Halfway down the stairs, the tattoo on the back of Jeff's neck woke up. It always did in the dark. A faint gold halo, glowing soft through the collar of his hoodie, and lower, behind the fabric over the right side of his stomach, the dim outline of a smiley face with a single red tear. Not bright. Just enough to see by if you didn't mind a little atmosphere. "Your neck's on," Alicia said. "I know my neck's on." "I'm just saying, you're very easy to find down here." "Find the bag." She found the bag. It was nothing to look at. A cloth sack the size of a pillowcase, with thin shoulder straps that had been repaired twice with thread that didn't match. Alicia shrugged it on, slid her whole arm into it up to the shoulder, and started naming things. "Healing shards." Her hand came out holding a velvet pouch that clinked, and she tucked it into her hoodie pocket. Arm back in. "Coins. Rope." A coil of rope came out. She looked at it and put it back. "Rope." Another coil came out. "Why do we have so much rope?" "You said rope is always useful." "I did say that." She put the rope back. "Why did you listen to me." Jeff dragged a heavy wooden box off the bottom shelf and flipped the lid. Crystal shards lay inside on old towels, broken pieces of a dozen different formations, each one and each of their auras faintly glowing its own color in the dark: amber, frost-blue, a sullen red, a green so bright it looked fake. He started filling his pockets, but he did it the way he'd learned to, holding each piece up against his own finger first. Anything shorter than that was just a very pretty paperweight. He knew because he had a

drawer full of very pretty paperweights. "Red," he muttered. "Blue. Blue. Too short. Too short. Why did I keep this one, it's a pebble." "Sentimental value," Alicia said from inside the bag. "It doesn't do anything." "That's what makes it sentimental." The sword and the staff lived in the shed, because Alicia had decided a long time ago that blades and ice didn't belong in the same house where people slept. They went out the back door at a dead sprint, across the yard, through the long grass, and Jeff wrenched the shed door open so hard it bounced off the wall and nearly closed on him again. Alicia's staff hung on two pegs on the left wall: pale, smooth with a knot of blue-white crystal that breathed cold into the air around it. She took it down and spun it once, a quick, familiar flourish, and frost bloomed across the shed window in a thin fern pattern. Jeff's sword hung on the right, in a plain black sheath. He wrapped his hand around the grip, and the blade drank from him. It always did, first thing. A thread of warmth pulled out of his palm and up into the steel, patient and hungry, like something waking up and reaching for breakfast. "Easy," Jeff told it, and buckled it on. "You'll eat later." "You talk to your sword," Alicia said. "You talk to your bag." "My bag listens." When they turned around, Biscuit was standing in the shed doorway in his too-short pajamas and his too-long hoodie, and he'd found shoes somewhere, and they were Alicia's. "I'm coming," he said. "Right?" "No," Jeff said. "I have magic. And I have a nose. I can smell a dragon from—" "Everyone can smell that dragon, bud. It's the size of a church." "I'm fast." "You were fast on four legs. Your two legs are about twelve minutes old." Jeff put a hand on top of the kid's head. He had to reach up to do it now, a little, and that was going to take some getting used to. "Stay here." Biscuit stared at him. "Did you just tell me to stay?" Jeff heard it the same instant everyone else did. "...In the human way," he said. "Guard the house," Jeff said, recovering what little dignity he had left. "Watch the TV. If anything weird happens, remember it." "Everything on that TV is weird." "Then remember the weirdest stuff." Biscuit looked like he wanted to keep arguing. Then his eyes went to Alicia, fully armed and practically vibrating, and to Jeff, whose irises were still blazing neon yellow, and something grown-up passed over his face for just a moment, and he let it go. "I gotta show my friends," he said instead, a little wistfully. "They're not gonna believe this." "IS IT STILL GOING?" Jeff yelled toward the house, forgetting for a second where Biscuit was standing. Biscuit, directly in front of him, winced and put his hands over his ears. "Yes. And ow. It's still going." They found Yogi in the backyard, standing in the sun beside the shed with his hands folded behind his back, exactly where nobody had left him. Alicia hurried across the grass. "Can't Jeff just wish us over there?" "Can't wish you anywhere," Jeff said. "Only me. It's a teleport."

"He's right," Biscuit said from the back steps. He had the book from the side table open in both hands, and he was turning the pages with his thumbs with an expression of pure, private joy. "'Any wish to teleport a conscious thinking existence is not able to be granted, except regarding teleporting oneself.' Page—" he turned another page just to do it again, "—dude. Pages are so easy with thumbs." "So we do a portal," Alicia said. "We do a portal." Jeff turned to Yogi, and all at once the rush went out of him and something quieter came in behind it. "This is the last one," he said. "I know." "You were a good genie." "I was a great genie. I stood in the woods, flew upside down, and didn't hit anybody who didn't have it coming." Yogi tipped his head toward the house. "Good luck, you guys," Yogi said, and meant it. Jeff faced the empty patch of grass between the shed and the fence. "Yogi. I wish for a magical portal to appear in my backyard that goes to that battle that's on TV." Light gathered in the air beside the shed. It didn't crack or split. It built up in layers, like frost racing across a windowpane, until an oval taller than the shed door stood humming in the grass, glowing the hot, dusty orange of sandstone in afternoon sun. Through it, blurred like a city behind a shower door, Jeff could make out pillars and glare and, somewhere in the middle of it, movement much too big to be a person. He turned to say something. The grass where Yogi had been standing was already springing back up. No flash. No goodbye. Just an old man in a cardigan, and then no old man in a cardigan. Jeff's pocket felt lighter, and when he patted it, it was empty. The cyan die was gone too, off to wherever those went when their work was done, somewhere so far away that the word "far" gave up trying. "Bye, Yogi," Jeff said to the empty grass. "I liked him," Biscuit said quietly from the steps. "Yeah. Me too." Alicia bounced on the balls of her feet, staff in hand, bag strapped tight. "Ready?" Jeff looked at her. At the open glow of the portal humming by the shed that had been leaning toward their house for as long as they'd lived there. At the kid on the back steps, all long legs and borrowed shoes and hair the color of his old coat, holding the book in both hands like a trophy. "Little bro," he said, pointing. "House." "House," Biscuit agreed. "Bring me back a dragon tooth!" "No promises!" Alicia called. Jeff was grinning when he stepped through, leading with one leg, the way you ease into cold water. Alicia went right behind him. The portal hummed on in the backyard, patient and orange. Biscuit went back inside, because the house was his job now. The living room felt bigger with nobody in it. He sat down on the rug, and then, remembering he didn't have to, got up and sat on the couch like a person, and then slid back down onto the rug anyway because the rug was where he watched TV. Some things weren't about bodies. On the screen, the canyon went on. The dragon's plates stood up in a new pattern. The armored man ducked a sheet of fire, rolled, came up, and slammed his fist against his chest plate twice. Then, at the edge of the picture, near the canyon wall, a small orange glow blinked on, and two tiny figures stepped out of it. "That's them," Biscuit said to nobody. "That's them." He shuffled closer on his knees until his nose was a foot from the glass. Biscuit's hip twitched, reaching for a tail that wasn't there.

(Biscuit didn't turn into an actual human being, Biscuit's dog form avatar was turned into a human form avatar.)

Chapter 4: Joining the Battle The air shimmered with heat waves rising from the sandstone formations that dominated the harsh landscape. Massive pillars of weathered rock jutted skyward like the fingers of buried titans, their surfaces carved smooth by wind and sand. The ground beneath was a mixture of compacted sand and exposed bedrock, cracked and broken in places where tectonic forces had reshaped the terrain. Scattered across the canyon floor, far apart from one another, glass-like polygonal crystals rose out of the sandstone. No two formations resembled each other. One near the canyon's mouth stood taller than a man, tinted deep orange with darker orange twisting through its interior. Another, a hundred yards off, was barely knee-high, colorless and clear as ice, studded with small polygonal sub-growths. A third, alone atop a ridge in the distance, glowed faintly green from somewhere inside itself. They sat in the landscape like they had simply decided to be there. Exiting the magical portal leg first, Jeff, then Alicia, stepped onto the terrain. The sound that hit them first was deafening—the roar of combat, the crash of magic against scale and stone, the ground-shaking impacts of a massive creature in battle. Before them, perhaps two hundred yards distant, an enormous dragon dominated the battlefield. Its body was a fortress of armor plating, and its wing membranes were patterned in geometric whorls too regular to be natural. The dragon stood easily forty feet tall at the shoulder, its wingspan—when fully extended—capable of creating devastating windstorms. Already engaged with the beast was the armored figure they'd seen on the broadcast. The warrior wielded a battle axe, its haft short enough to control one-handed, its twin blades a dull black that didn't match the gleam of his enchanted armor at all. As they watched, he slammed his gauntleted fist against his chest plate twice in rapid succession, then swept the axe forward in a wide arc. Lightning erupted from the axe's blades, striking multiple points along the dragon's flank with thunderous cracks. Without pause, the armored warrior planted his feet shoulder-width apart, raised the axe overhead with both hands, then brought it down in a chopping motion—not striking anything physically, but completing the gesture. His entire body converted into crackling electricity that shot forward, reforming beside the dragon's foreleg where his axe appeared mid-swing, crashing against the armor plating. "We're doing this," Jeff said, his adrenaline rising. The irises of both his dark brown eyes turned glowing neon yellow, the pupils remaining black. Alicia nodded, her hands already moving through the beginning gestures of a spell preparation, her fingers splayed and rotating in small circles at her sides. Jeff performed his tongue simultaneous triple-fold. White feathered wings appeared attached to his back, the appendages flexing and spreading to their full span.

"Coordinated strikes on the wound points!" Alicia called out, already running toward a better vantage point, her eyes scanning the dragon's body for the spots where previous attacks had damaged its armor. The dragon's attention snapped toward the newcomers, its head swiveling with terrifying speed. Along its neck and shoulders, armor plate flaps snapped open into standing positions, arranging themselves into a precise, unmistakable pattern—to perform magic. The creature reared back its head, then opened its massive jaws. Jeff's eyes widened as he saw the glow building in the back of its throat. Jeff briefly locked his double-jointed pinky finger into a specific bent configuration. A powerful gust erupted around him, catching his wings and launching him skyward just as a torrent of blue flames scorched the ground where he'd been standing. He controlled the wind's direction using his left thumb like a joystick, guiding his aerial trajectory away from the flames. The fire didn't spray or billow the way fire should. It arrived in a disciplined column, the dragon corrected the aim mid-burn, and cut off its fire-attack the instant it missed—the economy of something that had made this exact attack countless times before. The armored warrior took advantage of the dragon's focus on Jeff. He dropped to one knee, pressed the flat of the axe against the ground, then drew a quick symbol in the air with his free index finger—a jagged line representing lightning. Electrical energy poured out of the black blades and coursed through the earth, traveling up through the dragon's legs and causing its muscles to spasm momentarily. Alicia reached the nearest crystal formation, a squat cluster of rose-tinted polygons jutting from the sandstone. No time to wonder what it did. She drew a large circle on it with her finger, placed both hands flat against its surface within the circle, fingers spread wide, and pushed hard on a facet angled toward the dragon. Light poured from the crystal's opposite side—not a beam, not a blast, but a soft rose-colored radiance that unfurled through the air in slow, shimmering ribbons, curling and drifting like festival streamers. It washed over the sandstone, over the rocks, over the raging dragon, painting the entire battlefield a gentle, glowing pink. Nothing burned. Nothing broke. It was, if anything, romantic. "...Okay. Not you," Alicia told the crystal, already running. The dragon tracked her movement through the rosy shimmer with one eye, and its plate flaps shifted into a new standing arrangement along its left shoulder. The air above Alicia condensed. Water—tons of it—materialized in a single suspended mass and dropped. She threw herself forward; the deluge hammered the ground behind her hard enough to crack stone, the flash flood chasing her heels through the fading pink glow. "Watch its plates!" she shouted, rolling behind an outcropping. Jeff soared upward, his wings beating in powerful strokes. Both his hands generated spheres of black energy courtesy of his cursed ring, each one pulsing with destructive potential. With immense throwing force, he launched the dark orbs directly at the dragon's eyes. The dragon twisted with surprising agility for its size, one wing sweeping up to intercept. The dark orbs

impacted against the geometric membrane, tearing twin holes through it in bursts of dissipating shadow. The dragon glanced at the damage dismissingly. "Its heart area has a barrier!" the armored warrior shouted. He pointed the axe toward the dragon's chest where a faint shimmer of transparent magical energy flickered whenever struck. "Aim for there!" Jeff adjusted his approach, diving lower. He locked his double-jointed ring finger on his left hand into a hooked position. The tattoo on the back of his neck—the halo—began glowing, the intensity increasing with the amount of magic building up. Frost originated from his hands and spread rapidly across the creature's back where fire attacks had superheated the armor, causing it to glow red-orange. He controlled the frost's spread using his left thumb like a joystick, directing it to cover the heated areas precisely. The sudden temperature change created stress fractures with audible cracking sounds. The dragon didn't flinch. It turned its head and looked at the frost crawling across its own back, quickly analyzing. The armored warrior didn't waste the opportunity. He raised the axe overhead, spinning it in three complete rotations, then pointed it directly at the frosted areas. His lips moved rapidly, speaking particular words—his audible utterance. Lightning streaked from the black blades, targeting each frosted section. The combination of thermal stress and electrical assault shattered portions of the dragon's armor plating, leaving several open wounds that wept ichor. Alicia sprinted to a new position, her breathing controlled despite the exertion. She found another crystal formation, this one tinted dark blue and purple, half again her height. Another gamble. She drew a large circle on it with her finger, placed both hands on it within the circle, and pressed hard on a facet angled toward the dragon's head. This time the gamble paid: from the crystal's far side, water erupted in a twisting stream, crossing the distance and breaking against the dragon's snout, sheeting across its eyes and nostrils in a clinging film. She shifted the angle of her pressure, walking the stream to follow its head as it moved. Jeff flew in close, his sword drawn from its sheath at his side. The blade absorbed magic from him, becoming magical. He briefly unlocked his ring finger and re-locked his double-jointed index finger on his left hand. As he slashed with his blade, he exhaled sharply through his teeth—a quick "tssst" sound —and wind energy flowed through the metal, extending the cutting edge with compressed air. The enhanced strike bit deep into one of the open wounds on the dragon's flank. The dragon roared—but it was not a cry. It was a weapon. The sound arrived as a physical wall, precisely aimed, battering Jeff end over end through the air. Beneath the roar, plate flaps along its spine were already standing up in a third configuration, and its exhale kept going, the roar sliding seamlessly into a shrieking pressure of compressed wind that Jeff barely rode out. The creature planted all four legs wide, claws digging into stone, and began gathering power. "Get clear! It's charging something big!" Alicia warned, abandoning the crystal as she prepared to move. The armored warrior slammed his free fist against the axe's haft, then spread his arms wide while stomping his right foot. A barrier of crackling lightning poured out of the weapon and formed in front of him, a defensive lattice of electrical energy.

Deep in the dragon's throat, light was building, brighter with each passing second. The plates along its entire body lay flat and locked, streamlining it, bracing it. "MOVE!" the armored warrior bellowed. A massive beam of concentrated blue and cyan energy erupted from the creature's maw, directly in Jeff's flight path. The air itself seemed to tear apart from the sheer destructive power channeling through space. Jeff's eyes widened. Too close. Moving too fast. No time to— Lightning struck him. The armored warrior, had noticed the danger Jeff was in, and had pointed the axe directly at Jeff, traced a quick zigzag pattern in the air with his other hand's index finger, and shouted a single sharp word. The bolt hit Jeff square in the chest, not to harm but to launch. The electrical force flung Jeff violently sideways, his body tumbling through the air away from the beam's path. The dragon's beam scorched through the space where Jeff had been a fraction of a second before, the heat so intense that the air shimmered and distorted in its wake. The beam continued past, striking a sandstone formation in the distance and reducing it to molten slag. Jeff crashed hard into the canyon wall, the impact knocking the wind from his lungs. He slid down several feet before catching himself with his wings, breathing hard, his chest aching from both the lightning strike and the collision. The irises of his eyes shifted from glowing neon yellow to glowing orange. "You... you could've warned me!" Jeff shouted at the armored warrior, anger rising in his voice. "No time for warnings in battle!" the warrior called back, already moving to engage the dragon again. "You're alive. Focus!" The dragon's attention fixed on Jeff, its massive head tilting with what might have been amusement. "Fragile creatures." Pushing off from the wall, Jeff locked his double-jointed middle finger into position. Flames erupted from his hands, channeling through his sword's blade. He directed the fire's trajectory with his left thumb, sending a spiraling column of flame toward the dragon's face. The dragon simply closed its eyes. The armored eyelids deflected the flames harmlessly. "Fire took my eyes once. Several bodies ago," the dragon remarked, opening them again. "I corrected that." Alicia reached another crystal formation, this one shot through with bright yellow. She used her finger to draw a circle on it, pressed both palms against it within the circle, fingers splayed, and pushed hard on a facet angled low, toward the dragon's rear left leg. A jagged arc of yellow electricity leapt from the

crystal's far side, streaked across the canyon floor, and struck the limb—current coursing up through it, every muscle clenching at once. The crystal hummed under her hands as she held the pressure and the angle, feeding the arc. The dragon's leg buckled, its weight shifting. The armored warrior saw the opening. He gripped the axe with both hands, held it horizontal at chest level, then thrust it forward while speaking three sharp syllables. A massive bolt of lightning tore from the black blades into the ground beneath the dragon's compromised leg. The earth exploded upward in a shower of rock and electrical discharge. The dragon's leg gave way beneath it, and the creature adjusted, redistributing its weight across three limbs. Jeff flew in close again, his orange eyes blazing, slashing and stabbing with his sword, the fiery blade now cutting deep into an exposed wound. Ichor sprayed across his arms and chest. The dragon's tail whipped around with devastating speed, the movement creating a sonic boom. Jeff barely managed to pull up, the tail passing inches beneath his feet. The wind from its passage spun him in a complete rotation before he regained control. "Jeff! Its left wing joint!" Alicia shouted, pointing. "There's a gap in the armor!" Jeff adjusted his flight path, but the dragon was faster than he anticipated. It did a massive swipe through the air, talons extended. Jeff twisted, his wings folding partially, but one talon caught his left wing's edge. Feathers scattered—some white, some now black. Pain lanced through Jeff's wing. He dropped several feet before recovering, his flight now slightly uneven. His eyes flickered, the orange glow intensifying, and more black feathers began appearing among the white. He locked his double-jointed thumb into a specific configuration while keeping his middle finger locked. The tattoo on his stomach—the yellow outlined smiley face with the red tear drop—began glowing. Dark energy and fire combined in his free hand, swirling together into a volatile sphere. With immense throwing force, he launched it directly at the dragon's wing joint. The attack struck true, exploding against the gap in the armor. The joint gave with a wet crack, and the wing dropped, hanging at an awkward angle. The dragon moved. Not toward Jeff, not toward the warrior—it turned and strode across the battlefield with sudden purpose, walking straight past two crystal formations without a glance, past a third, heading unerringly for a distant formation near the canyon wall—a towering mass twice the height of a man, pulsing with orange light. The armored warrior went pale behind his visor. "It knows this valley!" The dragon pressed its foreclaw against the orange formation and dragged one talon across the surface in a swift, practiced circle. It pressed a talon within the circle, angling with surgical precision. A massive beam of glowing orange energy erupted from the opposite side of the formation, sweeping across the battlefield in a horizontal arc. Alicia dove behind a rock outcropping as the beam passed overhead, superheating the air. The armored warrior converted to his electrical form, dispersing into crackling energy that scattered in multiple

directions before reforming in a safer location, the axe reforming in his grip with him. Jeff flew upward hard, wings straining. The beam passed beneath him, close enough that he felt his skin burning from the radiant heat. Several more feathers—now a mix of white and black—singed and fell away. His eyes shifted again. One iris glowed orange, the other glowed red. The dragon turned its massive head toward Jeff. "Perhaps I should have devoured you first." Jeff locked his double-jointed pinky and ring finger together in a complex configuration. Wind and darkness combined around him, the tattoo on the back of his neck—the halo—began glowing intensely, the ink blazing with light. His wind and darkness combination creating a vortex of cutting air and shadow energy. He directed it with both thumbs now, for more precise control. The vortex slammed into the dragon's face, the wind blades cutting into its snout, the darkness corroding where it touched. The dragon's head snapped back from the force, and several scales cracked and fell away. Ichor ran freely down its jaw and it kept its eyes on Jeff. Alicia saw her chance. She sprinted to a broad, red formation she hadn't yet tried, drew a large circle, pressed her hands against it within the circle, and pushed hard while dragging her left hand downward across its surface. The crystal answered with fire—not a beam, but a roaring, expanding cone of flame that howled out of the formation's far side like a furnace door thrown open. She angled it by adjusting her hands, walking the inferno across the dragon's damaged snout precisely where Jeff's attack had exposed flesh. The flesh charred deep. The dragon's answering roar shook the canyon and crumbled smaller rock formations—but it was aimed, a concussive counterattack rolling over Alicia's cover, not a sound of suffering. Code doesn't suffer agony. The armored warrior charged forward, the axe raised. He leaped high, spinning in midair while tracing a circle with the axe's blade. As he descended, he brought the weapon down in a powerful overhead strike enhanced with lightning. The black blades bit into the dragon's shoulder, electrical energy coursing through the wound. The dragon thrashed—its body jerking where the current seized its muscles—and its tail swept in a wide arc, catching the armored warrior and sending him crashing into a canyon wall with enough force to crack the stone. He slumped to the ground, struggling to rise, the axe still locked in his fist. "Two left," the dragon said. Jeff's eyes changed again—both irises now glowing red, the pupils still black. More of his wing feathers had turned black, all of one wing's feathers now black. "Alicia, get him to safety!" Jeff commanded, his voice tight with barely controlled rage. Alicia ran toward the fallen warrior, but the dragon shifted its bulk, blocking her path. The runes on Jeff's forearm spread further up his arm—new runes appearing that hadn't been there

before, crawling across his skin like living script. He unlocked all his finger configurations and locked his double-jointed fingers in a different, more complex pattern that required both hands working in coordination. Massive spikes of ice erupted from the ground beneath the dragon's feet, piercing up through the gaps in its armor. The creature's limbs locked and shuddered as the spikes ran them through—its body being physically pinned. Jeff wasn't finished. He adjusted his thumb positions while maintaining the finger locks, and lightning—not his normal magic, but something darker, tinged with shadow—struck down from above, hitting every ice spike simultaneously. The corrupted electricity locked the dragon's muscles against the piercing cold. It broke free from several of the ice spikes anyway, tearing its own flesh to do it, ichor flowing freely from the wounds. The dragon's eyes narrowed. Its plate flaps rose along its haunches in yet another arrangement, and it swung its tail toward a green-and-yellow tinted crystal formation nearby—another one it clearly knew. The tail's tip drew a swift circle against the crystal's surface, then pressed within it at an angle. From the formation's far side erupted a hissing torrent of green-yellow liquid, aimed not at Jeff but at Alicia. Alicia threw herself to the side, rolling behind cover and it missed her by inches, stone dissolved into a steaming, collapsing ruin. Jeff's eyes shifted again—the white parts of his eyes turned black, the irises remaining glowing red. Jeff was no longer in control of his own body. Jeff's body moved with inhuman precision and speed. He dove straight down toward the dragon, his wings—now completely black—folded tight against his back. At the last second, he spread his wings wide, creating a massive gust that kicked up sand and debris, temporarily blinding the dragon. He landed on the dragon's back, between its shoulder blades. His sword plunged down into one of the open wounds, and he channeled everything through it—fire, ice, wind, lightning, and darkness all at once. The magical energies poured into the dragon's body, wreaking havoc on its internal organs. The dragon bucked and twisted, trying to dislodge him. Jeff's face was smiling. He wrenched the sword sideways, expanding the wound. The dragon's movements grew more urgent— the fast, focused urgency of a mind watching its vessel fail and calculating what could still be done. Alicia, seeing the dragon distracted, ran to the fallen armored warrior. She checked his breathing—still alive, but unconscious. She dragged him behind a larger rock formation, out of immediate danger. Jeff pulled his sword free and drove it into a different wound, this one closer to the dragon's spine. He unlocked his finger configuration and formed a new one with just his right hand, his left maintaining his grip on the sword. The black runes on his forearm now covered his entire left arm. A sphere of pure shadow formed in his right hand, dense enough that it seemed to pull light into itself. He pressed it against the wound where his sword pierced, and the darkness flowed into the dragon's

body like poison. The dragon's movements became more frantic—not desperate, but ruthless, spending its failing body like currency. It rolled onto its side, trying to crush Jeff against the ground. Jeff's wings beat once, powerfully, launching him clear. He hovered in the air, his black-and-red eyes fixed on the creature. His sword was still embedded in the dragon's back. "Fragile creature," Jeff's avatar said. He locked all ten of his double-jointed fingers into a configuration so complex it looked painful. His tattoos that had glowed earlier now blazed with light—the halo on his neck, the "yellow outlined smiley face with the red tear drop" on his stomach. The air around Jeff darkened, shadows gathering from every direction. Lightning crackled through the shadows, purple and black instead of blue and white. Ice crystals formed in the air, each one wreathed in dark fire. Wind howled, carrying all these elements together into a swirling maelstrom of destructive power. The dragon dragged itself toward the nearest green crystal formation, one foreclaw stretching out, a talon already beginning the curve of a circle against its surface— Jeff brought both hands down in a chopping motion. The maelstrom descended. Everything—shadow, lightning, ice, fire, and wind—slammed into the dragon simultaneously. The creature's remaining armor shattered like glass. Its scales peeled away. Its flesh burned and froze and electrified and cut all at once. When the maelstrom dissipated, the dragon lay still, its body a ruined mess of torn flesh and broken plating, the talon resting an inch short of completing its circle. Jeff hovered in the air, breathing heavily. His eyes remained black with red irises, his wings completely black. His tattoos that had been glowing still glowed, though the light was beginning to fade. He descended slowly, landing on the ground near the dragon's head. He walked forward, his movements being controlled. The dragon's eye opened slightly, its vast body barely clinging to life. "You..." Jeff raised his hand, fingers beginning to form another configuration. Jeff's breathing slowed. The black in the whites of his eyes began to recede, color returning gradually. The red glow in his irises flickered. Jeff's hand lowered.

Jeff's eyes returned fully to glowing orange, the black receding from the whites of his eyes. His wings began showing white feathers again among the black. Able to control his own body again, Jeff turned away from the dragon. "Jeff!" Alicia stepped out from behind the rock formation, leaving the unconscious warrior safely concealed. Jeff's wings trembled. His eyes shifted from glowing orange to glowing neon yellow, then began to dim. Jeff's legs buckled. Alicia rushed forward, catching him before he fell. "I've got you," she said, supporting his weight. "I've got you." Jeff's eyes completed their return to non-glowing dark brown. His wings—now half white feathers, half black feathers—drooped with exhaustion. "The warrior..." Jeff managed to say. "He's alive. Unconscious, but alive," Alicia assured him. The armored warrior groaned from behind the rock formation. Alicia helped Jeff over to him, both of them exhausted... ("Jeff's eyes automatically turn the "glowing colors" ""neon yellow" and/or red" under particular conditions. Jeff's eyes, as soon as Jeff's adrenaline level is 25% above Jeff's usual adrenaline level, automatically "turn ""glowing neon yellow"" and remain that way" and then turn "non-glowing dark brown" as soon as Jeff is relaxed, it's one of the wishes Jeff had made in one of his lives because he always wanted glowing neon yellow eyes, his wish granted by a wish-granter. Ever since Jeff got the cursed ring, Jeff's eyes, when he gets somewhat angry, automatically "turn from ""glowing "neon yellow"" to ""glowing "orange""" and remain that way" and then turn "non-glowing dark brown" as soon as Jeff is relaxed, Jeff's eyes, when he gets a little more angry, automatically "turn "glowing "orange" to ""glowing "red"" and remain that way" and then turn "non-glowing dark brown" as soon as Jeff is relaxed, and then Jeff's eyes, when he gets "completely angry", automatically "turn ""glowing "red" with the white part of Jeff's eyes turned black"" and remain that way" and then turn "non-glowing dark brown" as soon as Jeff is relaxed. Jeff's eyes, when he is ""almost completely" angry", automatically ""glow different colors, one glowing "neon yellow" and one glowing "red"" and remain that way" and then turn "non-glowing dark brown" as soon as Jeff is relaxed. When Jeff is ""almost completely" angry", ""more runes automatically start spreading up Jeff's left arm and then the runes remain" and then such extra runes "unspread and vanish" as soon as Jeff is relaxed", and Jeff's wings, when Jeff is "completely angry", automatically ""change from white wings to black wings" and remain that way" and then turn to white wings as soon as Jeff is relaxed, and Jeff's wings, when Jeff is ""almost completely" angry", automatically "change to """one random wing black and one random wing white" or "a random mix of "black and white" wing feathers on both wings""" and remain that way" and then turn to white wings as soon as Jeff is relaxed. While Jeff is not angry, ""the whites of Jeff's eyes" and "Jeff's eyes' pupils"" "always remain normal ""unless, in the future, ""Jeff wishes for

otherwise in some way" whereby such gets “granted via a wish-granter"”" or "unless, in the future, Jeff's eyes get changed by other magical means". Jeff's cursed ring is simply one of "such cursed objects that parts of "Eric's sections of information" explain about".)

Chapter 5: Corwin and Rook The armored warrior's name, once Alicia pried it out of him between labored breaths, was Corwin. He said it like he expected them to recognize it. When they didn't, something in his shoulders sagged with the specific disappointment of a man who'd built an entire highlight reel in his head and just found out nobody was watching. "You've never heard of me," he said. It wasn't a question. It was grief. "We just watched you get backhanded into a canyon wall," Jeff said, still sitting because standing seemed like a personal attack on his body right now. "I feel like that's a pretty good introduction on its own." "I softened it up first." "Sure you did." "I did! Look at it!" Corwin gestured weakly at the dragon's ruined bulk, forty feet of shattered plating cooling in the desert heat like a demolished cathedral. Ichor pooled black and slow beneath it, already crusting at the edges where the air met it. "You think it just decided to lose?" "I think it looked at us and calculated that this was, statistically, its worst day," Alicia said, kneeling to check the burn along Corwin's ribs where his armor had buckled. "Which, respectfully, might not have anything to do with you." Corwin opened his mouth to argue and then apparently remembered he had two broken ribs and closed it again. Jeff wasn't listening anymore. He was looking at the dragon. It hadn't gone still the way a killed thing goes still — the sudden absence, the weight dropping out of a body like someone unplugged it. This was slower. Its remaining eye, half-lidded, tracked nothing, but it hadn't glazed. Its chest, what was left of it, rose and fell in increments too small to be called breathing and too regular to be called anything else. Dying, if it was dying, was taking its sweet time about it, like a phone battery insisting it still had six percent left through pure spite. "It talked like it's done this before," Jeff said. "It walked straight to the right crystal every time like it had notes."

"It could be a wish," Corwin offered, wincing as he sat up. "Somebody wished a legendary creature into existence at some point. Won't die permanently any more than the rest of us do." The dragon's eye rolled, slow as a tide, and fixed on Jeff. "You," it said. The word came out wet, dragged over broken things in its throat. "I remember cursed possession like yours." "I get that a lot," Jeff said. Its eye slid shut, and this time it stayed shut, and the small increments of movement in its chest went from small to smaller to nothing, the way a held breath finally, quietly, gives up. It simply stopped, the way a machine stops when the last charge bleeds out of it, and the canyon held its silence like it was used to holding worse. Something dropped out of that silence at an angle no hawk would have attempted and no sane creature would have survived, cutting across the sun close enough that Jeff saw its shadow before he saw it — a hard bank, a violent snap of wings that kicked up a fan of grit into his face, and then it was standing on the dragon's largest surviving horn like it had booked the spot in advance. Bird wasn't quite the right word, though it was doing its best. Two feet of it, maybe a little more, feathers the restless black-teal of oil sitting on water, shifting color when it moved like it hadn't fully decided what color it wanted to commit to. Threaded through the black were narrow seams of gold, not painted on and not natural either — too clean, too deliberate, like filigree pressed into metal rather than grown. Its eyes were a pale storm-gray that didn't belong on anything with feathers, and they missed nothing, least of all the fact that everyone present was staring at it. It looked down at the dragon's corpse with the specific unimpressed air of someone arriving after the meeting had already wrapped. "You started without me," it said. The voice came out crisp and fully formed, every consonant landing exactly where it aimed to land — nothing like the wet drag the dragon had spent its last words on. "You weren't invited to the part that mattered," Corwin said, grinning through what that grin clearly cost him. "You were invited to the flying-around part." "I was extensively flying around. At altitude. Some of us appreciate a good canyon." It hopped once, resettled, and turned that gray gaze on Jeff and Alicia with open, unhurried assessment. "New faces. Wonderful. More witnesses." "That's a wish-granter," Jeff said, in the tone of a man doing math he didn't like the answer to. "That's your wish-granter," Alicia said to Corwin. "Still on duty," the bird said, dipping its head in a bow that somehow communicated total formality and zero actual respect at the same time. "Two wishes down. One outstanding. Assuming he doesn't decide to sit on it, in which case I fly around some more and eventually go home." "Genie," Jeff said, testing the word.

"Wish-granter," the bird corrected, without heat, in the exhausted cadence of someone who had corrected this exact word more times than he cared to count. "Genie implies lamps. I have never once lived in a lamp. Call me whatever helps you sleep, but I reserve the right to sigh about it." "And before anyone asks," Corwin said, holding up a hand, "no. He's not the reason I have any of this." He rapped a knuckle against his cracked breastplate. "Armor's mine. Axe is mine. The lightning thing is mine, six years running, long before this one showed up. He's granted me exactly two things in the whole of our acquaintance, and neither of them put a single joint of this armor on my body." "Name's Rook. If you need something to call me that isn't an insult to my intelligence," the bird said. "You're new," Jeff said. "Recently summoned, I mean." "This morning," Corwin said. "Found the object two towns back. Carved thing, about the size of a walnut. I touched it and there he was, mid-sentence, like he'd already been having the conversation and just hadn't had anyone to have it with." "I had been having the conversation the whole time," Rook said. "Standby doesn't prevent socializing." "How long do you get him for?" Alicia asked. "Eleven days," Rook said, "unless I die first, or he dies first, or he spends the last wish first, whichever gets there sooner. Then duty's over, the little walnut packs itself up and relocates several trillion miles in whatever direction feels appropriately dramatic, and somebody on some other planet gets to find a very lucky-looking rock." "And the wishes he's spent," Jeff said, "so far—" "First one," Corwin said, with the specific pride of a man who had rehearsed this speech and was thrilled to finally give it, "was worded exactly right. I wished for a magical livestream showing what I am seeing and hearing right now to be publicly accessible through a most viewed Sports Smart TV app. Precise. Airtight." "And the second," Rook said, "was, somehow, even more precise." "'I wish for that livestream to continue following me wherever I go for the next 24 hours,'" Corwin said. "I workshopped that for four minutes before I said it out loud. Some people wing their wishes. I do not wing my wishes." "You're currently being watched," Jeff said slowly, "by an unknown number of strangers, on television, on this planet." "Sports bars have odds on whether I survive the day," Corwin said, not without some satisfaction. "I checked before we left the last town. I was fourteen-to-one against. I intend to make several people very rich by staying alive out of spite alone." "You look like you walked out of a storybook and never walked back in," Alicia said to Rook, studying him with the same open, unhurried curiosity she'd have aimed at a rare stone, and which would have

been rude aimed at a person. "I wasn't granted into existence looking like this, if that's the theory." Rook tilted his head, considering how much of the answer was worth giving. "I was a plain gray fledgling once, a very long time ago, in a body that had nothing gold or black-teal about it whatsoever. This is several centuries and a great deal of editing later. Every life I've lived, I've been small enough and biological enough to set off objects sized for creatures like me — and every time one summoned a wish-granter for me, I spent at least one of my own three wishes on myself. A little more color here. A little more precision to the voice there. Nobody wishes a plain gray bird into existing this loudly. I did that. Slowly. Over and over. It's the only kind of vanity project available to something that keeps dying and coming back." "Coming back as what?" Jeff asked. "Me. It's not reincarnation in this universe. Whenever I died, I was given options, same as anyone gets — and I've made the same one more times than I can comfortably count." Rook's gray eyes didn't waver. "Option Three. Almost every time. Doing standby duty, eventually summoned, granted somebody's wishes, sent back, leave eventually, another life, another death, and options. I've done this often enough that Corwin here is not even memorable competition for strangest grantee I've had." "That's insulting," Corwin said. "It's accurate. You're merely above average." "The voice," Alicia said. "It's clearer than his." She nodded at Corwin. "That wish changed my life," Rook admitted, something almost like satisfaction in it. "Perfectly clear speech. 100% worth the wish. And while we're handing out the practical version of events rather than the flattering one: anyone within about thirty-seven feet of me gets the same courtesy, whether they asked for it or not. Whenever someone speaks to me and whenever I speak to them, the speech is magically translated translated into one's own language in real-time. It runs the whole time I'm active. I don't turn it off, and I can't turn it up. Professional courtesy of the position." "Handy," Jeff said. "Occasionally," Rook said, "it's the only interesting part of the job." They found the town by evening, which was less a discovery than a surrender — the mirrored maze of the forest kept redirecting them toward it with the polite insistence of a mall cop, and eventually Jeff decided that fighting a labyrinth's opinion about where he should be standing was a losing use of an already exhausting day. Rook rode the last mile perched on Corwin's pauldron, silent, watching the treeline with the specific attentiveness of something that had learned, across several centuries, exactly how often trouble waited at the edge of a forest for people who assumed they were done for the day. The town called itself Emberglass, according to a sign made of what looked like fused glass shards, their auras still faintly luminous, also luminous from whatever crystal had been ground down to make it. It was smaller than Jeff expected and busier than made sense for its size — stalls selling shard-cut jewelry that pulsed faintly when touched, a blacksmith reforging a blade that occasionally flickered translucent for no reason anyone bothered explaining, two kids racing each other on legs that weren't the legs they were born with, laughing in a way that suggested the new legs were, frankly, an upgrade.

Corwin, limping between them with his axe now serving as a cane, eyed the crowd like a man auditing a competitor's business. "This is one of those communities that grows up around a cluster of wishgranter-summoning objects. People migrate here because the odds are better. Somebody finds three wish-granters in a week, word spreads, suddenly you've got a town." He said it with the weary contempt of a man who considered wishing beneath him, which struck Jeff as rich coming from someone who fought dragons with a lightning axe for a hobby and no visible retirement plan. "You say that like you didn't grind your entire kit out of wishes." "That's different. I earned mine through struggle and sacrifice." "How many different wish-granters did it take?" "...We don't need to relitigate wishes." "For the record," Rook said, from the pauldron, without opening his eyes, "it was several. He's told me about several. Unprompted. Several times." Alicia, ignoring all three of them with the practiced ease of a woman who'd been married into this exact dynamic, had already drifted toward a stall where an older woman was laying out shards sorted by color with the reverence of someone arranging a wedding cake. "These are healing-crystal cuts," Alicia said, delighted, holding one up so the low sun came through it pale gold — and threw a matching gold across the very light tan of her own arm, a shade she liked to credit to a Cuban grandfather who'd spent sixty years insisting he had "fisherman's blood" like that was a documented ethnicity, and a Havanaborn mother who barely tanned at all no matter how long she stood in the sun. "Real ones. Look at the veining." "Freshest batch in three months," the woman said. "Crystal cluster two valleys over finally cycled out and reset. Testing a cluster's crystal yourself, before you know what it does, can sometimes trigger its aura to turn a part of you extremely heavy." She said this with the specific flatness of someone reciting a lesson she'd learned the hard way and intended to spare exactly one stranger from repeating. Jeff bought four shards, mostly because Alicia gave him a look that communicated, without a single word, that they were leaving with four shards whether he participated in the transaction or not. He was getting good at reading that look. It had saved him from at least one bad decision a week since they'd married. He scrubbed a hand back over his dark cornrows while he waited, dislodging a small cascade of canyon grit — the rows sat tight and even, and stopped a clean couple of inches short of his shoulders, not dropping past mid-neck. 6ft and slender with cornrows, he never changed that about himself — height from his Georgia-raised father's side, slenderness from his Chilean mother's side. It was while they were haggling — well, while Alicia was haggling and Jeff was providing color commentary nobody asked for — that he noticed the reading room. It sat at the town's center, open on all sides, roofed but wall-less, shelves built into the support posts. A dozen people sat inside on cushions that had clearly been replaced more than once, reading. Not idly. Studying. A kid no older than ten had a page open and was mouthing the words with the concentration of someone memorizing scripture.

"Every room has one of those," Alicia murmured, following his gaze. "Every house, every building. It's in Eric's rules. Reading material disclosing plenty of rules. I think that kid's read the same page eleven times and isn't going to stop until it makes sense, and I think eventually it's going to make sense." "Somebody should tell him some of it isn't for kids," Corwin said. "Somebody should tell you that too," Rook said, "and yet." They were three streets deeper into Emberglass, following a rumor about a map dealer, when Jeff started messing with his ring. "My ring is so weird." "Your ring's always been weird." "Weirder than weird. Weird-weird." Jeff flexed his hand, and the ring on his finger sat there being smugly cryptic the way it always did, offering exactly zero additional context. Corwin, several paces ahead and clearly done pretending he wasn't eavesdropping, stopped walking. Rook lifted his head off the pauldron a half-second before Corwin spoke, which Jeff noticed and filed away. "There's someone doing something weird near here," Corwin said. Jeff and Alicia both turned. "Where?" "There," Corwin said, pointing his axe toward an alley between a shuttered forge and a dye shop that smelled aggressively of crushed flowers. "That man is having a conversation with absolutely nobody, and he's using the specific hand gestures people use when a translated conversation is running a beat behind." He was right. A man stood in the alley's shadow, gesturing animatedly at empty air, occasionally pausing as if listening, his lips moving a half-second before sound would've caught up if there'd been any. "Translated conversation," Jeff repeated slowly, and looked at Rook. "I'm thirty-one feet away," Rook said, already doing the math out loud, wings half-lifting off the pauldron. "He's well within range. Whatever he's saying, whatever's answering him, it's coming through clean on both ends — which means somewhere in that alley there's something else nearby that qualifies as a listener. Or a wish-granter of its own. I'd need to be closer to tell you which, and I'd genuinely rather not be." "He's talking to somebody, maybe," Alicia said slowly. "Unless he's talking to something, maybe," Jeff said. The man in the alley finished his conversation, nodded once at the empty air like he was thanking someone for their time, and turned to leave — and stopped dead when he saw the three of them

watching him. Four, if the bird counted, and the way the man's eyes flicked to Rook and lingered a half-second too long suggested he counted. For a moment nobody moved. Somewhere behind them, the town went on being a town, oblivious — a child laughing, a hammer striking hot metal, the low murmur of people reading rules they didn't yet know were the walls of their world. The man's expression didn't do anything dramatic. He didn't flinch or bolt or reach for a weapon. He just looked, very briefly, like someone who'd been caught doing something he'd assumed no one nearby would ever be equipped to notice — and then, worse, like someone recalculating, in real time, exactly how much that assumption was about to cost him. Then he smiled, pleasant as a shopkeeper, and the smile didn't reach anywhere near his eyes. He turned and walked deeper into the alley — not running, not even hurrying, just a man keeping an appointment he had no intention of missing — and by the time Jeff's legs remembered they were allowed to move, the alley bent, and the man was already gone around the corner of it, unhurried the entire way, like he'd known exactly how many seconds of shock he had to work with and had spent every one of them on purpose. "I don't like him," Rook said, into the quiet that followed. "Nobody asked," Corwin said, already limping toward the alley's mouth, axe held like it weighed nothing at all anymore. "Nobody had to," Rook said. "I'm telling you anyway. Professional courtesy." To Be Continued.