The Newt and Demon

“I don’t see the other gods going for this plan,” Elrin said, folding his arms. Theo knew a giant, menacing tiger was somewhere around here, but he couldn’t see it. “And what makes you think I would care for such a position?”

Theo’s plan was pretty simple, actually. Checks were already in place to keep things in order, but the domain Khahar had been given was not expansive enough. The alchemist instead proposed a position that watched the gods directly. He would be a balance in their system, an impartial person who maintained order.

“This is just a planned idea,” Theo said, “an idea to get the system thinking about the way the gods work.”

“I have a relationship with the system in this world,” Elrin said, scratching his head. “Perhaps I can propose another alternative.”

“Well, if you decide to do something, let me know. Currently, I don’t believe there’s a way for mortals to pass into the systems domain, so you’ll need me to take you.”

“Yes, that’s not a bad idea.” Elrin said, “Let’s go now. And I can see what we can get away with.”

The giant tiger appeared from nowhere, padding over to Elrin and pushing against his chest.

“Right now?” Theo asked, looking around. “I mean, I guess I don’t have that much to do today. Why not? Let’s go.”

Wrapping his aura around the group, Theo plunged them into the void. Elrin did not respond at all as they vanished, and had even less of a reaction as they traveled through the darkness. The system’s small dot in the universe appeared, but the alchemist couldn’t take his attention away from studying his traveling companions. They were completely unaffected by the void, which was certainly strange. The space elves weren’t as affected because they had been exposed to void energy for so long, but this guy should have been different.

The group landed on the snowy field, and Elrin drew a deep breath. A ghost of a smile flashed across his face before he turned to Theo. “Stay here while I talk with the system. Trevor will keep you company.”

“The cat?” Theo asked, gesturing to the giant tiger beside him, “Okay, I guess.”

The dark tiger looked up at him and purred. Theo reached down reluctantly, scratching behind the beast’s ear. To his surprise, it turned its head, pushing into his hand as though to request more scratches. “Your friend is a little strange,” Theo said, pointing forward at the cloaked man who vanished behind a sheet of driving snow.

Trevor purred, yawning and stretching, which earned him some butt scratches along with the ear scratches. A blue light flooded the area as Elrin summoned the system. Theo couldn’t help but feel as though he were an insignificant part of it all. But that was his purpose, wasn’t it? The Dreamwalker’s job wasn’t to manage this; it was to move people around and keep the void in check.

“I’d rather not talk to the system,” Theo said, smiling as he figured out which spots Trevor preferred to be scratched. “That’s a lot of responsibility he has.”

Elrin spoke with the system for about an hour before he returned through the icy gale. Theo was freezing by this point and was eager to summon his aura to bring them back to the mortal plane. Throughout the trip, they were silent except for Trevor, who would purr and yawn for more pets. They finally landed back in front of the three dormitories, and the warmth of the Southlands Alliance washed over them.

“The system has agreed to a favorable deal,” Elrin said. Although he didn’t seem exactly happy about it.

“What exactly was the deal?” Theo asked.

“Not for you to know,” Elrin said, shaking his head. “Ivaran won’t be happy. But... Death was at the meeting. I’m surprised at how sane he seemed. The system even assured me that he had spent the past 60,000 years on this planet mending his mind and improving himself. I don’t know if I believe it, but the system doesn’t lie.”

“Can you tell me anything you two agreed on?” Theo asked.

Elrin looked to the sky and smiled to himself. “I believe you’ll be getting a notification soon enough. Until then, I’ll get back to my machinations. There are a few more things I need to set in order before the shards arrive.”

Before Theo could say anything else, the man vanished from before him. Whatever deal he had struck with the system must have been widespread. The only direct system message he received was one related to the nature of the world’s changing.

After Theo gawked at his new buildings for a while, he departed and went to the town hall to make a report about the new dormitories. Alise was happy with the numbers he gave her, claiming that they had enough extra housing to take care of the odd elves out. The town had needed a dormitory system for a while. They had handled overflow of citizens by frantically building new buildings until there was just about no space left for them in an organized neighborhood setting.

“I told you to do something, and you did it the same day,” Alise said.

“Hey, sometimes I have a clear enough schedule to get this stuff done.” Theo said, smiling at the woman. “Is there anything else you need me to do?”

“You’re the leader, aren’t you supposed to ask me that?” Alise asked, winking. “I don’t think there’s anything of concern right now, but—”

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Alise fell to one side and Theo caught her. The ground shook beneath their feet as the world rumbled. It went on for a few moments before it stopped. The bells in town rang and a system message appeared.

[Dreamwalker’s Core Message]

A seal has been set in place. A recent imbalance in the heavenly realms has forced a change with the Monitor System. The Seal of Judgment has been set in place. This seal only affects the inner realms.

Theo sent a town-wide message clarifying that the rumbling was from a system action and that people shouldn’t have been concerned. But still, he read over the message several times, gawking at how Elrin had convinced the system to enact such a drastic change in such a short amount of time. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that something called the Seal of Judgment would monitor the actions of the gods.

“I feel like we should be concerned,” Alise said, fidgeting nervously.

“Maybe we should be, but not for the reasons you think,” Theo said. “I took Elrin to chat with the system, and five minutes later, the monitor system placed a new seal over the heavenly realms.”

“I really wish I knew what that meant,” Alise said.

“The system won’t let me inspect what the seal does, but... Ah, there it is,” Theo said as a haptic buzzing entered his mind. He withdrew Fenian’s communication crystal.

“My dear alchemist, could you please tell me before you do something that shakes the foundations of this world?” Fenian said, sounding extremely annoyed. Somehow, we also sounded very polite at the same time.

“Elrin just had a chat with the system,” Theo said. “I think he had them institute a check against the actions of the gods.”

“Oh, that actually sounds like a good thing. I thought it was going to be a bad thing,” Fenian said, pausing for several long moments. “Hold on. Does this interfere with my plan to kill him?”

“I imagine it directly interferes with your plan to kill a god, Fenian. I really was hoping you wouldn’t understand that killing a god isn’t a good thing or an easy thing.”

“Maybe not,” but it was something to do,” Fenian said. “What am I supposed to do with my time now?”

“You could take up crocheting, or maybe learn a useful skill,” Theo said, shaking his head. “Or better yet, why don’t you try saving more people in this world, getting them to the Southlands Alliance so we can bring them along?”

“You used to be fun,” Fenian said, now sounding more annoyed than ever. “If I could travel to the system, I would go there myself and file a complaint.”

“Find something constructive to do with your time, Fenian,” Theo said, “If we can solve problems like this before they’re a problem, then that’s a good thing. You need to take the wins when you get them.”

While Fenian grumbled about it for a while, he seemed to accept this as fact. He actually did have some useful information for Theo. There were a few ships leaving ports around the world and heading for the Southlands Alliance. But there were also nations of the world that knew what they were doing. It’s not as though everybody was idle and without information. There were still powerful people in the world who could figure out what was going on. Most impressively, a ruler in Bantein was doing exactly what Theo was doing, using the same technique Khahar had used to ascend.

While it was slightly concerning, Theo was happy to wash his hands of the whole ordeal. Even after they finished their conversation, he had a feeling Fenian wouldn’t drop it so easily. The heavens might have been sealed, but that elf was determined.

“So, is this a good thing?” Alise asked, laughing nervously.

“Yeah, this is better for us. As long as it doesn’t make the gods mad, which it shouldn’t. Building layers between us and them is a good idea. That’s the way it’s meant to be.”

Theo chalked it up as one less thing he had to worry about. Getting the system on their side had never seemed like an option, so he considered this to be a win. Instead, he turned his attention to the party. Which seemed silly in comparison, but whatever. He already had some liquor for the party, but Alise planned to leave the mixing of the pure zee booze to Xam. He only needed to provide the unmixed product. Ziz’s housing project was going well and he was upgrading the rail and road while he was at it.

Rivers and Gronro had been mostly silent for a while, but they were also preparing for the celebration. There were no lizardfolk on the horizon, either. While communication with Bantein and Partopour was decent enough, the lizardfolk were totally silent. Tarantham was the same as always, only sending trade envoys and ignoring whatever animosity that had formed between them.

“Damn, I should’ve asked Erin to help with the dungeons,” Theo said, shaking his head. “Hard to get that guy to answer the phone as it is.”

“Leave me out of that,” Alise said, coming up behind Theo and pushing him toward the door. “Go away before you rope me into it.”

“Understandable,” Theo said with a nod. “Later.”

There were some interesting things Theo could tackle. He had the wisdom to put Salire up to asking Throk for new machines, rather than doing it himself. Getting the mana injection artifices was now a priority, as it now had two important functions. The first was getting pure third tier potions while the other was gaining access to more of the imbued potions. Yet he didn’t need to have direct involvement in the early stages of the first steps.

That brought the things on Theo’s to-do list down. Instead of rushing off for some more work, he headed out and walked the streets of his town. Traffic everywhere had increased significantly. People from all over the world now walked their streets. Some were there on regular business while others had come specifically for the party. Even if it hadn’t started yet, the guarantee of continued existence after the world was over was strong.

Theo ran into Salire near the monolith. She had a few artifices in her inventory—straight from Throk. She agreed to get testing with them, allowing him to turn his attention to the town. Tresk didn’t farm up a bunch of Level 45 Monster Cores for nothing.

“It feels like a building-upgrade kind of day anyway.”

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