Neophyte World Builder

CROWN

With my first world, it had taken a long, long time to get things going. Even with accelerated evolution for part of it, hundreds of thousands of years had passed. I didn’t regret this, because it gave me a chance to let the world develop its own flavor and different species, even if many of them were loosely based upon imported animals from Earth. It gave my little Donut-world a very unique feel that I was fond of.

Donut was small, though. It was several times the size of Earth, sure, but that was the entirety of the universe. It had been an intentional decision that I stood by to this day. In a universe without swift transport across vast distances, a huge universe only meant most of it wasn’t doing any work, unless I wanted to have multiple worlds with life that never interacted with one another. My own original universe was like that. I’d grabbed Sara from Earth, but there had been other, non-human souls in the vast universe.

Earth would just… never see them. The distance was too great.

This new world, which I had dubbed Versus, had developed much faster. I’d added vegetation and atmosphere directly, along with a good seed amount of life. Some of the bubbles had accelerated evolution as well, or a mixed base of Donut creatures and Earth creatures. As High Administrator, I even had the ability to snag creatures from other universes in the cluster, though I was very careful about tossing those in there.

This was all a lot more expensive than when I’d made my first universe. It was larger, required more start up costs, and so on. I’d already burned through several thousand Reality Points in doing this, which kept my balance running close to zero. I didn’t like that… it seemed dangerous, especially after the lengthy torpor I’d triggered before.

“I think I’ll take a break and let it run for a while on its own, see how it develops,” I announced with a stretch of my arms over my head. Weird how even without muscles to grow tired and tense, I liked doing that to release my mental fatigue. Despite having all this power and having plenty of time to think it over, I was still unclear about how much of the “me” in this place was physical and how much was just mental concepts interacting.

Maybe it wasn’t either. The rules tended to be wildly different outside of universes.

Artemis poked at the display while I said that, then she looked over at me. “You’re sinking a lot of resources into this. If you take your time it could be a lot cheaper, you know. Did you have a reason for rushing this?”

I held out my hand to Artemis, who still looked like a teenage human girl. “Yeah, trust me on this. I need their civilizations developed enough for Akasha to get a sense of how the System might need to be adjusted. If I wait for it, we’ll be here forever unless I skip through a lot of Donut’s progress, and they have an expansion event going on. Plus that Earth girl I threw in there and Wanderer… I really should check on those two.”

Taking my hand, Artemis laughed, “You’re getting so wrapped up in your projects! Don’t forget to give yourself some time off. When was the last time you did a little incarnation just to enjoy life in your world?”

The question brought a frown to my lips, then I stepped forward to tug her into my world again, letting her take the elf form she had on her when I’d first seen her. “I’ve never done it just for fun, though I’ve taken a proxy down to relax a few times. Not lately. Things are a little too messy right now for me to use an incarnation… we’re at a really delicate part of history.”

“Crown! What took you so long!” a nearby rooken called out. I blinked, but quickly placed it as… Solen’s voice. She didn’t call me Tastka or sister so I had gotten a little disoriented. That and… being a rooken.

“What exactly are you doing here?” I asked, squinting at her. I was in my vaskan body at the moment, the Kenta one, so maybe that was why she hadn’t called me her sister this time.

Solen spread her wings and hopped up onto the stone bench next to the fountain. “A large number of rooken worship me as well. It’s not my favorite form, but it can be fun to fly about a little. You change bodies all the time, what’s the problem?”

I shook my head and chuckled, “No problem, just a surprise. Rooken bodies take a little getting used to, but they’re interesting.” Reaching out, I gave her head a light caress, causing the goddess to pause and chirp in confusion.

Kelas, who was standing not far away in the little divine garden that served as our meeting place, broke into laughter.

My friends had changed over the years. More subtly than the thousands of years would for another, but still changed. I kind of liked how they could be more lighthearted, but the rooken thing was new to me.

“I presume that you are here to speak about something?” Muerve’s voice cut into the mirth as they strode into the plaza, Sena and Akasha both following behind them. The god of death was in their vaskan form, though Akasha as usual kept to her elf body despite the vaskan form I knew she had.

I chuckled, “I did leave someone from my old world Downside, she should be old enough now to have done some interesting things. I’m curious about that and what she’s up to, and I should probably see if Wanderer has started doing anything strange yet.”

Akasha stepped forward and tried to ruffle Artemis on the head, but the Terminal squeaked and quickly darted behind Muerve, dancing out of reach in a sort of playful attitude that definitely didn’t match how Orpheus had acted. Did my gods goof around like this when I wasn’t here?

“Sara’s doing fine,” Akasha called out. “Last I saw her, she was on her way to see Cayla… we should probably talk to Cayla soon, too. Even Elder Dragons start to get old at her age, you know. I think Valesfen is still here in the afterlife if you want to talk to him, too. We never did.”

“Great,” I replied. “Any problems with the new System? You look fine.” While I watched her chase a laughing Artemis, Sena walked up beside me, a thoughtful sway to her tail and a distant look on her face. I gave her a worried look, but she just smiled back to me and shook her head, so I dismissed my thoughts for now.

Akasha stopped chasing Artemis to let the younger-looking elf dart behind Kelas, who sighed and let her hide there. The childishness of the Terminal was weird. Duck hadn’t really gone through that phase, she’d just gone straight to sassy adult.

“So far it’s not a problem,” Akasha replied, coming to a halt in front of me. “It is a little strange to feel myself spread across two universes, but distance has never really been a factor for me. They’re still figuring things out there, but it hasn’t been a strain.”

“Good.” I stretched arms over my head and looked about. “I suppose we can visit Cayla and check in on Sara soon, then. I’d like to spend a little time with my old friend here, if I can. Has anyone checked in on Wanderer? I imagine this early on he’s still relatively boring, especially in a body he can’t flirt with everything in.”

Akasha looked around and tapped a toe on the ground, her tail dipping. “Right… sure. Reyth and I checked on him earlier. He’s with Duvad’s current reincarnation and Plume’s. We may have coaxed them into running into one another to see what would happen.”

Muerve and Kelas both turned eyes away, suddenly interested in anything but looking at me.

Solen just let out a chirping giggle. “Good luck, soul-sister. You’re going to need it.”

“This way! Quickly!” Pini squawked upward.

Levos didn’t hesitate, leaping from atop the hill and sliding downward. He used his toe claws to control the descent down the slippery slope, the grass in this region oily and slick compared to what he was used to. It was a good thing that the ground was dry, or he’d really have trouble.

As he anchored himself to stop his slide where Pini had perched, he glanced upward to the top of the hill. Ynot had already jumped, its wider feet planting on the slick grass and gliding down at a shocking speed. Levos knew the mushroom creature’s Cruxis magic would let it stop when needed, so he just had to get out of the way of the oncoming bulk.

“EEEEEEEE!!” Ylena, their newest addition, squealed as she clung to Ynot’s body. The petite Calen Elf’s highly impractical dress fluttered around her as she plummeted with Ynot, voice a mixture of panic and exhilaration. She didn’t let go of Ynot despite the rough ride.

“Ynot, can you widen this gap?” Pini asked, gesturing to a deep gash in the hillside. It was too narrow for any of them except possibly Ylena, but even Levos could see the hollow behind it. He wasn’t sure if it was some creature’s burrow or some kind of natural cavern, but right at this moment it didn’t matter.

The mushroom gently set down Ylena, who sputtered and smoothed her dress. “When I was promised excitement I thought it would wait until after we reached the nearest Madland!” Her tail swished back and forth enthusiastically as she made room for Ynot to get to work.

Silently Ynot stepped forward. A motion with its arms made as if to pull the fissure open, and the ground echoed its desire. With a faint rippling and a dull tearing noise, the gap widened to reveal the small burrow beyond. It wasn’t much, but it could easily hold all four of them.

Pini didn’t hesitate to hop in, and Levos followed him. He quickly threw himself to the side as Ynot squeezed through, with Ylena following it in. The Calen princess flicked her dress clean of the dirt, once again making Levos groan internally.

He’d always thought of the Calen as rougher and more self-sufficient than the Aravel. With how rare they’d gotten in the modern times, the low-magic elves were almost mythical in how they worked. The small pocket nation of Calen they stumbled upon when trying to cut across a Barren had largely been like that… but for the strange hereditary rulership they had.

Ylena was the daughter of their King, and unlike most of her kind she had not needed to do any of the hunting and foraging that the Calen were so famous for. She was excitable, clumsy, not very athletic, and more than a little spoiled. It was going to be a headache having her along the rest of the trip.

Not to mention the fact that they’d technically kidnapped her and now the entire kingdom was after them.

Darkness descended as Ynot coaxed the earth into slamming shut. The ground would shield them from the search parties for a while, especially with a little extra help from the various magics the group had. Light flared a moment later as Ylena snapped her fingers, the low-level Caster handling the simple task of illuminating the burrow with a pulsing orb at the top of the rounded ceiling.

“Well… I guess we’ll have to sit things out here for a while,” Levos sighed with a shake of his head.

“It surprises me how Ynot always manages to find trouble no matter the situation,” Pini chirped, a little mirth in his tone. The rooken looked over at Ylena and Ynot, adding his sigh to that of Levos.

Ylena giggled, her ears perking up in delight as she grabbed hold of Ynot’s arm and hugged it to her chest. “We got away! Where to next, beloved?”

“That is what I will discover, pretty flower,” the mushroom’s wheeze answered, lightly tapping the large hand on Ylena’s head.

Levos just sighed again. “How does it manage to do this half the time we run into a settlement these days?”