The Magician 38

Daniel came running up from the lower part of the temple. "He established contact with my wife?"

Knocked from his melancholy like someone had dashed ice water on him, Orison exclaimed, "You're Bab's husband!?"

"Yeah. She doesn't know it yet but it'll happen someday," Daniel said defensively.

The young mage gave him a dubious look.

He said, "Think about it. We travel in the same circle. We both specialize in the afterlife. She's cold and a little mean spirited. I like that... It's all plus signs... Sorry. I'm pulling Klein back up to the front to take over. And, you know how he is.

"This next part is important and not me clowning around in any way. Once Klein takes control, don't talk about me to him. Personal preference reasons aside, if he knows about me, he loses potential use as a loophole for causality. It's subtle but watch for things he might be interested in or sudden impulses... The ones outside of his taste in women."

Orison said, "Mind explaining why any of this was... is necessary?"

Daniel explained. "That stone door down there is an entrance to an underworld, the afterlife variety. It's the biggest reason why I had the jellyfish space thing drop us off here specifically after we reached this world. My main soul has to establish connection to start reading the webs and paths of soul movement.

"Eventually, my mapping and Bab's mapping will overlap. If I or Klein dies for some reason, she'll pull us over to her using my conduit. Either directly or indirectly, we'll have a better idea of how to long distance travel and YOU will eventually benefit from that as well."

The young mage digested that as quickly as he could.

As Daniel walked towards the stone doors, Orison said, "Leave Nub instead."

"As much as it pains me to say this, no. Klein has a way to survive and get stronger without climbing. He also has a way for me to influence him to self-destruct if he starts to go off the rails. Nub doesn't have either of those," the man said, a slight tremor in his voice.

Orison said, "He doesn't need to and I wasn't asking."

Daniel looked at Orison in a stunned daze. "Why? Just leave things as they are. You're going to make complications."

"Life is complicated. You treat it and everything else that lies between deaths too flippantly. Learn some f***ing respect. Stop treating the relationships you and your splinters form as something you can throw away when they get boring, painful or too serious," the young mage said, neutral face slowly forming a scowl.

Daniel took off towards the door at a jelly legged run. Orison gave Paladin a look and the knight easily overtook the man, wrapping him into a sleeper hold.

"Compliance is required, friend Daniel," Paladin said.

Locking eyes with the terrified man, the young mage said, "Sacrifice without attachment is weak. Suffering without emotional investment is hollow. A life lived without an underlying purpose of its own lacks meaning. Countless shells of such lives cannot make up the difference in what they lack compared to a single painful, struggling but determined one."

The form Daniel wore reverted to the one Orison recognized as 'Danny'. As several ethereal rings expanded out from the man's body, several extended out from Orison's as well. The young mage had entered into a duel of concepts with the man.

Daniel was so stunned, hurt and wallowing in the feeling of betrayal that he had missed Greater Reality's given right to rebut the claims. Nearly a dozen of his forty-nine hole riddled rings broke as the young mage's shined with augmented luster. Ignoring the euphoria that came from diminishing another climber, he pushed on before the duel ended.

He hardened his heart to the agony on Daniel's face. "You run away and hide in the concepts of the cleansing powers of the underworld but refuse to understand why such powers exist. Like a demented otter in a bed of muscles, you crack open the shells of your splinters' lives to suck out the sweet meat and discard the rest. You have only comprehended half their value and so, only capable of understanding half the meaning of the laws that govern souls."

No longer stunned and no longer friendly, Daniel fought with his life as a climber on the line. "What do you know of my laws? You pursue a path as rooted in spirit as mine but place so much emphasis on life. Your inability to let go, your stubborn refusal to release those you're 'entangled' with reveals your own flaws."

Orison nodded. "I have to work on that."

A handful of hairline cracks ran through Orison's rings. Conceding the round completely, a trickle of power and luster left them to return to Daniel's. The man despaired at how little it had affected the young mage in comparison to the devastation he'd endured as another ring wobbled and started to fade despite winning.

"Don't you dare give up!" Orison demanded.

Seeing that Daniel's spirits had diminished too much to fight, he said, "You have explored one half, that means you have twice as much potential left to delve into. The pieces are all there. You're not even starting at the beginning again. It's the halfway point and the finish line is still in view."

The man howled, "My soul can only hold as many rings as I've made, Orison! I could ignore the flaws but you threw them in my face. I'm not strong enough to hold the complete set. And now, what little chance I had to reach tier five is gone!"

The young mage sighed. "No it isn't. And your soul can easily be twice as strong as it is. Drink your water when you get back to your conduit and take in some of the sediment in its bottom. Experience some of the heavy feelings you filter out. Your soul will grow along with your emotional endurance."

Right before they disappeared from sight, the young mage let Danny see his twenty-seven rings decompress to eighty-one illusory and ephemeral ones before his soul screamed in an agony of its own, forcing him to re-compress them.

The man gawked at the young mage in disbelief. "How is that even possible!?"

Orison offered a ghost of smile. "Lifetimes of loss and ruin. You have them too. You just won't let yourself feel the weight of them. It won't crush you if you endure. It will temper you and drive out the weak parts like hammering Damascus steel.

"Tell me. What's the conventional wisdom on how many rings are the conventional limit and what is the minimum tier for crossing into an entirely different Greater Reality? It's important and I'm trying to help you."

Hatred was still fresh in Daniel's eyes as he spat, "108 is what my master told me. It's commonly believed that you should be tier six before attempting to cross a maelstrom geyser. Not all of them lead to another place. Most dump you in the void. Even a tier six can't stay in such a place for more than a few days without great risks."

Orison's smile got a little brighter. "Well, I've shown you that the first is probably pure fiction spread by powerful people attempting to stay in power. The second IS probably completely true. Yet, here were are. Measly little tier fours are standing in a place with whole new insights to how greater laws work before we open our domains.

"Lily warned me a long time ago about the dangers of too much help. There are up and down sides to everything. I can't promise you that you can do what I've done because my origin isn't rooted in structured reality at all. But, you should be able to emulate enough to expand your capabilities beyond the limits you were taught you have."

Orison motioned for Paladin to let Daniel go. "Feel the weight of your own spiritual existence. Let the gravity of it add a new dimension to your rings."

Wary but talked down from rage to seething resentment, the man sat down and entered trance. Three days later, Daniel snapped Orison from his own trance with a child-like grin of excitement. Entering into a duel with Orison again, each allowing some testing and fracture damage for the purpose of a greater good, he showed off a set of seven rings that could decompress to twenty-one.

The loss of progress was immense but the expressed pressure was far greater than the sum and not too far away from what he had been able to display before. "So, instead of a seven by seven law comprehension, It'll be a seven by three by seven! I've tested it and it works. A sacred formula with three figures, it's unbelievable!

"I can- I can support 147 rings! But, what am I crowing to you about? You're nine by three by nine. That's nearly double! Don't get too cocky, though. Domains are measured by practicality. Power alone barely even matters. Well, I guess it does if you can produce triple your opponent's pressure."

Orison shrugged. "You should probably go dip your toes in the underworld before you condense any further rings."

"Right... You know I can't leave anyone behind anymore," Daniel said, pleading silently for understanding.

The young mage smirked and replied, "Why would I need you to? All of you is my friend now, not just a disposable fragment."

The man grunted an agreement with barely suppressed anticipation as he looked towards the stone door. He went in to hug Orison but Paladin stopped him, not quite trusting the change of heart to be completely sincere after experiences in the maze. Daniel's frown only lasted a moment before he turned and walked to the stone door.

After drawing a symbol on it with his blood, the doors cracked open as a dark mist of inert essence leaked out. Right before he stepped in, the suit that was Atanus' artifact body disengaged and fell off. Their last sight of Daniel was a pair of red silk boxers disappearing into the afterlife.

Orison sighed in exasperation. "How much power of existence did Klein waste on freakin underwear for it to survive crossing into a whole new Greater Reality!? My over robe is barely recovered from looking frayed and ratty looking. It's made out of semi living material, for the love of Bob!"

He walked up to Paladin and rested his head on the metal chest as if he was seeking comfort before projecting mentally, "If you continue being bound to me from this point forward, you're going to be contaminated by my concepts. Your future will be limited by my potential."

"I serve until destruction," Paladin replied as if it was a given, a touch more emotion in Their mostly monotone voice than previously existed.

Orison added, "Then pretend to comfort me and prepare to record what I'm about to say into your permanent core memory... You ready?... There are 729 recorded reality laws compatible with void walkers, nine by nine by nine. By cross reference from different sources, there are 333 devil compatible laws, 111 by three. The Celestial Host has a potential 777, 111 by seven, and the Abyssal Host has 666, 111 by six.

"Using Daniel as a potential standard, with additional cross reference, there are 108 universal afterlife laws that apply to mortals and afterlife supernaturals alike, a sacred formula only available to cultivators. The remaining 39 of the 147 afterlife laws available to non-afterlife beings are divided into thirteen each; fate, chance and will.

"My problem is that I SHOULD have only been able to fit 243 laws because my soul can only hold eighty-one rings, Nine by three by nine, like Daniel said. I have three 'invisible rings' compressed to hold nine laws each from fate, chance and will. I'm not entirely sure why I have them but because of that, my visible rings have followed suit.

"The reason I'm having you record this is because I've decided to keep the invisible rings. To fit them all, I have no choice but to follow the nine by nine by nine sacred formula. When I reach twenty-seven visible rings, I will have achieved 243 laws on top of the twenty-seven 'living side of the afterlife' laws that make the three invisible rings. It sounds auspicious and works out as a sacred formula but feels dangerous."

Paladin asked, "Then why are you doing it?"

The young mage projected, "Because even the cradle inside the maze didn't have information about it and there were plenty of 'bad end' examples stored there. It's high risk for high reward but I have to take what I can get... If something happens to me, I want you to take this information to my son, along with any other findings we uncover... What's your name?"

The metal gauntlet rhythmically patting his back, with the gentleness of an exasperated wet nurse trying to burp an infant, froze as the living armor projected, "Paladin class Anti-Invader Combat Unit N205, also known as a PAIN unit. Primary functions are as follows; drone coordinators, uninfected survivor retrieval, decommissioned units also used as power armor by field officers."

Orison mentally chuckled. "Sounds like you have an interesting story to tell but that's not your name. That's what your made of, your history."

Paladin attempted a second angle. "Integrated spectral remnants as follows: Grit, Captain Marcus Dun, Second Lieutenant Brie Cappellini... Unregistered but last potential name recorded was Ambrosi Dun-Cappellini. Dominant spectral template is Grit. Dominant biological expression is also Grit... Grit?"

Not knowing which was more tragic between Paladin and Grit's back ground, Orison projected, "Which came up with Ambrosi, the mother or the father?"

"Mother," the living armor said.

"While reviewing story world details, I saw that Grit's mother expressed thoughts about naming him Grant. How about Grant Ambrosi Dun," the young mage asked.

'Grant' nodded in acceptance. It was the last notable moment in a nearly two years round of law consolidation. The young mage hadn't even come close to finishing the process of organizing his comprehensions before dueling Daniel and that had disorganized them further.

He had also lost some but that was a good thing as far as he was concerned. There were sloppily re-stolen resources plus interest back from Mimi and some from Jimson, for some reason, circulating in him. Foreign, incompatible essences and knowledge came with that and needed to be rejected anyway. A duel of concepts while he was still loose and fluffy not only helped his friend realize some expanded potential but knocked some structure poison loose from him as well.

Finished with what could be done, the young mage became aware of some automated process of spiritual observation going on. His soul had rebuilt it's ability to gather and condense law subconsciously, not needing conscious effort to do so. It was a quality of the Tower of Ruin that had survived but Orison hoped it was the only one.

Wanting an update on internal activities, he picked up the metallic ball, Atamus' artifact body. Upon doing so, something sinister and hungry 'jumped ship' from the ball to himself. It lasted less than half a breath in Orison's spiritual void but disrupted the delicate internal balance instantly and beyond repair. Right as the young mage was starting to internally split apart, one second away from turning into a apocalyptic nuke, time all but froze. From the perspective of the Atamus, he saw what happened afterwards but before he regained control of himself.

Keita, as she was on Amoril, appeared before him and touched the metal ball. "I'm sorry it took so long to reach you. Neither I nor Atanus expected that you would do what you did for Daniel or just sit here, not causing any traceable disturbances.

"The worst part is almost over. We need to seal your potential and memories away for a small time but you'll have them back once you're reunited with... Grant. Since there might not be anyone around to inform you at that time, know that the people you've grown to care about will be taken care of.

"Atmus personally trained Hunter, Little Pete and Corvinus for that very purpose. You've got me, Zoe and Atmus on the job too. I've got Jammers tucked tightly under arm too... I know you understand that there's no such thing as perfect but we'll do the best we can.

"Because of some of the things we've done, as soon as the astral cycle turned, causality was broken in multiple places. We brought you here to keep you safe from that THING and to keep you from suffering any more headaches or heartaches over the mass reset. I don't know if you'll agree with all the arrangements we've made but it was a LOT of people to juggle.

"Know that a lot of time has passed and more will before we meet again. Rithus and I still care for you deeply and have never forgotten about our feelings for you, not ever. If we've made or make any mistakes that cause you grief, please forgive us."

Darkness.

***

Orison woke up screaming. It was the middle of the day but he had fallen asleep on the reading bench outside of the alchemy room. He felt like something terrifying had almost happened.