“Hm...This needs something… ‘more’,” I muttered.

“Like what?” said Kalpana.

My wife, my girlfriend, and I were looking down at a vast and sweeping undersea civilization of impossible technologies and magics. A cyberpunk Atlantis that would be inhabited by countless non-player characters that would be played by souls contracted from the great souls and powerful AIs that happened to be looking for something for their progeny to do and be.

“Oh, I know! Evil spider-clowns! We should put a couple of spawners for them in there!” said Jack.

“What?!” said Kalpana. Looking aghast.

I rolled my eyes.

“No…” I said.

“What? Why not?!” said Jack.

“We’re not adding evil spider-clowns...That’s your answer to everything,” I said.

“And when has having evil arachnoid demon clowns present ‘not’ made a situation better…”

“Fuck, she kind of has us there,” said Kalpana. Eyes wide open like she couldn’t believe what she was saying.

“Really?!” I said. Surprised at the backstab.

“It’s two to one. Evil spider-clowns it is...Except since we’re underwater, let’s make it evil crab-mime people?”

“Tch, fine…” I said. Wondering exactly how far Jack was planning to spread her arachnoid fadelings before she was satisfied.

She’d turned her fadelings into creatures of the Empty-Dream as our powers continued to bleed into each other. We even made a prolonged questline to explain their presence within the Empty-Dream. It was one of our measures for making sure those who entered our Empty-Dream and held ill-intentions, ended up sorely regretting doing so.

I was in the Empty-Dream overseeing an overhaul of the Eternal Realms. It was a lot bigger than it used to be nowadays. It had initially started as a mechanism for allowing users to ascend to immortality, but now as my immortal clientele grew it had become a place for immortals of a certain level to just sort of hang out and explore without being put at risk, while not disturbing the gaming ecosystem for other players in the “mortal” areas.

Similarly, outside of these realms, I’d found that I’d needed to place some controls and limiters in place to keep the immortal users from trolling, and abusing the mortals in the Empty-Dream. Similar to what the worlds did in the real world, but slightly more lax, and with more options, because this “was” a game after all, and I didn’t want to ruin the fun-factor. Immortal users even had the option of temporarily regressing and sealing their powers at peak-mortal levels if they didn’t want to be inhabited by the systems I’d set up. This wasn’t anything new, since immortals in the real world could do similar, but I’d made sure to make the sealing process felt less uncomfortable and restrictive.

Just as Kal, Jack, and I were deciding on where the Mime-Crab nests would be in the underwater world we were building, our boss came in. One of our bosses anyway. It was Director Seren. He directly popped into the Empty-Dream from the outside world, which should have been impossible considering all the measures I had in place to keep that from happening. It was an annoying habit he had, but it also was quite helpful because it was akin to being white-hat hacked. He was intruding but he had no ill-intentions, and each time he intruded, I got to study what happened, and how it happened, to keep baddies from trying the same trick. Anyway, Director Seren popped in and he came in looking agitated.

“Heya, Boss,” said Jack.

“Good afternoon, Director,” said Kal. Suddenly all business. Stopping just short of saluting. The militaristic upbringing and culture of the Empty-Harvester Colony forced her to stand at attention, even though she knew she didn’t have to.

“Yo, Seren. What’s up?” I said. Keeping things casual, because the good Director was the furthest thing from the formal type, and we'd been working together long enough for me to feel comfortable acting accordingly.

“Just what the fuck did you guys do?!” said Seren. Eyes wide.

“Huh?” I said. Not expecting to get shouted at, because I couldn’t recall screwing anything up lately.

“The Dark Bell Collective? What the hell did you do to them, that the old arseholes who were backing them are going crazy threatening a very imminent war against the House?” said Seren.

“What are you talking about boss, you’re the one who told us to give them a spanking?” said Jack.

“Also, this was a couple of years ago. And I’m pretty sure we gave you more than few reports summarizing what happened,” I said. Frowning.

Seren had the grace to look abashed. Taking a few steps back, and rubbing the back of his neck.

“Yeah...Well, I sort of had my hands full because another set of transdimensional assholes had attempted to take on all the Division’s assets and wards at once to try and overwhelm us...as part of some convoluted plan to give the House of Antipodes a kick in the daddy-bags. My desk no longer exists...There’s just a literal mountain of paperwork where a desk might, or might not, have once been,” said Seren. Sighing dejectedly.

“My condolences...Didn’t you have an army of AI-assistants or whatever?” said Jack. Not looking at all sympathetic.

“Tch...They’re swamped too...A few of them even quit and ran away. That’s how deep in the shit we were in...And that’s why I’m here. Not sure whether to kiss you or throttle you, you crazy fuckers...You didn’t just trounce the Dark Bell Collective, you hobbled the Dark Song Orchestra that was behind them...Now please, tell me exactly what happened, and save me the effort of digging through the heap to find those reports,” said Seren.

“Oh...That’s simple. We snuck in through a backdoor, and took them for everything they’re worth,” said Jack. Smiling a dazzlingly fiendish smile, and giving me a sultry look that gave my head chills, and set my downstairs area ablaze.

*************************************************************************************************************

Elsewhere in the Shattered Heavens, a certain group of young immortals was still coming to terms with the great amount of influence that had fallen into their laps. The mortal world was filled with hegemonies that were rumored to have been built on bank robberies, banditry, and piracy. Yet, there’s no one who would have expected to see the same happening in the immortal realm. It was official now, there was a new great faction within the heavens, its roots deep, and its foundations firm, and unbelievably, all this had been built with the work of a single year.

Now like a couple of tech billionaires from the mortal world who’d expectedly hit it rich, the group was meeting up to have some talks far heavier than any they’d expected to have to have, for several eons. Garvan, Dilshad, Yuval, Veslko, and a number of their other allies, met at their usual spot to have their monthly discussion of the huge slice of sky that they’d managed to wrest from the hand of a group of foreign gods and devils.

They didn’t meet as often now, they were too busy looking after their new holdings. But they still kept in touch as much as they could, because they were all very aware of the old-timers who were waiting in the wings. Waiting to see them start to flounder, so they could step forward with an offer of help, in exchange for a sizable slice of the pie that the young immortals had won for themselves.