“Well, I think it was done for me to set up things to fight the Hag Curse... and because a very, very strong Null is needed to really do the job right.” I nodded in the direction of the Rift in the distance.

“You intend to do more than close it?” He arched a bushy eyebrow, and scowled.

“I’m the only one who can, and it’s the right way to seal the deal. I have the Ironblood set up. I have my little Sisters at Ten and ready to carry on everything. I have you here, able to powergame them and keep them safe, lead them without hesitation. And,” I leaned forwards, “What do you think the Glory Award is going to be for forcibly reconnecting the realm of the Warp Gods back to general Creation?”

He smirked despite himself, violet eyes burning. “Shit, girl, that’ll pay for ALL the Levels...”

“And get me on the really, really good side of some Divinities, I think.” I fished out an Amulet from under my hair as he watched. “I had Estemar make this. It provides a once a day Divine Heart right to Mithar, no muss, no fuss. He can look out of it at any time, and even track me if He desires.”

“A willing Forsaken pawn of Mithar?” He pursed his thick lips. “Damn, girl, you do not think small.” He rolled his eyes up thoughtfully. “You want Him looking when you prop that Rift open, and guiding what happens next, probably with help?”

“Hey, I might have a question or two for Him, too. Just to advance the bigger scheme of things.”

“And then thinking even bigger. I’m not sure I want to consider how smart you are right now.”

“It’s a good thing I can still talk in mouth speak, because it’s really slow compared to how I think,” I admitted.

“Probably why you do it. Anything specific you want me to do?”

“Take care of my Gear.” I gestured at the Weapons and stuff heaped on and about a chair over there. They found our nights very gossip-worthy, I’d found out.

He looked surprised. “You’re not going to take them with you?”

“Every scenario I have involves me standing there holding a Null open while universe-changing powers swarm all around me. I don’t think anything not below the surface of my skin will endure. I’m also pretty sure I’m going to lose the links to the Markspace and all my Marks to the level of erosion going on.”

“So much for communication across dimensional barriers...” he murmured, huffing. “I wondered why you were making yet another Sword. Bloodphasing keeping it inside your Vajra, sure... but all your Weapons Named themselves into Psychic Weapons, right?”

“Yes, with five points of regenerating Psi, meaning they are self-powered now, they don’t require Essence to wake up. Chalice is a pure psionic Weapon, no Magical additions as yet. I’m 90% sure that bringing a magical Weapon into the Warped Realm is a bad idea, based on the stuff they’ve been bringing out of the Rift. Even my Tats are going to be pretty useless if I can’t convert them to Psionic usage, and Vajra them to usefulness. Same with Marks...”

“Aru in a bucket.” He made doo-do-do Pac-man dying sounds. “Losing that much Gear Investment?”

“I might be able to salvage them with the Vajra, won’t know until I get there. So, no reason to drag all this stuff along that I’m going to lose anyways.”

“Got it. Anyone you want them to go to?”

“Let them decide. They are Intelligent Weapons, they have their own preferences. The girls have their own stuff... maybe they can help overgear any new Hagchilds you find.”

“You can count on me,” he said seriously. “If you’re going to do it, do it right.”

I smiled like all the sharks and wolves of the world would love to. “Oh, have no godsdamned worry about that. It’s going to get done very right, indeed!”

======

Present time, outside the Rift...

Briggs and the Void Brothers were ejected from the Rift like leaves in a hurricane, vented out into midair as the backwash vented out –

Pure vivic energy tossed them away as they twisted and broke formation, feeling the familiar laws of reality around themselves, latching onto the air with their souls and getting control of themselves.

The River of Reality going in was now reversed, and what was coming back was a universe being fed upon. Vivic energy shook and dissolved into the fabric of the world, mending the cracks and strains all around, shutting down the wild magic and tattered threads of the Ley Lines, plunging deep into the ground to repair all the damage wrought by the cataclysm a millennium ago.

In Yle Tyorm, the Shardrings quaked, but the still-functional Obelisks and their connection to the Hole kept them intact, deflecting the repair work around themselves, and the outer Shardzones with them. But the fractures and tears extending off from the city were being rapidly soothed over and healed away, isolating it from the rest of the world within its bare walls.

Creation was feeding. Not all the power was going to the local Land, but enough, more than enough...

The Stars were right...

---------------

The Empire of Rosencrux, pretty much all over the place...

The skies opened up, the ground caved in, and the waters whirled and vomited forth what lay Below.

They fell from the skies in numbers uncounted, they swarmed up from buried kingdoms and empires, and they rose from the depths of the waters in unstoppable numbers. With them came horrors from beyond space and time, the avatars of the Old Ones, and their progeny, peers, and rivals, the Elder Gods, beings of Creation, but lost to the ages and dreams forgotten, now rising back up and demanding for themselves a place in Creation once more.

Cultists of nameless faiths howled in ecstasy as their Elevation came upon them. Bodies swelled and rippled, power swelling and invading them, remaking them from human to something worthy of serving their respective Lords Now Come. Howls and cries from throats no longer mortal rose in zealous tribute as their dead gods came down, and delivered what they had promised.

And if they were slaves for eternity, souls yielded up to the coming of their Masters, they no longer cared as their twisted voices rose in worship to things older than humanity.

Then the slaughter and subjugation began.

----

The descent of the Abberant Gods was anchored on uncounted Stelaes and Circles scattered throughout the Empire and the South, East, and West Marches. Only in Northmarch had few grips been made on the Land, possibly to avoid the notice of the Fey in the nearby Sidhete, and in any event the North was far from the sea and the mountains which were the great sources of power for these ageless things’ return.

The spatial distortions raged out from Zynozure, where tentacles extended down from the sky and snatched folk from the streets, destroying palaces and homes, and things surged up out of the city as cultists Turned in their homes and slaughtered all about them in their frenzied fanaticism. The great Wards of the city collapsed at precisely the moment they were most needed, and the great Guild of Mages that should have gathered to defy this intrusion was encapsulated in raging spell battle as fully half of its members went mad and turned upon their brethren.

Hapless people caught in the assault succumbed to the madness, and were swept up in the destruction and killing, like sheep to shepherds, herded this way and that to do the most damage, or offered haplessly to their masters for not seeing the true way in time.

Outwards the distortions in space-time raged, opening cracks to domains of beings and creatures long lost, times and places fallen to lost dreams and ages, spreading...

And they slammed right into the infinite strength pouring down from the North, which was drawn to the disruption like water running downhill, the power of one incoming universe unexpectedly crashing into that of other realms also trying to force their way in.

Unseen powers outside Creation raged at this unexpected interference, exerting great powers, for Now was their Time, the Stars Were Right, and it was time for their Ascension and Primacy once more in the mortal realms!

Creation did not care, and the Land even less.

------------

Within the Rift...

I stood there, one foot past the lip, staring out into the Warp.

The energies were familiar, very similar to Dream. The Warp Gods had worked on the Laws here, and their Astral and Ethereal planes had expanded to consume Dream, and severed any connection to the Outer Planes that were the final destinations of souls.

Here, the Warp was the final destination, and also the beginning. This was the place where all the thoughts and dreams of the living seethed and existed, filling the place with the power of the living and the dead souls drawn here inexorably once they died... because the way out to the true afterlife had been closed.

It was all the cloudy sunsets, moonrises, and starscapes you could shake a stick at, boiling with infinite amounts of energy and potential in at least four different spectra...

And it was shot through with corruption of the highest order.

Everywhere the clouds had condensed, they were dark, pulsing with sin, dire passions, hate, fear, ambition, lust; raw primal drives gathered and suppressing all the higher, beatific emotions to mere subservience and impotence.

Here the gods of the Warped Realm dwelled, and there was no doubt that the Warp gods had seized their power and held it fast against all challengers.

But in the end, the foundation of their power was based upon having severed the rest of Creation from them, from denying the conflict of the Profound Alignments and seizing that role for themselves. Now, their daring and egos had led them to challenge once again outside their domain, to play and have fun as they doubtless had before... and Creation was coming for them!

Because the Warp was burning vivic, and being drawn away! Mwahahahaha!

Everything Reality touched, it claimed. The dead of eons, the aligned thoughts and accumulated deeds for good and ill, were being brought away, drawn by the pan-infinite might of the Alignments they exemplified.

Hundreds, then thousands, millions, and uncounted billions of souls began to get drawn past me, torn free from the Warp and being sent on to their final fates. The burning river of reality drove into the ocean, and began to grow, and grow, and grow!

Its growth was exponential, as this was a contest of two realities, and so we were technically talking infinities. Only the one was Creation, and the other was just a splinter universe...

Their reaction didn’t take too long, as those responsible realized just what the implications of this were. Their tidy little empire of demented minds and souls was just going to be drained away like a little pond and dumped into the infinite stinking pit that was the Abyss, where they would just be more mad gods among an infinity of others, instead of the greatest lords of existence.

That was, of course, totally unacceptable. Better their own gilded prison than a greater realm they had to share with so many others!

I saw their faces congealing in the boiling clouds that covered more area than nebulas, rising up to face the ‘infection’ coming in to disrupt their little party zone.

Too-beautiful Amourae, reaching out with Its power to tempt me into giving up my position. Plastic, unclean Riggibuhl, wondering why I bothered to endure. Rainbow avian and many-armed jRaztl, making promises of rewards beyond my comprehension.

And Klaw, raging out ahead, His Mighty Axe raised to strike, backed by the power of the other Three as their desperation roiled the churning psychic clouds among them.

If they could not close the Rift, they would lose everything!

I could feel the force of uncounted Divinities flowing past me. Despite being on the edge of the Warp, Reality was painting that infinite mindscape behind me, and was rising into soaring light, and plunging into an eternal darkness, both completely at odds with the churning chaos of the Warp, and drawing in the trillions of dead of eons in singing, burning symphony.

Their slaves, their power, being drawn away, for to Creation, their whole universe was simply an appetizer, and they were not facing gods restricted to the same powers they themselves drew on, but Divinities who operated across Creation.

Divinities beyond them. The Warp Gods were only desperate Divine worms.

I smiled and watched Him come.