A century or so later:

Strangely the empire population had stabilized. There were still births, but nothing like before. I wondered at it at night, curled up around Haladoria. It had happened a few decades previous. I watched but little had changed. We still expanding and the people still worked together. Technology had risen drastically when the people took apart what we had brought back from the dead world. Time passed as it always did and I watched. The puzzles were still there and I poked a the pieces every once in a while. The children had grown. They were almost ancient sized by this point. They still called me father and Haladoria mother. The rest of the people called us gods.

I never did really get them to call me Michael. Insert Arienach’s chuckle here.

They had tried to make jet aircraft and decided they were too inefficient to use with steam. They wanted no part of fossil fuels. No one was in a big enough hurry to warrant the use of those creations. Since the people were pretty much immortal, what was the rush? The children had started to merge the technology with magic and the enchanters took it from there. I cannot say I was thrilled with the idea of cell phones, but at least they turned away from the idea of advertising. Crystal computers were everywhere now. They used them with just about everything. Funny thing, at least to me, there was no network for either the phones or the computers. They were linked through the portals and it was nothing to send a message across the galactic plane with no real delay.

Still, I was shocked when I woke up that morning and discovered the game was gone.

Haladoria looked over at me in shock. “Michael. What has changed?”

I was half asleep. “What do you mean?”

“Something feels different.”

Eric opened one eye. “Oh, finally.” Then he grinned. “What is your level now, father?”

I shrugged and pulled up my status. Nothing happened. “What the hell?”

Haladoria looked up at me with wide eyes. “Mine isn’t working.”

Ronan yawned. “About time they shut that off.”

Tristan was a bit more animated. “It worked!” And hugged me.

My eyes widened and instinctively I reached out to check on the people. Some were confused, others were a little shaken, but none were panicking.

“So. Does that mean we are not gods now?” I asked, confused.

Eric just looked at me. “No father. You are still the supreme god of this galaxy. I expect Ta to show up shortly to explain this to you.”

“You knew about this?” I asked shocked.

Ronan sighed. “You did as well, the humans told you about it.”

He had a point. “I know, but still.”

I suddenly felt a tingle. Strange, it was down at the house. The children just looked up at me and smiled. Haladoria looked puzzled for a moment, looking between me and down to where the house was.

Tristan gave me a nudge. “Go on you two.”

We flew down to the house and shifted. Ravina met us at the door with a smile. “She is upstairs waiting on you.”

I looked at her for a moment. She seemed… happier? “Thank you.”

She curtsied and did her hip swaying strut out of the room. “Some things never change.” I said with a smile.

Haladoria just laughed. “True, but she is one thing we do not wish to change.”

We made our way up the stairs and into the office. Ta was sitting in her normal chair, but something was different about her.

“Hello Michael. It is over now. Thank you.” Then she started crying and flew into my arms. “Oh thank you so much.” She said between tears.

I just stared at her. “Um… You’re welcome?”

Haladoria had a bemused expression on her face. “Ta? Are you okay?”

I thought it was a strange question to ask a god, but what did I know?

Ta answered after a few moments. “I am fine, excellent, wonderful!” She was sniffing as she said it.

“Not to break the mood, but what is happening?” I asked.

“It worked this time thanks to you.” She sniffed again. She seemed so alive now… that was it, she was alive this time.

“Yes, quite alive as are the rest of the seeds.” She answered my thoughts.

“Seeds?”

“Oh, this is going to be a story.” She laughed and sniffed again.

Haladoria found a handkerchief and offered it to her. She sniffed an blew her nose. Then grinned.

“Believe it or not, it is so good to be able to do that again.”

I was totally confused. “To blow your nose?”

She laughed with tears coming from her eyes. “To be alive again.” She almost sang. “Sit down, this will probably take a while.”

So we sat.

“This starts many eons ago and many galaxies back. Our race had found godhood and was not prepared for it. We lasted for several centuries, but in the end, our population had dropped to a percent of what it was. More and more of our planets were dropping from the union and those, we found had pretty much all committed suicide.”

I stared at her as she caught her breath. “So they sent out a seed ship.”

“Not at first. It took a long hard look from the survivors to see that they needed to find a challenge. Most had been living in a virtual world to escape the endless, endless time we were facing. Some of the remaining planners decided that maybe we could make a galaxy along the lines of the game and it was proposed to the people. The first attempt was a disaster. They were gods. They knew it. When something didn’t go their way, they changed it.”

“And pretty much caused a war and destroyed whatever galaxy they were in.” I said quietly.

“Yes. Then it was decided to make the ships. What the other gods didn’t realize was the game that was put into place would suppress their powers and pretty much lock them into their chosen race. There were three such ships made. Ours was the last. We went out to our chosen galaxy and everything worked perfectly.”

“Right up until they found star travel and found each other.”

“Unfortunately. We had their souls stored in the chambers, or seeds, so they would recall back to the ship when they died. It took less than four centuries before we had ninety percent of them back.”

“Gods.”

“Yes, that was the problem.” She said softly. “We tried changing the parameters of the game, but each time the races found each other, they warred to extinction. We didn’t know what to do, so we kept going. Time passed and we kept trying and failing. We knew that once they found each other they would all die. But we didn’t know how to stop them.”

I looked over at Haladoria and she was pale. “Are you alright, love?”

“I think so.” She whispered.

Ta looked at her sadly. “We had to suppress your memories. We had little choice. We had turned around at one point and went back to where our home was, but it wasn’t there anymore. The entire galaxy was gone, save for a few stars. We had to go on. For all we knew, we were the last of our civilization.”

I was totally overcome by the scope.

“We had all but given up hope, when our pilot who happened to be a planar, opened a portal in front of the ship. When we came out, the rest of the crew realized they were on a collision course with a planet and manage to send out two groups of seeds.”

“The rings…”

“Yes. We thought we would be fine until the crash. Our ship was buried half way into the planet and we couldn’t project enough mana to reach the seeds. Without the mana, they didn’t advance as they should. We had to release one of the races. But who? In desperation, we released all of the ones who were creative enough to hopefully get us a link out of where we were. We sent out the dragons, including the pilot who had tried to end the mission, along with all the other races, which you know about.”

“The pilot… oh hell.”

“Yes, it was you Arienach. We understand, we were out of hope by that point. But it made it almost impossible to trust you.” She turned to Haladoria. “This next part is going to come as a shock to you, as Michael has never told anyone.”

“What do you mean?” Haladoria looked confused.

“Michael and Arienach were two different beings. Michael came from a mortal plane that was close and we captured his soul after Arienach got bored and had his brain scrambled.”

“Hey, I didn’t have any memories and I was bored as hell, how was I to know the damn witch was set to kill me?”

“Michael? Arienach?” Then she laughed. “No wonder you used to talk to yourself so much.”

I just shook my head. So much for the meltdown I had expected.

“They melded… or merged as Michael likes to say. To our surprise, Michael and Arienach as a whole was far stronger than either alone. Through a simple act of mercy, he set a course, and held it to where we are now. We were terrified when we offered him godhood again. We had to get back to our people and we did lose a few before we managed to bring them back in, but it was a gamble we had to take. Gods we screwed up when we tried to corner him into taking ascension.”

“Not taking into account the humans life span was almost your undoing.” Haladoria said with a smirk.

“I was so scared. We all were. You had given us back the planet and we could still feel the others out there, but we couldn’t reach them.”

“That was one part of your plan that I have a hard time forgiving, Ta.” I said.

“We screwed up. Badly. I realize now that all we needed to do was ask you, but we only had our past to go on. We were expecting it all to fly apart at any moment. We didn’t tell you before this because you knew too much. So we gave you leadership. Over all of us.”

I looked back over that time. The clues were there in their actions.

“And you learned.”

“Oh, we learned. Looking back, you probably could have saved our entire race. We were self centered and manipulative. We never thought to lead by helping rather than ordering.”

I snorted. “You would have thought my views on politicians would have been a dead giveaway.”

She laughed. “We understand that now, but we didn’t then. So far, you have done little but guide the people, mostly by example. They are not suppressed by the game anymore, but none have had any urge to do anything other than follow where you lead. Most have completely regained their memories as well. Reach out, feel what your people feel, Michael.”

I did as she asked. I felt nothing but a sense of relief and gratitude.

“What of the other gods?”

“They will join the people now. The ship is nothing more than a mana generator now an the other worlds produce their own.”

“So you are here with us in this little adventure.” I chuckled.

“So, my god leader. Where do we go from here?” She said with a grin.

I laughed. “I haven’t a clue, but then, that is nothing new.” I paused again. “What of the children?”

“That was a huge shock for us. We were going to implant a few of our seeds, but when we got to them, they had already developed. They are their own beings and they, being brought up in the magic of all the gods, learned all that anyone who was close to you knew… which included all of the people and the gods. Your children left their shell with the sum knowledge of everything that was in the ship and in the lands. They chose to remain your children.”

Three perfectly formed young elves walked into the room. Two males and a female. Their eyes glowed with the colors of the rainbow.

“Why would we not follow one who led by raising up the people rather than by controlling them?” Tristan said with a smile.

“Arienach gave you the perspective and you gave him the compassion.” Ronan said.

“You care not for power but use your power to protect and enlighten your people.” Eric said.

I shook my head. “Why not take the empire for yourselves?”

Tristan laughed. “You are so much better at being paranoid and worrying than we are. Besides, who would want that job?”

They just stood there smiling.

Then I heard a droning sound. I couldn’t figure it out. It almost sounded… like a bunch of people talking? I looked at Haladora and Ta and they were smiling as well. We walked down and out the front door and found the entire inner ring was full of people. As we stood there, they grew quiet. Then they knelt. I stared out across the sea of people. More were coming out of the portal building as we stood there. Elves, human, drow, fay, centaur, dwarves, trolls, wyvern and dragons. The empire. Looking to me to lead. Looking to me to guide them. Waiting on my words.

I looked out at them and said. “I suppose Michael is out of the question?”

The entire empire laughed.