The two Forest Keeper guards that were in the guard room were relaxing against the wall with the door to city in it, their halberds leaning against the wall next to them. They snatched their weapons up and levelled them at my chest as I stepped through the doorway, hooting at me and then at each other.

I raised my empty hands. "Peace." I said. "I don't understand what you are saying. I have come to speak with Mal'Thorn."

They hooted at each other for a bit then one left through the door to their city, the other turned to face me.

"Stay." He said. "Mal'Thorn get."

He was difficult to understand, but that is what what he was saying came down to after he'd repeated himself several times. He was tense, and still had the blade of his halberd ten centimeters away from my chest.

"We leave." I said, keeping my language as simple as possible and pointing back through the doorway. "Mal'Thorn follow when get."

The guard looked at me uncertainly. "Leave?" He asked.

"Go." I said, trying synonyms while still pointing back through the doorway. "Not stay."

The guard nodded slowly and I stepped back. He raised his weapon back to a parade rest, calming down as we left.

"They really should have people who can speak this language at the doorway." I said.

Chantelle nodded. "Perhaps they weren't expecting you to use it so soon." She said.

Oh well, hopefully Mal'Thorn would come through soon. While I was waiting I decided to start raising the walls for the buildings of the village. The markers started ten meters out from the stairwell, I gathered it was more because they hadn't wanted to approach me than because they didn't want walls there.

The walls they did want were thirty centimeters thick on average for outer walls and five centimeters thick for inner walls. They were stacking the buildings next to each other sharing a thick wall between them, and sets of four wall markers showing where gaps for doorways should be.

I spent half an hour pouring stone through my Pocket Dimension, building walls and pipes for water and waste, moving the markers as I completed things. Twenty five buildings went up, one a dormitory type building that could house fifty people in small single rooms. They were planning a building ten in front of where I was up to when Mal'Thorn arrived, my throwing up walls so casually had increased their pace greatly and they seemed to be avoiding me even more.

Chantelle sent me a nudge through our connection when Mal'Thorn arrived.

"Greetings Mal'Thorn." I said.

"Greetings Lord C.C." Mal'Thorn said. "You sent for me?"

"I went to see you, actually." I said. "The guards at the portal didn't speak this language very well, and the guard that was left looked uncomfortable with me there, so we came back here to wait for you."

"I thank you for your consideration." Mal'Thorn said, bowing. "I have been appointed as the leader of the Forest Keepers that will be moving under your protection. Presuming we can negotiate a successful treaty, of course."

"That is why I was looking for you, actually." I said. "The Warders and I negotiated a treaty, but apparently it won't reassure their people that I won't be an evil bastard without it being an official treaty assured by the world magic. I was hoping you could officiate?"

"I would be glad to." Mal'Thorn said.

I called Veya over and we went over the terms of the treaty again, a safe place and access to food and water in return for acting in the best interest of the fortress and the people that live there. And access to the network of portals that I would be setting up.

"I accept this treaty on behalf of my people." Veya said once the details were laid out.

"Is that all, Lord C.C.?" Mal'Thorn asked. "I have the Heart of the Forest seed to see to."

"Yes, thank you." I said. "We will negotiate for your place here in the near future."

Mal'Thorn nodded and left.

Chantelle was getting bored and restless standing around not doing anything. What I really needed was a way to increase her defensive abilities and at the same time stay in communication with her. I understood how Mind Links worked, and how to expand a consciousness over to a digital platform...

As soon as I thought of making a digital platform for Chantelle's consciousness I got a strong sense of extreme caution. The nudge was the strongest that I had felt so far and it got stronger the more I thought about how to go about it. I'm sure anyone else would have given up without knowing why well before this point.

Finally the distraction became too much and I angrily sent a communication handshake at the source of the feeling on my digital side, the equivalent of shouting 'what the hell do you want' at it. To my surprise an interface appeared at the source of the nudge leading to somewhere external and a communication protocol was successfully negotiated with it. I implemented a quick overlay so that messages from the nudges would show up in my vision and got my first blue window.

System initialising... Error: The current simulation has no System implementation.

Simulation adapting.

Warning: System functionality will start basic and evolve over time.

Interface mentioned a System, and that it was preferred for knowledge-based personalities. He had also said that this simulation wouldn't have one. Had I broken the simulation?

Warning! Giving your Chosen Person immortality while your exists will trigger a reassessment of your simulation goal that will take into account the increased threat from the unanticipated use of your powers.

Yup, I'd broken the simulation. Apparently I was considered immortal and by doing the same for Chantelle my goal would become irrelevant. That it was qualified by my Pocket Dimension existing... Oh, right, everything in my Pocket Dimension ceases to exist if I die, which would cause her immortality to stop. But I was immortal myself, so I wouldn't die?

"What's gotten you so excited?" Chantelle asked from beside me.

I pulled her into through the doorway to the hallway between my fortress and the Forest Keeper city, away from where the gods could hear.

"You know I've been worrying about you." I said. She nodded. "I was thinking of ways to make you more powerful and so safer, and I... well, I broke the world a little bit."

She looked at me in shock, and I could feel it sweep over me in a wave over our connection.

"You broke the world?" She asked.

"A little." I said. "It adjusted, it's fine. The important thing is that apparently I can make you immortal so long as I stay alive... Oh, and apparently the world considers me immortal too. Probably because I resurrected myself from being dead."

Chantelle got over her shock quickly, which I'm sure my excitement for the possibilities had something to do with.

"What would we need to do?" She asked. "I'm not going to have to start drinking blood and murdering people, am I?"

Huh, do they have vampires here?.. A question for later.

"Nothing like that." I said. "I would build a construct in my Pocket Dimension and link it to your brain so that your mind was shared across it. It would require modifying your body, with the pain that that entails... And I think I lost some of my humanity when I did it, I'm not sure I'm human anymore. But you keep your values and your personality. We would be able to communicate no matter the distance between us and most importantly you would be able to slow down time and simulate the world. A lot of my defensive ability comes from those two aspects. You would be as safe as I can make you, not considering the immortality."

I sank my power into her and started to build a full scan of her body as she thought about it. When that was done I dropped my perception of time and designed the AI platform and new Mind Link, both for the Pocket Dimension side and how the model of her brain would be adjusted.

The micro-portals for the Mind Link would be the complicated part. There were millions of them and I would need to be consciously aware of the placement of each of them as they connected to my Pocket Dimension, placing them within Chantelle's Mind Link. It would only need to be for the first symbol, then the rest of the symbols required could be automated... And if I used my Matter Manipulation from my digital side without going through my biological side I would be able to do it at my slowest perception of time, in series so as to cause the least amount of pain.

I started the building of Chantelle's AI platform and Mind Link in my Pocket Dimension and came back to normal speed as Chantelle opened her mouth to speak.

"I want to do it." Chantelle said. "The world is ending, and I need as much power as I can grab for myself to protect our people."

I nodded. "My goal as a Champion will change when we do this." I said. "It was for you to survive the end of the world. Making you immortal, and other things that I've done, will force a reevaluation."

"You will achieve it, whatever it is." Chantelle said. "And I will protect our people. I am ready. Where are we doing this?"

I cut a hole in the stone of the hallway and it opened out to the original safe room I had made, complete with stone table I had formed to heal Ian. I could see Greta moving amongst the villagers through the doorway into the bottom of my fortress. I pushed the doorway into the stone, effectively closing the doorway, then pushed the stone table through the wall and closer to where my Mind Link was and the new one was being built.

"Lay on the table." I said. "I'll be as quick as I can."

I rewrote the body manipulation program so that it had both a serial and a parallel mode, then nodded to Chantelle. She nodded back and I triggered the program to modify her brain in serial mode. I dropped my perception of time to its maximum and followed along with the changes it made with one model while I had another model of Chantelle's Mind Link up. At the start of each micro-portal I etched the first symbol manually, placing the exit perfectly within the Mind Link.

Several million symbols later I was done and a blue screen popped up.

Recalculating Champion goal...