There were some things I wanted to know before the door opened, so I sent a request for Shade to increase the speed of her simulation by a factor of two so that we could talk, which she did.

"You've been quiet," I said.

"Why did you let them get so far?" Shade asked in a subdued voice.

"There are reactions that your body does by habit," I said. "Similar to the muscle memory you use to do things without thinking about them in detail, you have instinctive reactions to situations. You have been trained to submit in that situation, and I went along with it for as long as I cared to. I also wanted to give them the chance to heed my warning and survive."

It didn't look like the door was going to open at my first knock. Which was probably a good thing, it gave me some more time to prepare. I didn't have any experience with casting magic, so I would want to think of something else to use against the First.

"If you show the same mercy to the First then my body will be tortured and killed," Shade said. "Though as you're standing there covered in the blood of people loyal to the First you won't likely get the chance to be merciful."

"Tell me about the First," I said. "What is his preferred way of dealing with things?"

I had a listing of everyone who had an inventory and looked up whether Shade had one and where it was located. It turned out she did, and one of the rarer medium Bags of Holding. It had security sensors monitoring it, which included a ten centimeter by ten centimeter portal that was within easy range of my Matter Manipulation power.

I extended my power through it, and then through the opening of the bag of holding, soaking it into the surroundings. It was in the blood soaked rags that were once my dress, and from the placement it seemed like it had been carried between my breasts. I picked it up out of the dress as Shade was talking.

"The First is an illusion specialist," Shade said. "He can make you experience the most horrific scenes if you disappoint him, and he has executed people by driving them mad first. He uses it as a combat ability by completely masking his presence, you can be sure that wherever you see him in a fight, if you try to engage him there, he won't truly be there."

I passed a thread portal with an exit point in a new portal room, complete with presence, through the sequence of portals ending with it coming out of Shade's Bag of Holding. I opened it up to its full size and laid it on the ground near the bodies.

"Where did that come from?" Shade asked. "It isn't mine, but that's my storage space."

"The portal system is entirely mine," I said. "And I created the inventory system. I can do pretty much anything I wish with it, and I wish for a place to deposit the corpses so that they don't attract negative attention."

"You created the inventory system..." Shade said, trailing off.

"Mostly, yes," I said. "It was partly negotiated with the world after I broke it a bit."

I had no trouble soaking my power into the dead bodies, moving them along the wood floor and through the portal.

"You..." Shade said. "There is still blood everywhere, and you're covered in it."

That was simple to fix. I used my power to convert all of the blood, from my skin and fur, the hallway, and my discarded dress into air. I folded down the thread portal and placed it into the Bag of Holding, gripping that with my tail.

I knocked on the door again, more firmly this time, and there was a response this time that I couldn't make out through the door, which stayed closed.

"Are the stories they tell about you really true?" Shade asked.

"I don't know," I said. "I have a recording of the storytelling room of the druids where they tell stories, and some of those stories were about me the last time I checked. But I haven't listened to any of them in years in relative time. I'm not sure what it's been in normal time."

"Are you immortal?" Shade asked.

"I am," I said. "But then, so are you, theoretically. Just as you don't have a living body right now, any Demi-AI who dies I can give a new body to."

"Have you died before?" Shade asked.

"My body has died, yes," I said.

"And you came back from the dead," Shade said. "Did you fight a god's avatar and win?"

"I revived my body," I said. "I didn't fight an avatar of the winter god, just a head priest with the mantle of his god's power. And I killed him, yes. It is unwise to threaten those I care about, which is a lesson you should pay attention to."

"Are you as altruistic as you are portrayed?" Shade asked.

"I don't know how I'm portrayed," I said. "I've set the Fortress up to be a place of abundance, and a lot of that is at my expense... But I have also killed thousands who were sent to take what was mine, and I'm sure they would have a different opinion."

"Did you really create life from nothing?" Shade asked.

"I did," I said. "Are you going to continue to ask questions?"

The transparent image of Shade bit her bottom lip in the simulation. "Just two more," Shade said. "Are you a God? And, is the world really ending?"

"I should have been told if I were a God, I think," I said, which made Shade frown. "As far as I know I'm not classified as a God. And the world ending is why I made this Fortress, for people to survive the end. I've since been tasked with saving the world from the gods that want to end it."

None of her questions were about my combat ability, which I found interesting, or about the fortress itself, or the System. I'm sure the questions would have come up if I hadn't caused her to become self-conscious about asking.

I knocked on the door a third time and a few seconds later it was yanked inwards, slamming against the inside wall to reveal an angry looking Forest Keeper a head shorter than me.

"That's the First," Shade said.

"What, damn you both-" the First said. "Where are my boys, Greenleaf, and what are you doing here?"

I ducked my head meekly. "I came to tell you about the Lord of the Fortress," I said. "The hall was empty when I came in."

The First grunted and came out into the hallway, pushing me to the side and looking around. Not finding anything he turned back to me.

"It is good that you got yourself ready for me even without the encouragement of my boys," the First said. "Who will be getting some new nightmares for leaving my door unguarded."

There was a tugging on my mind, like the nudging that I used to get from the simulation before it turned into the System but much less sophisticated. I disliked having my mind messed with. I still had my power extended into the wood of the hallway and pushed it upwards looking for a blank space where the First was.

There wasn't a blank space where my eyes could see him standing, but there were two that were the size of his feet next to me, walking back through the doorway. I shifted my tail so that my body blocked the First from seeing the Bag of Holding and pushed against the pressure in my mind.

My magic jumped to obey me, the symbols forming within the same space as my brain, and the First snapped into view in front of me looking shocked. He also looked, and smelled, a lot worse, with mangy fur that was missing in clumps.

"By your oath you are bound, Greenleaf," the First said quickly. "Freeze. Stop whatever you are doing. Don't look at me."

I kept the spell going and moved my tail so that my left hand, that was out of the First's view, could grab the thread portal out of my Bag of Holding.

The First was muttering to himself and casting another spell. I had the thread portal in my hand and was extending it out into a circle that I could drop over the First's head and body.

He finished his spell first and my spell flickered out.

There was a disorientating moment when I felt myself fall, landing in an ocean of blood. At the same time I had my power soaked into my Forest Keeper body, still standing in the hallway.

I swam my way to the surface, wiping the blood from my eyes when I got there. Something rough, like sandpaper, bumped against my leg from below and I saw a huge black dorsal fin break through the blood several meters in front of me.

My heart was racing, pumping adrenaline through me. Fear and panic gripped me far stronger than I'd ever felt before. I was certain this giant thing was going to eat me.

I dropped into my own simulation and maximised my time perception, leaving the emotions behind. They had been so strong that they had sucked my focus in, not allowing me to think anything else. Only my reaction to dangerous situations, increasing the speed of my digital side, had saved me.

Looking over my Forest Keeper body, it had been sent to sleep and locked down with sleep paralysis. I had experienced it before, and had escaped it by sending a shock of electricity into my brain, jolting me awake. This was a spell-induced sleep which might not react the same, but in the worst case I could burn out my consciousness from the body and come back with my real body.

I charged up the shock to be sent, overriding the warnings of the Mind Link, and sent it. I wasn't eager to go back to what the body was feeling so I spent the hour that it took for it to arrive studying magic from the two primers I had.

The First had taken two steps through the doorway in the time it took me to wake up. The sleep paralysis hadn't worn off completely, but I managed to step towards him. He was turning towards me when I slammed the thread portal down over him, sending him sprawling into the portal room on the other side.