Arts and crafts by Me

A writer's room on the second floor of a house in a city with cobblestone streets, date unknown:

M tapped the tip of a quill against his bottom lip, contemplating the blank sheet of paper in front of him. So far this week he had written about evidence for the existance of giants and a tribe of people who could turn into birds. The next topic could be one of the many floating around in his head; he just couldn't decide on which one.

He glanced at an unfinished manuscript that was sitting on a shelf next to his desk. He sighed with longing, still waiting for his muse to deliver a final chapter to him. It was about a man who harbored deep regrets over dabbling in sinister magicks, something which had cost him the presence of his closest friend. The man had gone on a quest spanning decades to find her and make things right.

M had yet to find a solution for how the two would reunite. The answer sometimes itched in the back of his brain but never fully materialized where he could grasp it.

Finally he looked back at the conundrum in front of him. There was an amusing little idea he had entertained about a spectre of death getting involved with a vampire to either cover the world in darkness or, in a more light-hearted vein, fall in love. He wasn't sure which one he liked better. Maybe he would just write both...

He could picture the response either way: "Where do you get your ideas from?"

The answer was more difficult to explain than anyone would ever realize, and it was why he threw in genuine research even when presenting a work of fiction: He always had a sense that he had lived some, if not all, of these extraordinary lives he wrote about.

Saying "personal experience" didn't seem like it would fly, especially because he was aware that his current publisher - and others he had approached - would consider him to be a lunatic. The point of publishing the fantastical was to give the average reader a thrill from the safety of their home, and the point of including bits of real evidence was to give the scientifically-minded readers something to consider regarding new possibilities.

~*~

A year or so later, across an old stone bridge near the ruins of a town called Oakhurst:

Scott grumbled as he walked through the crumbling remains of his castle, complaining to himself about the state of things and the inconsiderate buffoons who buried him.

His surroundings gave him an idea of how difficult it might be to acquire fresh blood aside from whichever animals happened to still inhabit the woods. He thought about a very specific group of people he knew - or had known, in the distant past - whom he had easily fed off of even before he had a whole town offering him sacrifices. While that group had cycled through living as a large spectrum of different creatures, he had gone from Mothling to vampire, and had become unstoppable.

The irritation made Scott run his fingertips along the wall as he walked, imagining he was leaving deep furrows in the stone. He would have been able to if the centuries of being sealed away and not feeding hadn't robbed him both of strength and rending claws.

They did quickly learn to steer clear of him, and rather than settle for a taunting view of their architectural whims popping up everywhere, he decided to relocate altogether. He travelled far and found a humble village near a deep forest. He acquainted himself with the villagers, playing innocent for a while until he could build himself a suitable castle. Then he revealed his true nature to the powerless humans and began the reign of terror that he had once dreamed of before his allies had changed and wanted nothing to do with him.

He remembered another time and place where he did leave such marks, in a manorhouse-turned-castle during his original bid to take over the world. An ally of his at the time had alerted him to the presence of a deceitful soul among the petitioners visiting that day. His ally had tracked them around the room while standing beside Scott's throne; this soul seemed to also have no fear of the imposing cloaked figure with half a skeletal face hidden under the hood and the bone structure of wings protruding from his back.

Scott remembered the moment his ally had signaled the right moment for the vampire lord to reveal he knew the person's intentions. He pounced dramatically and gave chase as they tried to flee out of the room and through the halls, Scott close on their heels snarling and swiping his claws as part of the show that was meant to give just as much warning to current or future visitors to not get such foolish notions into their heads.

In the present, Scott looked around for any resulting bloodstains from more recent - relatively speaking - attempts to defy him. The old carpets that had been soaked in red had obviously disintegrated, or perhaps been stolen, within the first hundred years. And while the floor remained, several layers of blood-drenched stone had been eroded away once the walls no longer existed to shield from the elements.

A bitter memory surfaced of the events that seemed to follow far too soon after that incident from further in the past. His ally, a shard of death itself, had died and awoken as something else with altruistic morals - a "superhero" who proclaimed he would defeat evil, protect the innocent, save the world blah blah blah...

In the end he was unable to stop the vampire lord, and within a handful of other deaths he was building those same obnoxious creations as everyone else all around the land, so Scott had wiped his hands of all of them. A somber little town away from civilization was more palatable, even if it was now in similar ruin to his castle…

His senses abruptly flared up as he neared the edge of the woods. Heartbeats. Active arteries and veins. Living flesh…

---

Chapter Four – The Parties and The First Dreams

Sausage shivered as he brought up the rear behind Jimmy, the stray Warden ahead of them and Tango at the front luring it along the tunnel with the sound of pops and sizzles from his fiery hair. With the need to keep the Warden moving as top priority Sausage hadn’t reattached his prosthetic yet, keeping it tucked through his belt on his right side for the moment. The lack of lava pockets in the area paired with the surrounding stone made the cold seep into his bones; within a few more minutes the chill began to draw out an ache in his stump. He reached over to rub at it but a sniffing noise from the Warden made him go stock still.

Jimmy noticed this from the corner of his eye – and he halted, too. He gave Sausage a single nod in acknowledgement. Only when the Warden uttered a dismissive grunt did the two allow themselves to breathe and continue forward. However, Sausage didn’t truly relax until the Deep Dark appeared ahead of them. He kept an ear out but there wasn’t even so much as a single squelch of Tango’s feet on the sculk due to the careful way the Blaze hybrid carefully tread on it. As soon as the Warden fully crossed over the deepslate bordering the sculk it dug downwards to return from whence it came.

A tense minute passed as Tango and Jimmy searched around the immediate area, but after signaling to each other that there were no shriekers in the vicinity, they ran at each other and whiffed a high-five – on purpose, which had become their custom congratulatory ritual to avoid injuring each other by mix of fire and water.

Sausage let out a sign of relief before turning to head out. He nearly jumped out of his skin a second later when a boom of thunder crashed through the tunnels. “Ohmygod! That shouldn’t travel like that all the way down here!!” He clutched at his chest in genuine distress.

Jimmy assumed the man was being overdramatic as usual. “Gee, Sausage, just be glad that doesn’t rile up Wardens, or Mythland would be overrun with ‘em!” He clapped Sausage on the back in a patronizing manner. “You’ve looked nervous this whole time, by the way. Has settling down made you lose your touch or something?”

A jumble of responses bounced around Sausage’s mind, then he made a point to grasp the end of his right arm and blurt out, “Yeah. This touch, Jimmy!” He twisted his face into an infuriated glare.

He was, however, only pinching his lips together to hold back a guffaw at his own joke, but the expression served to make the Codfather think he had severely offended the Mythlandian.

Jimmy hastily stepped back, reacting as expected. “Sorry, man. I – uh – kinda forgot about that for a second. You – You haven’t let it slow you down, y’know? F-From what I’ve seen you’re still good ol’ King Sausage, mighty ruler of Mythland!”

Tango popped up beside him to rescue Jimmy from his unintentional fumble, as well as to get them walking. “Speaking of, have the caves and sculk pockets and possible Ancient City under your kingdom been fully mapped out?”

“Uhh…” Sausage coughed to hold back his initial response of, ‘I already explored the whole thing in another world so why would I do it again?’ and instead said, “Well, there are some old maps that a previous ruler of Mythland drew, but obviously sculk spreads over time so they might be a little outdated and not one hundred percent accurate anymore – which, you know, actually might be why a Warden emerged here when no sightings had been reported before. Obviously I’ve been focused on my family lately, so updating musty old maps hasn’t been at the top of my list, and I’m not about to take the kids on an adventure this early in their lives, oh no!”

Tango cackled. “Relax, your highly-est-ness. What I’m saying is that we could do the mapping for you! Navigating the Deep Dark is like second nature to me, and my codly friend here has – obviously – been learning from the best!”

Following Tango’s lead Jimmy chimed in, “And – And you can look at it this way: we can make it safer for your kids by finding all the dangerous spots and blocking them off! Then you guys can have a family adventure without worry!”

Sausage spun around so he could regard both of them. He noted their eager smiles. “Are you guys just looking for an excuse to explore Deep Darks that you haven’t been in yet?”

“Yes,” Jimmy and Tango chorused in sweet tones.

Sausage turned to resume walking, surreptitiously slipping his prosthetic free and holding it by the forearm section with his left hand. He then tilted his head up and clasped his chin – with his prosthetic hand, controlling it remotely. “Hmm. Hmmm,” he uttered with drawn-out, thoughtful inflection. “Hmm…”

He heard eager and anxious squeaks from behind him. He grinned; at least their antics had helped to calm his nerves. “Hmm. Well…”

“Well?” Tango echoed.

“Yeah?” Jimmy asked.

Smoothly switching to walking backward, Sausage pivoted to face them again so he could show the comical position of his arms. Then he pointed his prosthetic at them – while pointing one prosthetic finger at them, as well. A brief giggle escaped him as he was amused by his own absurdity. He needed to remember to try this one on the kids. “You do seem qualified for the job, so I’ll let you do it! But I want you to start at the borders and work your way inward. Small villages and settlements need to be protected, too! I have enough guards and soldiers in the capital to protect the castle and close-by towns.”

By this time Tango was cracking up at the sight of the prosthetic hand waggling around, but pulled himself together a second later to respond, “Sure, sure, solid plan. We’ll get on it just as soon… as…” His voice trailed off as they reached an elevation high enough to hear the rain that had ended up accompanying the thunder from earlier. Tango emitted an irritated noise.

Sausage lowered his arms and looked at Tango questioningly. “What is it? Do you have other plans? You don’t have to do it right away. Mythland is huge! This is probably something that could take years, considering how out of date some of those maps are! And you’ve both got your own responsibilities I’m sure, and—”

Jimmy interrupted. “It’s not that, Sausage. Listen.”

Sausage stopped rambling and did as told, angling his head as if his left ear might be better at picking up on what had made Tango abruptly turn surly.

“Rain,” Jimmy said. “Tango hates the rain. It’s not exactly something he experienced in the Burning Dark.”

As if to emphasize the point, Tango let out an irritated growl before muttering, “Stupid water that stupidly falls from the entire stupid sky, rrr-gak!”

Sausage was puzzled, then he noticed the increasing amount of smoke coming off of the staves that encircled Tango’s head. An unintentional laugh burst out of him. “Oh, I see! Because of the whole Blaze thing! Wait, but wouldn’t it just evaporate when it lands on you?”

“Yeah,” Tango squawked, “If it’s a light drizzle! But it rarely drizzles! It’s always like that dumb sky of yours sees me and goes ‘Well, time to dump buckets full of rain on this guy in particular! Hoo-hoo, let’s show the Blaze man what the surface world is all about!”

Jimmy uttered an awkward sound. “Um, sorry, Tango. I kinda like the rain…”

Tango flailed his hands at the Codfather. “That’s because your fish brain thinks the droplets hitting the water are bugs! Fish food instincts! You fishy-fish… fishman!”

Jimmy now laughed softly at his friend’s incoherent rage. “Gee, Tango, maybe you should step out into the rain for a little bit to cool off!”

Tango’s rage subsided into annoyed muttering for the rest of the walk up to the tunnel that exited out into the larger cave where they had started. Sure enough, the view of the world outside featured a sky full of clouds and pouring rain. Tango risked a closer look, then meeped in distress and jumped backward as wind blew some raindrops onto him.

There was a flash of lightning that was immediately followed by thunder. The main storm was directly over them. Sausage took a peek outside for himself. “Hm. Those are some heavy, dark clouds. Looks like it will be storming for a while.”

Tango made yet another annoyed sound then meandered further away to the back of the cave to sit up on a ledge. Jimmy stayed near the cave entrance and even made himself comfortable in a puddle that had begun to form in a lower-lying spot. “Might as well get comfy, then. If you both want, I can go to the village to get food before it gets too dark and we can camp here until it’s over. We probably should have planned for that, but you were in a big hurry, Sausage. You can’t really rush a Warden wrangling session, my friend.”

“What do you mean, get food?” Sausage asked.

“Well, we were too busy to be hungry,” Jimmy replied, “But if the storm keeps up for that long, then we’ll want dinner at some point, right?”

“What?? But we should have plenty—oh, no.”  Sausage’s expression became mortified, then he began to look panicked, patting around his body like he was searching for something.

“What is it, Sausage? Wha—”

“I said I’d be home for lunch, Jimmy!! It’s going to be past dinnertime if I wait for the storm to stop! My little princess is missing her first full day with her new papa!!”

“Sausage, you—”

The Mythlandian whimpered indecisively. He took his prosthetic from his belt and looked from it to the cuff-covered end of his stump, wondering if it was worth the time it would take to get it reattached, or just leave immediately. Jimmy was about to volunteer Tango to help with it, since Tango had redstone knowledge, and it might distract the Blaze hybrid from his misery, but Sausage then shoved the prosthetic down the front of his shirt and rushed out into the rain without another word.

Jimmy blinked but made no attempt to go after him. Tango made a point to scrape his boots on the stone as he drew his legs up. “So, umm, hey. What’s this ‘princess’ thing, now?”

~*~

As soon as the rain had started Scott ushered the children in from the garden where they had been playing after their shopping trip and subsequent delayed lunch when Sausage hadn’t returned on time. There had been a brief protest from Liana, who was accustomed to mainly snow as precipitation and wanted to experience Mythland’s version. He had warned her that lower elevation storms could come with other dangers.

A lightning bolt that struck the weathervane on the tallest tower accompanied by a bone-rattling crash of thunder sufficed to send her wailing after her brothers, who had retreated to the dining room to decide on an indoor activity to pass the time. After checking on her Scott settled into his seat when the boys chose to do some individual reading; he offered to read a book with Liana but she fidgeted, then said she wanted to be brave and watch the storm.

She picked a window just outside the dining room – good for staying in Dad’s line of sight, at least – and cautiously looked outside. At first she peeked up over the windowsill, then she stood up to observe, and finally she dragged a chair over to sit. She was soon swinging her legs and leaning her upper body from side to side to match the motion while occasionally saying, “Ooh!” after a particularly bright flash of lightning.

Scott was glad she had so easily found a way to keep occupied and remain in one spot, since he soon found himself tending to reports that came in regarding a few rivers that had a history of overflowing in torrential rains. For the moment all was in hand, so he sent responses recommending to place a watch on standby and let him know when noted locations looked like they would become a risk. In the event of a breach, he could fly to the location and build up ice dams to prevent anything worse happening.

He explained this to the boys before he sent off the last responses, offering to train Elowen in flood mitigation procedures when the budding ice mage felt he was ready. He also gently requested for them to watch over Liana if he did have to leave, because Sir Carlos and Bubbles might also have to go out to assist citizens. He reassured them that the storm was unlikely to reach drastic proportions, but he wanted them to be prepared for his absence just in case. Obviously there would be plenty of guards and castle staff to help them with anything in these instances.

As expected, Azahar took on an air of assuming responsibility for his younger siblings. Elowen declined the lesson for the moment, and the two went over to join Liana. They patiently listened to her excitedly list how many lightning bolts she had counted in the sky compared to how many looked like they had struck the ground somewhere.

Scott had hoped a message from Sausage would arrive along with the reports, yet as time ticked by neither word of him or a message from him came in. Scott knew Liana would be disappointed, but it seemed like Sausage’d had the sense to take shelter to wait out the storm until it was safer to fly.

He was set on this belief up until Liana called out, “Daddy! There’s a giant bird flying this way!”

Scott looked away from the latest missive that had just been delivered, puzzled by how she could have seen such a thing from that window’s particular angle – then he saw that she was out of the chair and crouched down, her cheek against the windowsill and her head fully sideways to view what was apparently just enough of a sliver of the sky. He signed off on the scroll and let the attendant take it from the table themself while he went over to attempt a look.

Liana moved aside and pointed. Scott ducked down, trying to catch a glimpse of what she had seen, but he was too tall to find that same angle. He gave up and went to the doors of the garden. Maybe it was only a bird. On the other hand, birds usually find a place to roost during storms. He knew his husband wasn’t always as wise.

What Scott saw was definitely not a bird, but at least was someone in a reassuringly slow, planned downward glide. The danger of lightning still concerned him, though, so he lowered the temperature about half a meter from the ground to transform the rain into padded snow. He added an extra layer of snow for good measure – the softer the landing, the better.

He heard Liana’s delighted cry from the doorway; of course, the children would be drawn by his actions. “You said you did magic, but I didn’t know you could change a whole storm!”

“Not the whole thing,” Scott explained distractedly. “Just a small area right now.”

Liana merely giggled and began scooping up the snow that had fallen closest to the doors. “It feels like real snow!”

“It is real – Liana, I’m sorry, but now is not the time to play. I’ll make snow for you when it’s safer, okay? Please go inside.”

“Okay, Daddy. Make sure you catch Papa!”

“What—” He had been so intent on ensuring the snow would be deep enough that he hadn’t been paying attention to an exact trajectory of where Sausage might land.

His husband’s voice faded in to an audible range. “Innncominggg!!”

Scott looked skyward just in time to see Sausage lop-sidedly gliding directly at him. By reflex he did as Liana suggested and spread his arms; he caught Sausage, all right, and both of them tumbled through the snow for his trouble. Sausage grinned awkwardly down at Scott when they came to a halt, the elf ending up the one with his backside in the snow. “Nice catch, my dearest.”

Scott playfully shoved him off. “I love you, but it was dumb of you to fly in this.” He then noted how careful Sausage was about getting back to his feet, which is what made him realize there was a lack of prosthetic arm. He frowned. “What happened to your arm now?”

“Oh, heh, it’s fine! Mostly. Um. I didn’t have time to put it back on because I was in a hurry to get home. Do you know how easy it is to lose track of time when you’re purposely trying to find the Deep Dark? I figured it was better to just carry it home so you could help instead of leaving it up to slippery-fingered Jimmy, or lose even more time with Tango asking about every single little redstone detail that even I can’t explain—”

“I’m pretty sure you could have trusted either one of them, Sausage – even if it did take longer! They’re not the worst people to wait out a storm with, and maybe you should know more about all those little details. Anyway, where is your arm? You’re not carrying anything in your hand!” Scott began to look around the little furrow they had left in the snow. “Did you drop it? I’ll melt this so we can find it easier, hold on.”

“Oh, oops, uhh…” Sausage patted at himself.

Before he could play at theatrics again, however, Liana yelled from the doorway, “Papa, did you lose your metal arm? Don’t worry, I bet Daddy can make you one out of snow! Like he made all this snow!”

Sausage let out a forced hearty laugh, aware of how Scott’s shoulders went stiff. “He could maybe, but it would melt any time I ate soup! Fear not, though! I have it right here!” He reached under the collar of his shirt and pulled out his prosthetic – only to utter a long, “Uhhh…” upon seeing that the thinner struts around the inner basket had been warped by the collision and subsequent roll with Scott. “Ah. Heh. Hm. I, um, didn’t think that part of it was so… crushable.”

Scott eyed the damage and grumbled, “That’s because it’s meant to be held in shape by the rest of your arm.”

Elowen’s face appeared at the doorway next, seeming concerned by this news, but Sausage calmly said, “Oh, well. At least it didn’t get smashed by a Warden or anything like that. I’ll put on a spare and see if I can bend it back into shape by myself. If not, um, I’ll just send a little message to fWhip when the rain is over.”

“He’ll be happy to hear from you,” Scott said wryly. He then pushed Sausage toward the doorway. “Now let’s get you inside and dry you off. You’re soaked and you are very late for lunch. If you’re lucky, we can fit in an afternoon tea before dinner.”

Liana and Elowen giggled at the sight of their papa being scolded. Everyone headed upstairs since Scott was now also soaked from the rain – and Liana had managed to sneak snow into her skirt pockets which, of course, promptly began to melt.

~*~

Scott lightly scrubbed Sausage’s hair with a towel then moved to dry his bare shoulders as Sausage sat on a sturdy footstool, dressed in a fresh pair of trousers and house slippers. He was inspecting the four spare prosthetics laid out on a cloth-covered table at the side of the room, away from the window where rain water might get on them. fWhip currently had two other previous models that he was tinkering with, intending to improve them so there would be proper spares, but for now the choices were limited to the non-so-perfect versions.

The very first model was there for sentimental value, at this point mostly good for use as a paper weight and probably should have been stored in the treasury. There was one with sketchy redstone connections, and one with very sketchy redstone connections. Then there was the fully plated one with minimal moving parts for diplomatic emergencies if his regular prosthetic failed right before he needed to deal with foreign dignitaries – or very particular Mythland nobles.

At the moment Sausage was trying to remember which of the middle two had the most-sketchy redstone. They looked very similar and he hadn’t thought to mark them – or flat-out return them to fWhip to repair or scrap. The answer was obvious to him: try them on and find out.

He picked up one and tried to make himself memorize the slight dent on top of the forearm casing. As Scott went to pick out a shirt for him, Sausage slipped the upper part over his stump. He felt a zap as it made contact with his skin. “Ow. Heheh, that kind of tickled.” He tested the finger movement and found it stiff. “Hmm. Not as flexible as I remember.” He slipped it off and placed it on the opposite side of the fully plated one to distinguish the two.

Then he picked up the other dubious one and eased the slightly patina-coated copper basket into place. “Ow! Well, that was more than a tickle.” He eased it away in case he had merely pressed it on too tightly, then tried it again. “Ow. Nope, definitely not this one.”

Scott shook his head in amused exasperation as he returned with a gold-embroidered, violet shirt that had no sleeve on the right side, ideal for accommodating older versions of the prosthetic. “Dear, I’ve encouraged you not to do things like that.”

Sausage laughed. “Okay okay okay! I was only kidding around!” He cleared his throat as he lowered the definitely-malfunctioning prosthetic onto the table, now putting it on the far side of the prototype. “But, honestly, the choices aren’t great. I’m going to have to insist fWhip finish those other backups.”

“You could also be more careful with the one you have. You should have just taken the few minutes to ask for help to put it back on. …Come to think of it, why did you remove it in the first place?”

“Well, you know I can control it remotely, and so why risk ourselves when risking my arm is only a minor inconvenience compared to, say, one of us being smashed to pieces by a Warden?”

“WHY were you using your arm as Warden bait in the first place?!”

“It – It – listen, listen listen. It seemed like a good idea at the time! We improvised a noise machine, and—”

“Nope. Stop right there,” Scott commanded. He had caught sight of motion by the door. Azahar was signaling him. Scott nodded. The boy grinned and disappeared from view. Scott draped the shirt over Sausage’s shoulders before sweeping around to the other side of the table. “I’m going to have strong words with those two next time I see them, but for now—” He picked up the fully plated prosthetic. “Just go with this one. The elbow bends, you can hold it out well enough, and you don’t need it to eat. You can still have a nice meal with our new daughter without a fully functional arm.”

“Fine, fine.” Sausage sighed in mock-resignation, slouching down. “It’s not like I wanted to run around to play in the garden and carry her on my shoulders or anythi—”

Scott gestured emphatically toward the window. “Sausage! It’s still pouring rain!”

“I know, I just—”

“Shush already and finish getting dressed. You can always read stories by the fireplace,” Scott suggested.

Sausage perked up. “Oh, yes, of course! I have endless stories of my own to tell! Like how I single-handedly defeated a Warden today!”

Scott conjured a snowball to fling at him. “You get one – one – joke to tell the kids a weeks – tops! Don’t encourage them like you do my brother.”

“Deal. But they get to make all the jokes they want to, because I want them to have fun with it! You’re so mean, though.” Sausage pouted at him before pulling on the shirt. “If I had to go and cause myself to lose an arm I want to be silly about it with my children. That was an unspoken part of the deal.”

Scott switched to giving him a patient smile. “Very well. Don’t worry, there is plenty of time now for all the silliness you can fit into a day.” He let Sausage arrange the shirt to his liking, then helped him don the less-familiar prosthetic. Scott finished by hooking Sausage’s dress cape across his shoulders, then retrieved his own cape from his wardrobe. “There. No reason to not be a bit fancy. We did find some nice new clothes for everyone, after all.”

Sausage grinned brightly. Scott then had to make it not seem too obvious that he was trying to stop his husband from running the whole way down the hall – but at least he took the stairs slower, with Scott tugging on his left arm once reaching the bottom step. Scott smile and hooked his arm around Sausage’s, ensuring a calm walk to the dining room.

Sausage gave him a befuddled look after the tug but followed it with a small shrug and accepted the hint to carry himself with kingly dignity rather than new-father enthusiasm. As they rounded the corner, however, he was befuddled again by the sight of Azahar standing at the doorway with his hands behind his back, wearing a herald’s tabard and cap. The latter sat oddly on his head as if covering something else. Within the dining room, the table was set for dinner with the addition of tea cups at each place. The chairs had been rearranged so that there was one at the head of the table facing the doorway and two to either side, instead of one at each end.

Azahar called out loudly in a fake deep voice, “Now welcoming the wonderous and kind Dad and Papa of Mythland!” From behind his back, he produced his violin. He played a few notes in imitation of a trumpet’s fanfare. “Please, my lords, be seated,” he directed in a less-booming voice.

Scott nodded to him. “Thank you for the introduction, good sir.” Sausage continued to feel confused, but a goofy smile rippled across his face as he and Scott headed inside. He reflexively went to the head of the table, but when he pulled out his chair he realized he wasn’t meant to sit there this time. He nearly giggled as he sat next to Scott instead.

Azahar then announced, “The Princes of Mythland shall join us shortly.” He played another short fanfare. “I shall now introduce our hostess, the beauteous and imaginative and loquacious and optimistic and—”

A voice hissed from somewhere to the side. Azahar politely cleared his throat. “And many other such things that she may be known for. I present to you: Princess Liana!” He played a longer fanfare as Liana appeared, accompanied by Elowen who was dressed in an oversized blue robe and matching cap that also seemed to be covering something else on his head. He was one step behind her with his hands held out over her head. She wore a long purple dress with ruffled tiers down the skirt. A lighter shade of lace was strung along each tier and on the short, round puffed sleeves. Atop her head was a slightly-uneven tiara made of ice, which Elowen was obviously trying to hold into shape.

When Liana reached the chair at the head of the table she curtsied to Elowen. “Thank you, High Wizard of All Ices. You may go now.” Rather than immediately leave, Elowen helped her climb onto the cushion that had been occupying the chair.

He then carefully bowed, keeping a hand on his cap to stop it from falling off, then he shuffled backward until he had made it out the door. Azahar followed until they were both out of sight; a few seconds later he used his herald voice again. “Our tardy guests have arrived! Welcome, Azahar the Musical and Elowen the Chilly!”

The boys ambled into view, tugging their clothes into place: the very outfits they had worn to their debut gala, which they clearly had been wearing under the tabard and robe, along with having been wearing their crowns under the caps. They entered the dining room and bowed low. In his normal voice, Azahar said, “So sorry for the delay, Lady Princess.”

“Our carriage was set on fire by a fire-breathing elk!” Elowen provided.

Liana tutted at them, waving a dismissive hand. “All’s well an’ good, Princes. These things happen. Please be seated.” The boys did so, with Elowen sitting closest to her so he could subtly reach toward Liana’s head to stop the tiara from melting.

Sausage had a beaming smile by this point, having put his elbows on the table and carefully interlaced his fingers to rest his chin on the back of his left hand. “You look very lovely, princess Liana. That dress is perfect for you.”

Liana’s pretend airs almost fell apart when she noticed the difference in his prosthetic. “Papa, your—” She hastily stopped herself with a little cough. “’Scuse me, Papa of Mythland, I can’ts help but see how fancy your metal arm is today. It’s interesting that you gots diff’rent ones.”

She was keeping her tone calm but her eyes sparkled with an obvious question of being allowed to see the possible others later.

Sausage replied suavely, “I wear this one for the most special of events, such as dining with very important people, like yourself.” Liana’s face lit up with a grin. Sausage’s smile quickly matched it. “I can tell you more about it this evening – perhaps after we eat? I wouldn’t want to take time away from what you have to tell us about your day, dear Princess,” he said, indicating his own interest in what he had missed.

The day’s exploits were described and the family continued with the somewhat-theatrical game up until the kitchen staff started bringing out food. Liana suddenly became quite focused on taking extreme care with how she ate, not letting a single crumb fall onto her new dress.

Her efforts continued through to dessert, although it was obvious how her façade slipped as her eyes widened and an excited smile overtook her face when presented with a piece of cake. Somehow she reigned herself in. “Why, I do says, the castle baker has outdone herself today. A very y— lovely cake is before us. Ev’ryone should enjoy it!”

A chuckle escaped Azahar. Liana’s gaze darted to him; a tiny frown twitched at her lips, either a warning or precursor to a pout if he went out of character. He salvaged the moment by saying, “Pardon my amusement, Princess Liana. I had allowed myself a thought toward the fashion of these days, and an amusing memory crossed my mind. Do you know of the shop off the main thoroughfare? Perhaps a maid has brought word? Well, they had on display a gown of the most garish shade of green that you can imagine!”

Scott was impressed at the cleverness as the conversation that followed segued back into a recounting of the shopping trip and the items they had each picked up. Elowen was more direct in his list, technically dropping his pretend act but Liana didn’t call him on it because she was just as excited to tell Sausage what she had seen and found that day.

The pretend game came to a natural end, with Liana now excited to show Sausage all her new clothes – and show him exactly what Azahar and Elowen had gotten. While Scott and the boys opted to take their time relaxing after dessert, Liana led the way up the stairs, exuberant yet careful not to trip or catch her dress on anything. Her attention slipped at the top step, however; thinking that she had reached the floor, she turned to ramble about her fitting at the tailor’s shop, only to trip.

Just as she began to fall backward, Sausage caught her by the waist and lifted her up with a grin, then set her onto her feet. “Careful, little princess. Even a pretty dress is replaceable. You are priceless.”

Liana grinned back at him. “Thanks, Papa!”

The incident didn’t stop her from running to her room, leaving him behind. By the time he caught up she was in the process of changing into a casual dress that was a shade of green close to Sausage’s usual royal robe. “I still wanna keep it nice, though,” she explained in a serious tone. Sausage nodded and hung it up in the wardrobe for her alongside other new dresses. He smiled about how they had replaced her tattered old ones.

By that point Azahar and Elowen had come upstairs to also show their new clothes. Sausage sat on the floor of the shared room with Liana hovering behind him, while Scott stood in the doorway, glad that Sausage was still participating in some way. Elowen held up a new shirt and showed how his new leggings reached below his ankles where his old ones had started coming up short. Azahar spoke of how his new shirts were more comfortable, less tight against his broadening shoulders.

Sausage offered compliments on color combinations and applauded the choice of embroidery designs on items they had picked out themselves. He then helped to swap out the ill-fitting clothes for the new.

This is where Liana pointed out how Azahar could give clothes that no longer fit him to Elowen to play in, and she could take some of Elowen’s clothes because she didn’t mind wearing things that weren’t dresses, clothes were clothes after all, and what if she did want to climb trees or run around in the mud sometime – you can’t do that in a pretty princess dress, or her new dresses, but maybe in her really old clothes, and—and—

Scott smiled throughout her motivational speech, amused yet again at how she was the perfect match for Sausage’s verbal energy, which brought about a mental image of Sausage as a young child. It came in contrast to the disquiet air hovering around Sausage at the moment despite his own delighted smile at Liana’s rambling. Scott couldn’t put a finger on what it was. If things had gone poorly with the Warden he was certain Sausage would have said something. The way his husband was caught up in the children’s enthusiasm made it seem it wasn’t the morning’s incident nor missing the day out with them that was the cause.

He would have to keep an eye on that.

~*~

The rest of the week was spent on little tours to help Liana familiarize herself with the castle grounds and the city, where she continued to charm pretty much everyone she met. She invited castle staff to tea parties, although most of the time the invitations had to be politely declined due to the already scheduled work, but Liana would find other toys visiting her to join instead. Even Bubbles would find a seat at the low table allocated for playtime.

By the following week, however, Sausage had begun to excuse himself from participating, too – briefly explaining to Liana that he had some very important kingly matters that needed his attention right away, like the one on her first full day in Mythland. His tone was regretful; he truly wanted to spend time playing with her, but the thing he couldn’t say was that in the back of his mind he had something else gnawing at him, and work was a needed distraction.

Regarding the schooling he would be missing out on in Liana’s case, Sausage had Sir Carlos direct her lessons more toward reading and language skills as agreed on with Scott, leaving more in-depth topics like math, magic, and Mythland’s history for later months. This did make Liana’s school sessions shorter than her brothers’, giving her enough free time to cheerfully play her favorite pretend games with plushies while waiting for her dads and brothers to join her.

On the fifth consecutive day of Sausage being unable to attend, however, Liana was quiet as she slowly circled the extra table in the library – now designated for tea time, since it was the easiest place Scott could keep an eye on her while also supervising the boys. She set six places instead of the usual five, going so far as to lower the cups onto their plates extremely carefully so they wouldn’t clink too loudly. Not that she lacked care the previous times, but usually she would hum to herself or talk out loud about which flavor tea she would serve and which flowers she would arrange together for a centerpiece, as well as patting at the cushions lying on the floor to make sure they were soft enough for everyone to sit on.

This time when she was done she sat in one of the big armchairs by the fireplace to wait. She swung her feet and seemed to be trying to refrain from humming, although a note slipped out every now and then. She would hastily silence herself. Scott glanced over during these moments and noticed how her head moved as her gaze would go from the hearth to the empty fireplace.

Scott had been walking behind the boys to check their progress on a history test Sir Carlos had written for them. They were both sailing through the questions with little hesitation, so he leaned between them to whisper that they could call him back over if they needed anything. Then he went over to Liana and knelt beside the chair. “Do we have a new guest today, Liana? I saw you didn’t bring your bunny to read to him while you wait for us. I heard Sir Carlos say he would be back in time to join us. Did he say he would bring a friend?”

Liana squirmed slightly and continued to look at the hearth rather than at him. “No. I just wanted to have a place for Papa so’s he could have some tea, too. Maybe he cans finish work in time today…”

Scott patted her arm. “He has been trying. I am sorry about this. We had expected to have a lot of free time for both of us to spend with you, Elowen, and Azahar aside from breakfast, dinner, and story time before bed. Sometimes unexpected things happen, and kings have to make sure every family in the kingdom is protected.”

“Mm-hmm,” Liana quietly agreed. “I know. But… kings should gets af’ernoon snacks, too. An’… an’ he didn’t come to lunch, neither. Are kings s’posed to not eat lunch when they gots a lotta work??”

Scott chuckled. “I assure you he eats while working.”

“But we’re s’posed to only eat at the table!” Indignation rose in her tone, which actually made Scott feel better – it meant she was returning to her feisty self. “We eat lunch at the big table, an’ have tea on this table, an’ there’s a table in the garden for snacks when it’s not rainin’! I wanna have a tea party in the garden one day, but ev’rybody has gots to be there!”

“Well, I’ll check with Papa before dinner and find out for you how much work he has left. We’re still waiting for that special order tea set for you, after all. We could make a garden tea party the special event when we get to see how it turned out.”

“Okay.” Liana went back into a sulking mode. “But only if Papa cans be there.”

“I’ll make sure of it.” Scott stood up and smiled down at her. “I’ll go see if your brothers are done and then while we wait for Sir Carlos I’ll tell you a story about my first lessons learning ice magic.”

As he started to turn, Liana’s hand caught his sleeve. “Daddy, cans I learn magic, too?”

He smiled gently back at her. “You can definitely give it a try. Just remember, not every elf can use magic. That’s why Azahar and Elowen have different studies at times.”

“I know,” she replied with the level of seriousness small children have. “I prob’ly don’t wanna do ice magic, anyway.” She let go of his sleeve and promptly went back to staring at the fireplace.

She had managed to convey a finality that stopped Scott from asking which other type of magic she would like to try. He found himself turning away, taking two steps toward the other table, then glancing at Liana again.

Now there was another feeling in the air he couldn’t put a finger on.

.

When Sir Carlos returned he was accompanied by a member of the kitchen staff who carried a covered platter for him. “Dear Lady Liana,” he clucked, bowing to her as she hopped down from the armchair. She curtsied in return. “Upon my way to the castle I was entranced by the scent of fresh pastries. I procured a number of them so that we might enjoy them with our tea.”

The staff member walked forward after a nod from Scott to set the platter down in the middle of the tea cups. Liana’s eyes widened. She ran over to crouch down until her gaze was level with the edge of the table, staring with anticipation at the platter. Lifting the cover revealed a dozen mini tartlets filled with a red jam. Liana tilted her head. “What flavor is that?”

“Raspberry,” Sir Carlos replied, his tone bright. “A fresh shipment came in from our southern allies.”

Liana did not seem enlightened. “What does ras’berry taste like?”

Scott chimed in since he could guess the best comparison she might be familiar with. “Raspberries are similar to cloudberries. Depending on how they’re prepared, they can be a little tart or made sweeter.”

Liana scrunched up her face. “That’s kinda confusin’. Cans I taste one to find out, or do I hafta wait until tea?”

“You may taste one,” Scott said. He was curious how she would react.

Liana’s hand hovered over the platter as she attempted to choose the best one for sampling. She started to reach for the one that looked the smallest, then seemed to consider picking up the biggest. However, she ended up stepping away to run over to the boys instead to ask, “Have you tasted these before?”

Azahar offered a thoughtful expression. “I’m pretty sure we have.”

Elowen nodded. “Yeah, I remember Uncle Xornoth gave us some at our gala.”

“What gala?” Liana asked, momentarily distracted from the matter of tarts.

Elowen answered, “The one where we first met Uncle Xornoth and when we got our crowns, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, I ‘member now.” Liana just sort of blinked as if now overwhelmed by imagining a gala’s worth of tarts. “Maybe Uncle Xornoth cans come to my garden tea party so’s I can meet him soon.” This new thought distracted her further.

“Maybe,” Azahar replied. “He’s a busy king like Papa and lives, well, far away as you know. But anyway, you can have one all to yourself right now to make up for us already having some.”

“Okay.” Liana went back over to the tea table, although it was another few seconds before she selected one. She carefully picked it up as if afraid it might crumble, then put it down on one of the plates. She glanced toward the door, then toward Scott, then at the door again. She inhaled loudly, then announced, “I’m gonna go ask Papa for permission, too!”

She grabbed the plate and raced out of the library before Scott could stop her. Sir Carlos clucked in alarm, “Sire, she—”

Scott shook his head. ”I think it would be worse to stop her. She might slow down if no one is following her.”

Sir Carlos clucked more quietly. “As I recall… Yes, that is a sound strategy for overly-energetic children.”

.

Despite her haste, Liana was holding the plate with care to avoid damaging the precious treat. An idea had possessed her that had little to do with getting permission. She made her way through the halls, remembering on her own the way to Sausage’s office.

There were guards stationed to either side of the closed door. One remained on watch as the other looked down at her curiously. “Good afternoon, Princess. All is well with your father, but he is busy right now.”

“I know!” Liana proclaimed, “But I wanted to bring him a – a ras’berry tart. Even kings should gets a snack when they’re busy, an’ he’s too busy for tea right now, too.”

The guard smiled patiently, and even the other paused his eagle-eyed gazing along the hall to give a nod. “Very well, Princess. Please enter.”

They opened the door for her. Liana gave a careful curtsy, a firm grip on the plate. “Thank you!” After she entered, the guards closed the door again.

Liana made her way past displays of armor and ignored the assorted curios on the bookshelves, marching straight up to Sausage’s desk, where she found him not scrawling on a thousand scrolls but lightly snoring as he slept, his head resting on his left arm with the metal fingers of his other hand sitting in a small pool of ink that had spilled from a knocked-over bottle.

Liana huffed. She set the plate down on a nearby chair then turned with her hands on her hips and declared with exasperation, “Papa! If you needed a nap instead of wantin’ tea, you coulda just said so!”

Sausage’s latest snore turned into a startled snort. “Hm? Huh? Wha—? Oh. Oops.” He blinked down at the spilled ink, then realized who was there. “Li-Liana. Sorry, am I missing tea time again?” He rummaged around the desk until her found a handkerchief to wipe his hand. “And well, I should be working instead of napping, but I didn’t sleep well last night, so my body decided I should have a nap!”

“Well, that means you should has a snack so’s you’re not too sleepy. Sir Chicken brought—”

“Sir Carlos,” Sausage gently corrected.

Liana nodded. “He brought special tarts, an’ I wanted you to have one!” She held out the plate and nudged it onto the side of the desk. She peered at the scroll Sausage had fallen sleep on, her eyes moving across to the puddle of ink. “I don’t think that’s gonna be accepted-ible as a message from a king. Do you wants some help, Papa? Daddy said he helps you sometimes. I’m a princess, so’s I should be able to help, too!”

As he picked up the ink bottle, Sausage was about to suggest she return to the library, then he smiled and carefully picked the scroll – with its ink pool – up. “I think there is something you can do for me, actually.” He folded the scroll and tipped it so the ink would run along the crease into the bottle in an effort to save what hadn’t started to dry. “I’ll give you this to write and draw with, and then I’ll tell you what the rest of my work here needs to be done, and then we’ll have tea – but I’ll be able to eat this delicious-looking tart while you take over for me.”

.

The library group’s awaiting of Liana’s return was punctuated by the quiet clucking of Sir Carlos as he graded the quizzes taken earlier and the occasional sound of a page turning as Elowen flipped through his spellbook. Across the table Scott stretched himself taller to get a glimpse of the pages, interested to see which spell Elowen might chose to practice. Azahar sat with a tea cup in hand and now sipped his pretend tea while also watching his brother from the side.

Azahar lowered the cup and said, “School is supposed to be over. Let’s not let this delicious tea and tarts go to waste!” His tone and volume indicated he was perhaps trying to summon their little sister simply by saying it.

Elowen peered over at him. “Liana isn’t back yet. Why play tea party if she’s not here? It’s her game,” he stated matter-of-factly.

Azahar smiled over the rim of the tea cup. “Well, I want to practice violin when moving so I can do that if we go look for her.”

Scott had a reasonable guess as to where Liana had gone, but he wouldn’t dissuade Azahar’s idea by mentioning it.  And so, a short time later he and Elowen were following Azahar through the halls as he played a simpler tune than he had recently been practicing. Since there was the added complication of needing to avoid walking into a wall he figured he should stick to the basics.

The tune only wavered once or twice when he mistook a tapestry for a doorway – likely due to seeing it out of the corner of his eye, his brain too occupied by striking the correct notes to process the difference between rectangular shapes.

They saw no sign of Liana until they neared Sausage’s office. They came to a halt about six steps shy of the door when she stuck her head past the guards and yelled, “Cans you please go play somewhere else? Papa an’ I gots work to do!”

Azahar stilled the violin’s strings. “We were looking for you – you forgot to come back to the tea party, and we didn’t want to have it without you.”

Liana stepped fully into the hall with her arms folded over her chest indignantly. “I’m not havin’ it without Papa! Maybe if you princes helped, too, he’d finish work faster!”

The guards stepped aside, letting the whole family enter, unsure what else they were meant to do in this situation. Scott and Azahar looked over Liana’s head while Elowen peeked past her to see a scattered pile of drawings on the floor while Sausage had a tidy pile of scrolls on one side of his desk. He gave them all a sheepish look in return, having heard Liana’s comment. “We’re almost done. I did tell her a minute ago that it was okay to go ahead to the library. Didn’t I, Liana? Your brothers don’t have princely duties aside from their lessons, which means you don’t have princessly duties aside from your lessons.”

“Then Daddy should help you! He don’t gots lessons!”

Scott stifled a chuckle. Sausage, meanwhile, laughed loudly. “He helps already by being a teacher. That’s his job now. He used to help me all the time with things. But you have a point.” Sausage tapped the quill he had just picked up against his lips. “Maybe we should start sharing paperwork. And I can teach lessons like running through the garden, how to climb trees, and fetch with Bubbles!”

“Papa, that’s playtime!” Liana protested in a scolding tone. “Lessons are for readin’ an’ learnin’ hist’ry, an’ how to do magic, or how to make pretty songs! Those are things princes do!”

Scott asked, “Out of curiosity, Liana, which of Papa’s paperwork have you been doing?”

She scurried over to her mess of papers to show examples. “Well, Papa was readin’ out requests from townsfolk. Like, he said the farri-ri-er needs iron for horseshoes. So’s I drawed some horsies that already gots shoes so’s she won’t need so many yet.” She held up two pieces of paper containing three drawings each of a six-year-old’s approximation of horses wearing iron boots on all four hooves.

She searched for another piece of paper then continued, “An’ the shipsmaster wants iron for bands on shippin’ barrels, so’s I drawed iron bands for him!” She presented a paper where nearly the whole thing was taken up by circles. She uttered a child’s long-suffering sigh. “Ev’rybody sure needs a lotta iron!”

Azahar volunteered information to her. “We learned in our lessons that iron is the main export of Mythland. But that doesn’t mean we send all of it away. People across our own kingdom use plenty of it.”

It was now that it occurred to Liana to ask, “Where does all that iron come from, anyway? Sheeps grow back wool! Shiny gold comes from the ground, but it runs out when it gets dug up!”

Sausage saw an opportunity to finally move the conversation elsewhere. “Sir Carlos can tell you. He’s the one who knows the most about Mythland’s history – even more than me!”

“And,” Scott said, “He’s probably done grading those tests by now, so he’ll be free for you to ask him. You should hurry before he becomes too busy with the next lesson plan. I’ll help Papa put all these drawings together with their requests and send them off. Just like you said to, Liana.”

He waved the children off as Azahar led the way back to the library. Then he turned to Sausage. His tone switched from light-hearted to serious. “You’ve been very focused on work lately. Too focused. We were supposed to be delegating some of the less essential things so we could have time with the children. Isn’t the foreman at the Iron Castle supposed to be handling requests?”

Sausage stammered the excuse, “I’m just reviewing the summaries. It made Liana feel helpful since, you know, there’s not much to actually do here except sign my approval.”

“No, this is different. I noticed when Azahar took up the violin – which meant less sword training on the schedule, but you really threw yourself into it after that warden incident two weeks ago. Is there something you need to tell me? Did Jimmy say something and it set off something like that wall-building competition, like the old days? If I’m wrong, you know you can tell me anything.” He tried to sound encouraging rather than just sound worried.

Sausage put the quill aside and stared at the top of the desk for a moment. Then he reached his left hand over to hold his right shoulder. “It was the thing with the Warden, you’re right. No one said anything in particular, although Jimmy did accuse me of going soft. Which, I mean… He’s right, but that reason isn’t why. It was the… well. You know how it is with caves, when you’re underground and there’s… Just darkness and… stone all around you where there’s not much room to move…”

Scott could tell Sausage didn’t want to be exact in his word choice, so he said it for him. “Cold.” He walked behind the desk and started to massage both of Sausage’s shoulders, hoping he would only feel warm comfort in the gesture. “I get it. You want a distraction, and working has always been your way – and you don’t get to do as much architecture as you used to. But I think you should stick to delegating, and throw yourself into raising our children instead of dwelling on what you need to fix.”

Sausage nodded, his expression slightly crestfallen. “I know. I was trying to limit it to, you know, a time when they would be with you anyway. Sort of like shoving all my, uh, worries into scrawling on scrolls so it would be off my mind for the rest of the time.”

“That makes some sense – up until you’re late for tea,” Scott gently teased. “Liana will just keep refusing to start without you, so you might as well schedule a break for her sake, at least.” He earned a sigh in response. He leaned further into the shoulder massage then added, “They’re waiting right now. You can leave these, or I can take over. Or… even better…”

Scott reached past Sausage to the desk and, grinning, swiftly began picking up the remaining unrolled missives before Sausage could stop him. “Bring your work with you! Then Liana and the boys can help with illustrations and—”

He stopped, hand poised above neatly cut out squares of paper that had designs drawn along the borders. One had swirls, one had flowers, and one had precisely shaped rabbits. Scott’s smile softened.

Sausage’s face flushed a little. “I – I thought it wouldn’t hurt to start thinking of invitation designs, even if it’s a few years away.”

Scott set down the missives to hold up the cards for a better look. “No, you were on to something when you said we should make our own tradition. Why wait until she’s ten? We can just hold it on her upcoming birthday. That gives us about four months to plan everything. Which also reminds me that Elowen’s birthday is coming up soon. Let’s not overshadow that.” Sausage nodded in agreement.

“But right now…” Scott gathered the sample invitations and tapped them into line with each other. “…we should attend today’s tea party. No excuses. I’ll help you make up the time whether we bring this stuff to the library or not.” He took Sausage by the arm to pull him from the chair.

~*~

Elowen’s birthday began with a bumpy start: that being the bouncy motion of someone jumping up and down on the end of his bed. This was followed by Liana’s voice calling out, “Elowen! Elowen! It’s birthday time! Happy birthday!”

He stared blearily over at her. She jumped up and down exactly one more time. “Liana,” he mumbled, “I can sleep more on my birthday if I wanna…” He tried to pull the blanket up while turning onto his side; her weight kept it from moving far enough, although she shuffled her feet from one to the other to avoid falling off.

“But you’re s’posed to be excited for birthday breakfast! It’s the best thing about birthdays!”

Elowen tugged the blanket again, then gave up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He now got a better look at her. “Liana, why do you have powder all over you?”

“I was helping!”

“It’s in your hair. What were you helping to do?” Elowen sounded doubtful of any skill she might have been lending, having become familiar with her way of involving herself in things during the past month and a half since her adoption.

“Birthday breakfast! Come on!” Liana hopped off the bed. She failed to stick the landing and so ended up on her knees, but she picked herself right up and ran out of the room.

Azahar, awoken by the ruckus, commented, “There’s really no stopping her. Might as well get up now.”

As they started to take out clothes for the day they heard Sausage call out, “Liana, come back! Why are you covered in flour?!”

Another voice that the boys recognized as one of the castle cooks said, “Sorry, Your Highness. We’ve been trying to catch up to her to clean her up, but she’s, well, quite fast.”

“It’s fine. You may return to your duties. I’ll handle this.”

The boys stopped what they were doing and covered their ears. The cook hurried past their door. Sausage then bellowed, “LIANA! GET BACK HERE AND CLEAN UP, YOUNG LADY! THIS INSTANT!!”

The boys lowered their hands and went back to changing clothes. A giggling Liana came running past again. “Sorry, Papa. But it’s Elowen’s birthday!”

“I know it is, but you can’t just make a mess of yourself. You need to look nice for his birthday, too.”

“Okay, Papa!”

They heard her run past again on her way to her room.

“Hold on, I’ll help you get it out of your hair.”  Sausage paused at the doorway to glance in at the boys. “Good morning! Birthday Boy, Azahar,” he greeted with a smile. “Getting ready to see what your sister has cooked up this time?”

“Looking forward to it,” Azahar replied as he buckled his belt. “I’ve never known someone to get so excited about breakfast like that.”

“Hmph. Yeah,” Elowen mumbled, making it clear that he would have preferred to still be sleeping.

Sausage gave a nod of agreement. “Well, I’ll see you downstairs. This, ah, this might take a few minutes…” He disappeared from the doorway, although they could hear him light-heartedly scolding Liana.

Within those few minutes Scott appeared. “Good morning, boys. Elowen, would you like me to braid your hair for your big day?”

Elowen patted at his shoulder-length hair thoughtfully. He realized it was still unruly from sleep. “Maybe one braid. On this side.” He pointed to the right side of his head, then sat down on the corner of his bed. Scott picked up a hairbrush and length of gold ribbon from the dresser then sat sideways on the bed behind him.

“What would you like to do today?” Scott asked while carefully brushing the tangles out of Elowen’s hair. “Papa’s whole day is free so you get to decide how we spend it.” With expert motions he gathered up just the right number of strands for braiding, mindful of Elowen moving his head when he talked.

“Can we take some of Bubbles’ troops out for a long walk in the forest? We haven’t gone out really far since Liana came home.” A mischievous smile crossed his face. “The troops are for watching her, then we can climb some trees without her running around all crazy.”

Azahar let out a laugh in agreement. “Good idea! Maybe we should post some around the castle to do that, too!”

Scott tied off Elowen’s new braid with the ribbon. “Particularly the kitchen, I hear.”

“At least on birthdays,” Elowen said. “So everyone can sleep as late as they want that day.”

Scott stood and put the brush back. “We’ll let you sleep late on her birthday to make it fair.”

Elowen looked aghast. “Dad! She’s gonna have everyone up at dawn probably!”

“I’ll tell her that birthday breakfast will be served late. Now let’s go find out what that even means.”

After collecting Sausage and a slightly-less-dusted-with-flour Liana, the family headed to the dining room. Liana, of course, insisted on running ahead so she could gesture to Elowen’s seat with a beaming smile on her face as the kitchen staff, attending the dining room for the special occasion, moved to the walls to await their cues to lift the covers on the platters in front of each person. “Look! Look! For you! It’s the best!”

Elowen put his hands on the back of his chair, contemplating more mischief by waiting, but yielded to his sister’s bright, expectant eyes and sat down. The staff member behind him stepped forward to lift the cover, releasing a waft of steam and revealing a stack of five fluffed up, round foodstuffs on his plate that were decorated in a cascade of different berries in fruit syrup. He knew what they were and was pleased to see them, but Liana’s hyper elation about it seemed a little unwarranted.

“Pamcakes and berries!” Liana crowed.

“Pancakes,” Scott corrected.

“Yeah!!” Liana pointed to Azahar’s place. “I made some like that for you, too, ‘cause I missed your birthday! But there’s less berries because it’s not your birthday.”

Azahar sat and offered her a gracious look. “Thanks for thinking of me, Liana. You’re awfully excited about these. Did you not have pancakes very often at your old home?”

“Not super big ones like these! Even when I spilled batter on the pan and there were only a bunch of tiny ones they still came out huge!” Liana hopped up onto her chair.

Scott, having a suspicion about her comments, asked, “By huge, do you mean how high they rise up when they cook?”

“Yeah!! I didn’t know pamcakes could be so tall an’ fluffy!” Liana replied. “I only ever saw flat ones! Like really, really flat! I don’t think those were actually cakes at all!”

Scott chuckled. “Elven pancakes and Mythland pancakes are made differently, Liana. Elven ones are meant to be thin and flat. The ones here are what is referred to as ‘hearty’. Humans like hearty food as fuel for their work.”

“Heart-y?” Liana pronounced the word with uncertainty. “But there’s no hearts in them! There’s eggs an’ flour an’ van-il-la! An’ sometimes berries! The cook ‘splained it to me when I said that if one berry is tasty, then putting all the berries in should make it more tasty! But if you put in too many berries, they get messed up! So’s I put the berries on after the pamcakes were done.”

Sausage seemed stunned by the whole conversation. He abruptly asked, “Wait, have we not had pancakes since she got here? That is unacceptable! I’ll make sure they’re on the menu regularly from now on!”

“Papa!” Liana’s voice took on a whiny edge. “They’re for birthday breakfast! Y’know, special!”

A gleeful look entered Sausage’s eyes. “Well, it’s got to be _someone’s_ birthday on whatever day we have them! We can have pancakes in their honor!”

Liana didn’t seem sure what to make of his reasoning. She sat down and scrunched up her face in thought, remaining that way as the food was presented to everyone else at the table, and she stayed in quiet contemplation as she ate.

Elowen wouldn’t say it out loud, but that was a pretty good present.

Finally, after the dishes were cleared away, Liana announced, “I wanna know everyone in the castle’s birthdays so’s we cans have pamcakes on those days!” She pointed to the door the staff had exited through.

Sausage uttered a laugh that sounded like he was partially crying. “Okay, okay. We’ll do it that way from now on!”

.

The family was soon on their way for a nice walk along forest paths, enjoying the fresh air and being away from responsibilities. As requested, a half dozen of Bubbles’ spare troops accompanied them. The children had fun running along the paths, throwing sticks scavenged from the ground for the dogs to fetch and letting themselves be chased around giant mushroom stems. Sausage and Scott strolled arm in arm behind them, smiling at the joyous hollering.

At one point they all stopped at a tree with particularly large, low-hanging branches which Elowen and Liana wanted to climb on. Elowen managed by himself but Liana needed extra help up, so Scott went over to help her find the right hand holds.

Sausage meandered away when one of the dogs went sniffing into some underbrush, curious – and in some ways wary – of what the dog had caught wind of. He followed for a minute or more, going further off trail, until he saw the brief twitch of a fluff gray tail. The dog took off running, panting excitedly. Sausage shook his head at the lacking of training but smiled in relief. No actual danger; merely a squirrel.

He turned to go back to the trail but didn’t see it right away, underestimating how far he had gone. Should be easy enough to find, he figured. Just wait to hear Liana shouting about something. He walked in what he figured was the general direction. If anything, the dog would return to his side and he would ask it to sniff out his family.

Presently a gust of wind rustled the leaves. Sausage looked up and noted how densely packed they seemed in the area, making it impossible to see the sky. It was chilly in all this shade. He hugged his arms over his chest without thinking about it, gaze still turned upward for a glimpse of the sun. In doing so he wasn’t paying attention to what was in front of him and he strode right into an oak tree’s trunk. It set him off balance, so he instinctively threw out his right hand to catch hold of it and steady himself. The bark split and came loose under the hard metal of his prosthetic fingers, costing him the anchor point and putting him further off balance. He stumbled in response, fetching up against a larger dark oak tree. His gaze went to the branch that he had narrowly missed hitting his head on, directly above his crown.  The trunk at his back felt so cold from perpetually being in the shade. He hastily turned away from it, moving backward while keeping his eyes on the tree as if something felt wrong about it.

This caused him to bump right into another of the thick, looming trees. They were so close to each other. The world was so dark under them. There seemed to be no other world beyond them, it was only him and walls made by the trunks. The shade was so cold. …So cold…

He heard Scott’s voice calling as if from a distance. From the other side of that wall…

It was the sound of dogs barking that snapped him out of it. He saw the small pack come charging between the trees, tails wagging and tongues out to lick at his left hand. Instincts kicked in again to get him moving as he gently patted them on the head in turn.

“There you are!” a relieved Scott called out, pushing a small branch out of his way as he passed between the trees just fine like the dogs had. The children followed behind him. “And here we had worried about Liana wandering off.”

“I— sorry— I—I was just keeping an eye on the little guy who ran off after a squirrel,” Sausage explained, casting a glance over the dogs to find the one in question. He couldn’t really pick it out from the pack swarming around him.

Scott was studying him intensely but only said, “We should head back home anyway. Elowen scraped his arm on the way down from that tree we were at.”

“O-Oh no!” Sausage turned his attention fully to his younger son. “How bad is it? You sure it’s just a scrape?”

“Yup,” Elowen replied, sounding proud. “Look, I already covered it!” He held up his left forearm, where his shirt sleeve had been torn all the way to the elbow but the injury in question had a layer of frost over it, preventing any bleeding. “Ice bandages are cold, but I did it myself!”

No one saw the spot over Sausage’s right eye twitch. “That’s really impressive. Good job! But we’ll still go home. Maybe have a snack and then we can run around in the garden instead. We should also practice tree climbing there so that doesn’t happen again!”

~*~

Whether from too much syrup in his stack of pancakes or from the experience out in the forest, Sausage found himself tossing and turning in bed, half-aware of his discomfort but asleep enough to have flickers of a dream dancing through his subconscious.

The whispering. Quiet, insidious. His right hand, reaching out. A dark blade within his grasp.

A smile. All teeth, no joy.

Two figures stepped forward, blocking his way. Their auras were bright and he squinted against the glow, but he was stronger. He would not be stopped.

They fell, revealing his goal behind them. A sword of ice held ready to meet him.

So cold, like the look in the eyes of the wielder. A look of betrayal and no forgiveness.

The whispering spoke to him again. “So, this was how you chose to get what you wanted?”

Pain ripped through him – not from the ice sword, but from the look in those eyes. Sausage was poised to strike in return, right arm raised. He forced his body to halt. “No. This isn’t what I wanted. Take it back. Take the power back!”

“It is yours to keep. It is a part of you now. Go on. Finish what you started. There is only one way to end it.”

“No!”

“But it suits you; so it does now as it did then. You brought it with you. You could no further cut it away from yourself than you would your own heart. Grasp it. Embrace it. Hold it in your hand.”

His hand. His  h a n d.

Sausage bolted upright and reached out with his right hand, grabbing onto empty air—

—Except he didn’t. Because he couldn’t. Because he had no right hand. Yet he could swear he felt it…

He darted a glance over to Scott to make sure he hadn’t awoken him. Making sure that his husband remained undisturbed, Sausage left the bed and padded out of the room, foregoing a robe over his night clothes in his haste. Not wanting to disturb the children, either, he silently made his way to the library where the layers of books would dampen sounds like whispers from echoing off stone walls. Once there he stoked up a small fire in the fireplace to ward off memories of ice that were making him feel cold.

He sat in the armchair closest to the hearth then undid the buttons on one side of the cuff covering his stump. He rubbed his thumb over the scar that ran along the end. He used the change in texture to remind himself that the arm was, in fact, gone; it was merely a phantom sensation that had him imagining something was there.

He pressed his fingertips into his skin closer to his shoulder. That was a real feeling. He wasn’t able to hurt anyone like this…

And yet the mix of memory and dream played through his head over and over, continuing to haunt him. Maybe he shouldn’t have gone into that cave. He should have just left it to Jimmy and Tango. He shouldn’t have gone with them to where it was so deep and cold and closed in, where it was dark and isolated and away from everything where no one could reach—

The impression of a small hand on his knee brought him back to the present. Liana stood beside the chair in her nightgown and bare feet. Indigo eyes looked up at him in concern. “Papa, are you okay? I was gettin’ water an’ saw the fire in here, an’ there’s not s’posed to be fire in here without anyone! Aren’t you sleepy?”

“L-Liana, hi,” Sausage stammered, though to his own surprise he kept his tone gentle rather than awash with the turmoil that had been on his mind. “I had a bad dream and I just wanted to sit for a while without bothering Dad, so I came here. I’m – I’m okay. You should go back to bed, though. Little princesses need their rest.”

“But you’re gonna need a nap when you’re workin’ again if you don’t sleep! A princess cans take a nap whenever, but it doesn’t seem like a busy king can! ‘Specially when…” Her gaze drifted to the loosened cuff. She continued in a soft voice, “…when he only gots one arm.”

For a moment Sausage felt self-conscious and couldn’t remember if he had told her that he didn’t sleep with the prosthetic on. He then wondered what her perception of him might have been while he was sitting there zoned out holding his stump. He pushed a smile onto his face. “Well, I might need a nap every so often, but I can still do plenty of things with one arm. Like… I can still pick up little girls who should be in bed!” He shifted his weight in the chair so he could lurch to the left and scoop her up with his arm, then shifted to sit back with her in his lap.

Liana giggled and hugged him with all her tiny might, then crawled to the side and placed a kiss on the end of his stump. “I kiss it and make it all better, okay, Papa?”

Sausage’s eyesight blurred with tears. He suppressed a small choked sound then stammered again. “Th-thanks, Liana. I think that’s just what I needed.” More than you know, he added to himself. He returned the favor by making a show of noisily trying to kiss her on the forehead, inspiring another giggle as she fended off being tickled by his beard. Eventually he did land a kiss somewhere in her hair. “All right, back to bed for both of us, my little princess.”

Sausage gently hugged her and moved to put her down so he could more easily get up from the chair, but she clung to his left arm. She didn’t seem upset about anything despite her face being pressed to his shoulder, but Sausage settled into the chair again anyway. He instinctively moved his right arm to hold her across the back – a different kind of forgetting the lack of arm – and instead leaned his head against hers. He let her snuggle up to his chest for a little while, although at some point they both fell asleep, leaving the fire to die down on its own.

The library seemed warmer by then, anyway.

~*~

The sound of Scott’s voice quietly saying his name, along with the shaking of his shoulder coaxed Sausage awake. He didn’t respond right away since he felt the weight of Liana on him. The little girl was still fast asleep. Scott, sensibly having a thick robe over his night clothes, stood over him and upon meeting Sausage’s eyes he whispered, “Did she have a nightmare?”

“No,” Sausage said, his voice gruff from sleep, “I did.” He tried to shift a bit, intending to get up while still holding Liana, but the leverage to do so eluded him.

Scott stepped in, reaching to pick her up, but then she awoke with a yawn. “’Mornin’, Daddy! Papa was sad about his arm, so’s I kissed it an’ made it better!”

“Oh?” Scott replied. He went ahead and half-picked her up, half-helped her down from the armchair, guiding her far enough away so Sausage had space to use his left arm to get himself up. “That was wonderful of you to do, Liana. Did you follow him all the way here just for that?”

“No, I was gettin’ water. But I forgot it when I saw fire in here!”

“That explains the cup in the hallway,” Scott said, clasping his chin and nodding at the solved mystery.

“Yeah, I saw Papa an’ wondered why he wasn’t sleepin’. See, that’s why he needs a nap when he’s workin’!”

Sausage laughed awkwardly as he stepped over beside her. “I guess you’re right. I’ll have a chat with Dad about it later. Or maybe right now,” he amended when Scott shot him a stern look. “But you need to go get dressed before breakfast. No hugging as an excuse this time! We’ll be along soon.”

“Yes, Papa.” Liana hugged him anyway, then hugged Scott, and finally scurried out of the library. Less than a second later they heard her announce, “I forgots my water again! It’s spilled on the floor now!”

“It’s fine, Liana,” Scott called after her. “We’ll take care of it! Please go upstairs!” He waited a moment before turning to Sausage with what was now an imploring look.

“I – I’m okay, I promise,” Sausage assured him. “It was just one little dream. I just needed to walk for a bit, a-and needed to sit for a bit and… and needed to be by myself for a bit…”

Scott’s gaze went to Sausage’s right side, eying how the cuff was hanging open.

Sausage covered it with his hand. “I just… um…”

Scott stepped up to him and enfolded him in an embrace. Sausage lowered his face to Scott’s chest and sighed; he let his shoulders go slack as Scott said softly, “You don’t have to tell me about the dream. But you don’t have to sneak out or be alone. I know it’s not easy if something reminds you of what happened. And I know we can’t predict what might be a reminder. And… I know you, when you’re left alone with those thoughts. I’m glad Liana happened to be there. Remember, you and I are here, we’re here for our children, we’re here for the future.”

“I know,” Sausage mumbled into the front of Scott’s robe. He allowed the elf his own moment, recalling how things got dicey even after the loss of his arm. His left hand moved upward to embrace Scott in turn. After another second or two Sausage again spoke through the fabric of the robe. “Um. We should get going. Before the kids walk by.”

Scott drew back. “Right. Sorry. I just—”

Sausage cut him off with a smile, “We both just want a lot this night – morning – whatever time of day it is. You know what else I want? To start planning the biggest tea party the empires have ever seen!”

~*~

It was a lovely day in The Undergrove, with a sunny view from one of the outside balconies on the rainbow mushroom castle where Katherine and Shrub were having a picnic together. They could hear the chirping of numerous local birds – although, presently, they heard a deeper croak and a jet-black bird glided down to land on the checkered blanket.

It croaked again and danced closer to Shrub so she could see the scroll held in its talons. “Guardian Shrub! Undergrove!” the bird announced.

Shrub leaned to take the scroll. “News from Mythland, huh?” She unrolled it and scanned the words.

Katherine scooted over. “Is it private, or general news?”

A smile spread across Shrub’s face. “Nope! One probably went to the Overgrown, too! It’s another debut gala invitation!” She held the missive up for Katherine to read as she looked over Shrub’s shoulder, consequently nestling closer to the gnome. They took a second to smile softly at each other, then Katherine skimmed the words on the scroll.

“Aww! Scott and Sausage decided to adopt a little princess! How sweet! So, she likes bunnies and playing tea party? She sounds adorable!”

---

Chapter Six

That tide felt like it would sweep Myth himself away.

“It all started when he – well, when I did what guardian angels do, try to defend against evil, and vampires are the epitome of evil, right? My holy water didn’t seem to do much, so I ran away and he chased me down, and I ended up unconscious, and I woke up as his prisoner for him to feed off of whenever he wanted. He had taken my wings to display as a trophy and cut me off from the sky and sunlight. Eventually he weakened me enough that I ‘died’ – in a way – but I returned to life still in that dungeon but as a wither. Maybe there was something to that resurrection magic for choosing that particular creature for me to become, maybe some sort of influence after all, because I now saw the world from his point of view, and teamed up with him to spread despair in the world.

“But we were never fully on friendly terms. I snapped one day and withered my own wings, no longer allowing him that victory but staying at his side to continue down the path of evil. And then one day he came back dying from poison. And then he revived as an angel. And that was when my mind truly snapped, convinced he had stolen my holiness from me so he could turn himself into something more powerful. We both fell into insanity from the overwhelming need to get revenge on each other, and that’s how we ended up going through dozens of lives, all with different powers and different ways to murder each other, ignoring the rest of the world as we sought to kill the other a final time and win.”

Myth drew a deep breath. “I found a little sanity at some point, probably after I suffered five deaths in a row. Then I became a blazeborn, and Smajor became a gravital, and we had a stalemate going, and I led him into the Deep Dark hoping that a Warden would help take him down a few times. But we ended up going through the portal, and found ourselves in that labyrinth. And then we ran into our doubles, and when they got their previous powers back and I saw how my double looked at his Scott with adoration when he regrew angel wings… I snapped again. And instead of three of us working together to subdue Smajor, we all fought each other. It was that Scott who defeated me – subdued <i>me,</i> saying he had no intention of killing me despite knowing the exact weakness that would destroy me, and I came back to my senses.

“The other me dealt with Smajor and even tried to ‘fix’ him – using his wither powers, he temporarily removed Smajor’s soul and used some combination of his abilities to stabilize it, removing Smajor’s insanity and knocking him out, too. Then they flew off to try to find an exit. Which they did, returning to lead me out and that’s how I knew how to get here this time.”

Now he sighed wearily. “But just because Smajor was no longer insane it didn’t take away his need for revenge. So, that’s why he caused the death that made me a seraph. I was foolish to think that it was a reward for working together with the Mythical Sausage who was the complete opposite of me. I thought it was a sign to avenge everything Smajor had put me through for as many times as I saw fit. But I went too far, causing myself to become fallen. The celestial realm rejected me and punished me, turning my wings blood red to serve as a warning for others to stay away, that I wasn’t any kind of savior. But I didn’t care. I kept taking vengeance on Smajor. I took every life he had, in every form. No powers he gained could stop me. And eventually I became something more condemned than a fallen angel – I became a cursed one.”

Myth’s gaze went to Sausage. “That was the me you met. By then I had found the limit of the transformation magic in our world, and Smajor had no powers at all. But he didn’t die a final time, so I kept him imprisoned, because I could never believe he would change his ways. If he was allowed to go free, I just knew he would find a way to be a menace again, and he had plenty of time to figure out how since we’ve both been doomed to miserable immortality.”

Everyone’s attention was glued to this honest disclosure of Myth’s past. Scott and Ghast-sage had expressions of uneasy concern, while Sausage and Hermes had different amounts of sympathy clear on their faces. Rusty was silent, although his antenna did bob a few times.

“One time, the doubles we had met here appeared in our world – this was before Sanctuary, but the other seraph was in his final form and his Scott was some sort of purple sparkly creature that could call down meteor strikes – as you can guess, I fought with them again… but I really just wanted them to leave me alone. I had given up on redemption. Fate had already told me that I was cursed to be Smajor’s warden.”

Myth grimaced at the irony of the term, given what they had just been through. “Then, one day – after the Sanctuary incident – some kind of magical force teleported us to another world. It was the Superhero’s world.” Here, he cast another glance at Sausage. “Smajor’s double found him before I did, and used vampire powers to turn Smajor – giving him supernatural abilities again. Honestly, I’m just glad Smajor didn’t gain ten powers at once like those guys. The Superhero, his teammate, and I stopped them both, but I went too far again and… was ready to kill that Scott because I assumed too much about his preference for his vampire powers. The Superhero stopped me, things calmed down, a portal appeared that had what we thought were obvious signs it would take us home, and we left on unwelcome terms.”

He hadn’t wanted to admit the one part, worried that the Scott in front of him now would no longer trust him – a justified thought, as Scott took a hasty step back. Myth continued to keep his arms at his sides even though the lack of gesticulating as he spoke made him feel weird. “Something happened during the teleport once we went through. I lost sight of Smajor, and then suddenly I was turned into a phoenix. And then I stepped out of a Nether portal into your world.” He gave a nod to Scott and Ghast-sage.

“Everyone who came by assumed I was their ghast mage, so I pretended to ‘forget’ what had happened that made ‘me’ turn into a phoenix just so I could… well, wrap my head around it all. Rusty knew something was up, but he let me adjust to life there. It was… a nice break from the back-and-forth murder. I… had a chance to just live and learn new things, like all that technology you have. I, um, I tried to keep things in good condition for you.”

Myth briefly glanced at Ghast-sage, then lowered his gaze only to glance back again. “Then Smajor showed up. He had changed, too, into a fungal mage. He had accepted being mistaken for their Scott, too, but he somehow grew a conscience and wanted to find the versions of us that belonged there. I told him to go away because I didn’t trust his motives. Then he came back with news of where his investigations had led him: the Ancient City and its active portal. I knew what that meant. And he knew that I was the only one who would know how to get out of the labyrinth.”

Myth sighed regretfully. “I still didn’t want to trust him, and I didn’t know which option was better: both of us going in and unwillingly splitting up to find you, or only me and having no choice but to trust him to not destroy the portal behind me. And then I had no say in it, anyway, because sculk began to attack and he used his powers to fight it – and to fling me into the portal. And now that is what could be waiting for us on the other side.”

Myth brought his hands forward to look at them as he curled and uncurled his fingers a few times. “Guess I also now have what I need to stop the sculk and stop Smajor if he tries anything.” He nodded at Sausage and Hermes. “At least you can safely go through your portal. It will let you out where you entered. My plan is to go through with them, destroy the sculk if it’s still there, grab Smajor, and come back here. All of you must destroy your portals after that, and any others you find in your worlds to stop anyone else getting stuck in this limbo dimension – and stop any of that mutated sculk from escaping here.”

Hermes slowly panned his gaze over the entirety of the portal cluster. “What about the rest of these? And what if there are more spots like this in here with more portals?”

“I’m going to drag Smajor through each one and back to warn the people in those worlds. I’ve got infinite time to do it.”

“Mate, that’s going to take too long.” Hermes began ticking off a list on his fingers.  “You’ll lose him every time you come back in. He could escape through any of the other portals while you’re trying to find him. More people might wander in while you’re busy in just one world trying to convince them. You might meet people who want to stop you.” He shook his head emphatically. “I think you’ll want to leave this to someone who has more experience with navigating the multiverse.”

Myth scowled, all too aware of the logistics; a second later an amused smirk crossed his face. “Ah. So, if the Guardian of Realities’ job here wasn’t to guide us out, it was to learn about this problem and travel around to deal with it. Then I guess there’s no use for Smajor and I after all. Makes enough sense. But I still need to collect him before I go home, so let’s get moving.”

Feeling a little drained from all the talking – as well as feeling redundant yet again – Myth flew up to the portal that once led to his new life. He waited before entering, giving Scott a few seconds to teleport Ghast-sage and Rusty to the inner edge of the portal frame before saying to them, “Escape as soon as you can when we’re on the other side. I’ll still be the one to handle Smajor and the sculk. Protector!” he then called down, watching Hermes pick up his father to make it a little easier to reach their own portal. In an effort to offer the sincerest thing he could think of, Myth said, “Good luck. May the pearlescent moon’s guidance speed your travels.”

He didn’t hear Sausage gasp. The swooshing sound of the teleportation magic was already taking hold.

~*~

Myth was alert for Smajor’s position as soon as the Ancient City came into view through the swirling particles. When he caught movement to his left he spun toward it, spreading his wings to shield Scott and Ghast-sage behind him. He made a shooing motion with his right hand, signaling them to move away. He trusted them to take cover further back or even defend themselves from any encroaching sculk, because he was dead set on catching Smajor before anything else.

With his attention firmly turned away from the portal it was easy for additional figures to slip out of it and also run for cover.

As he leapt toward the suspicious movement in front of him, Myth prepared to utter the unsettling noise that he fully expected to get Smajor’s attention. However, Myth was the one who came up short at the sight awaiting him. At first it seemed Smajor was attacking Sparrow – except he was human again, or human-ish; at the very least, Myth was very certain that Sparrow had been a copper golem the last time he had seen him.

Next he noted the blotches of sculk all over Sparrow’s body, including both skin and clothes. Then there was the distinct fact that Sparrow was standing over Smajor, pressing closer and closer to the fungal mage’s throat with an unusual-looking strand of sculk vein.

Of important note was also that there was absolutely no mycelium near Smajor. His back was against a large unbroken carpet of sculk, and despite the flicker of spores around his hands revealed by the light of nearby soul lanterns, the strand wasn’t converting, either. Meanwhile, there was a visible bubbling effect occurring where Sparrow held it.

When tinier bits of sculk vein oozed out of these bubbles to land on Smajor’s chest and face Myth knew where to focus his attack. He pounced, reaching around from behind Sparrow to grab the strand, grasping it directly next to Sparrow’s hands. Myth registered the wire-like feel of it before activating his powers. Within less than a second the whole length of it was crumbling due to decay.

And as Myth had suspected, Sparrow yelped in pain when the decay touched his hands.

The sculk-possessed humanoid’s instincts were to jump away, but Myth closed his arms around him. He refrained from using any more decay – he needed answers, not a disappearing pile of dust while Sparrow’s consciousness revived elsewhere. He did, however, finally utter the bone-chilling breath of a wither, intending to strike some fear into Sparrow.

It was Smajor who emitted a terrified gasp and began a frenzied attempt to slide away backward. He failed to move an inch. Myth now saw that the fungal mage was not just lying on the sculk but was actually trapped by a sludgy form of it that was clinging to his robes.

Smajor really wasn’t the culprit here. It was Sparrow.

“Let me go!” the now-struggling Sparrow yelled. “Intruders must be eliminated!”

Myth scoffed at the irony. “Well, I guess that means I need to be eliminated, too. Don’t really care for that. How about you settle down instead? We need to talk.” Maintaining a tight grasp on Sparrow with one arm, Myth leaned to the side to grab a fistful of sculk out of the ground. He brought it around to hold it in front of Sparrow’s face. “You might be able to play fungus tug-of-war with him, but I can make it so no one has any ammunition.” He crushed the sculk in his hand. The ashen remains fluttered down before Sparrow’s eyes.

Sparrow thrashed wildly in response, forcing Myth to turn around in an effort to keep him restrained. “No! How could you do that to us?! This is our home! Our domain! You’re the ones who don’t belong here! You can’t stop us! We can keep spreading from anywhere and we’ll keep coming back no matter what you do!”

“You’re right about him and me not belonging. But I think we’re exactly what this world needed: two people who are very good at destruction.” Myth’s gaze flicked to a flurry of orange particles in the distance. In the next second he was shoving Sparrow into Scott’s arms; they disappeared immediately, and once he saw the transporter reappear on top of a sculk-free deepslate wall, Myth plunged his hands into the sculk at his very feet with a roar.

Decay shot across the entire surface in an expanding radius around him. Smajor dropped onto the layer of solid deepslate below as the muck trapping him crumbled away. He coughed from the stale remnants that floated in the air before those, too, dissipated. He stayed where he was, simply watching the wave of decay as it continued ever outward. However, he abruptly scrambled to his feet when he saw other faces peeking out from around a deepslate pillar – one that was partially held up by sculk. He ran toward it and flung his hands out, sending a line of mycelium across the floor and up the pillar, replacing the sculk just as the spreading decay was about to reach it.  Smajor then fell backward, chest heaving before he recovered enough to sit up again.

Sparrow’s distorted voice rang out. “No, no, no!! Where are the guardians of this city?! Rise, Wardens! I command you!” His voice lost all semblance of itself on the final three words.

The ground underneath Myth rumbled and churned. Before he could react, numerous large clawed hands thrust upward out of the resulting rubble and grabbed him, pulling him down through the displaced floor with bits of deepslate cutting at him on the way.

Scott teleported to the spot but even he was too slow to do anything – the deepslate reformed itself into solid ground right before his eyes. Sparrow laughed in triumph.

“Ohmygod!” Ghast-sage shouted from where he was hiding. “Th-They can just do that?!”

Scott squatted to touch the floor. Surely it would start crumbling away when Myth unleashed his powers in order to destroy the Wardens that had grabbed him, and surely he could make deepslate decay just like the sculk…

A sound like the reversed shattering of glass interrupted the horrified silence that had followed. From behind the pillar Smajor had prevented from falling came a small bolt of orange energy that ricocheted rapidly off of thin air. It struck the ground where Myth had disappeared. Scott drew back, startled, but then lowered his hand again. He could swear the surface under his palm was growing warm.

No, it definitely was.

He leapt away a breath before the deepslate turned molten and buckled upward in the shape of a volcanic cone. A blazing form burst from the center – Myth, his wings and upper body aflame in hues of glowing orange. A split-second glimpse of his eyes revealed twin blind embers as he continued soaring straight up. A deafening hawk-like screech rent the cavern. Myth crashed right into the ceiling a second later.

No one saw what happened to him in the aftermath. While they had been watching him, the volcano in the floor had doubled in size and its sides had begun to protrude. It exploded outward, covering the entire area in a blanket of burning lava.

~*~

The next thing Myth became aware of was a voice that sounded an awful lot like Hermes and might have been asking Myth if he could hear him. He lifted his head from the oddly warm ground. At the corners of his fuzzy vision, he could discern the fading light of lava disappearing into cracks before the rest of it began to cool. He was confused by the orange tufts at the top of his line of sight. Groggily maneuvering a hand out from under his prone body to touch them revealed that it was his own hair. He shifted a wing into view. His feathers were orange again.

This universe really was dead-set on wanting him to be a phoenix.

He sat up, keeping his hand to his head, while Hermes kept plying him for a response. Myth’s ears were ringing, so the words weren’t clear, plus he was still processing the fact the young man was there. “Wha… You were… Your own portal…” Myth mumbled. “How’d you… get here?”

Hermes’ voice continued to be muffled by the thankfully now-dulling ring, so Myth tried using his eyes to gain information. He saw the blurry figure of Sausage standing over someone, talking to them. The blur was resolving itself slowly, so Myth squinted at the sitting figure. The red shape that bobbed along with their head movements clarified into a mushroom cap. Myth tried to lunge onto his feet, a warning on his lips.

He fell flat on his face instead. He had been revived once again, yet he didn’t feel particularly refreshed in the energy department this time around.

“Easy, mate,” came a gentle reproach from Hermes as he lent Myth a hand in sitting up again. “You smacked into the ceiling pretty hard. We figured you could withstand the heat better than the others, so we recovered them first. I’ve got to say, the resurrection magic of this world is fascinating to witness.”

Myth looked to where Sausage stood. There were four bodies near him: three laying on the ground with Rusty pacing next to one of them and the last one sitting up as the chat with Sausage continued. Now Myth could tell there was a difference; although there was the white hair under the mushroom cap like Smajor, the clothes were Scott’s.

Myth’s body froze up as a realization began to dawn in his brain, but his gaze was able to slide to the other figures. The identical fungal mage was there, in the same robes as expected with his satchel beside him. Next was Sparrow, lacking the sculk that had marred him before. And then a face identical to his own right down to the orange beard and hair, if not minus the extensive scar, with orange-feathered wings splayed out underneath him, and wearing the Ghast Mage’s robes.

Understanding settled over him. He let a bitter smile cross his face then he slouched, letting an invisible weight off his shoulders. He turned his head as Hermes sat down beside him. “I need you to explain again why you’re here. I didn’t catch it the first time.”

“Sure. We were about to go through our portal but Dad said he sensed something from the Staff and insisted we follow you guys. You were already moving away when we came through, so we took cover to watch what might happen. Dad was trying to figure out what the Staff wanted, then that gemstone in it shattered and released some sort of magic beam out to where you got dragged underground. After that things got kind of dicey because a massive lava eruption happened after you flew out of like, a volcano-looking thing. Or maybe the volcano spat you out and the lava followed. N-Not to say you caused it,” Hermes quickly amended. “I’m not sure how conscious you even were at that point, and that was before you hit the ceiling.”

Myth put a hand to his head as if feeling for a bump, shifting his gaze to his boots. “I don’t remember anything between the Wardens pulling me in and a few minutes ago. But it’s obvious Smajor and I have to go soon. This world doesn’t need two phoenixes and fungal mages.” He started to push himself up, then felt a wave of dizziness, so he sat back down. “…After a little more rest.”

By now Smajor had awakened and was talking quietly to Scott. His movements were sluggish as he picked up his satchel of mushrooms and opened it. However, once he began pointing inside as the two chatted his energy seemed to pick up a bit. Myth kept what he felt was a reasonable amount of wariness, although perhaps he had given enough warnings about Smajor up till then that Hermes and Sausage could handle him.

The former Ghast Mage woke next. He snuck a few glances at Myth between observing the two fungal mages. Myth didn’t feel like chatting with him, anyway, so it was for the best that the other stayed where he was. He instead turned his mind toward composing a strategy for his next move.

As if privy to his train of thought, Hermes asked, “Are you still planning to go back in that labyrinth?”

“Of course. What else is there?”

“Well, I think you should come with my dad and I to Sanctuary. You could rest up a little more so you’ll be in better shape to chase down your unfortunately assigned ward over there when you get separated. It will be more comfortable than sitting around this cave. Plus, these guys will have their hands full going around destroying all the Ancient City portals here. In Sanctuary Dad and I can help keep an eye on Smajor.”

With the amicable-sounding conversation from the two fungal mages floating his way Myth admitted that this would, perhaps, be the better option.

~*~

After swapping clothes with their doubles, Myth, Smajor, and the rest of their new group stood watching from their hiding spot as the rightful phoenix and fungal mage of that universe walked away, Sparrow trudging wearily along between them and Rusty looking over the former Ghast-sage’s shoulder. Sparrow was still dazed from his experience, having been mumbling is distressed sorrow over having fought with his friends, and was apologizing profusely to Scott for trying to kill him.

They all thought it best to not involve Sparrow in the confusion of doubles from other realities; he had no memory of Myth destroying the sculk or of the Wardens dragging Myth underground. All Sparrow said he could recall was some kind of large explosion, comparing it to TNT.

After waiting ten minutes to make sure they were gone, Sausage held the Staff aloft – incidentally showing that it was back to its mossy and red-mushroom bedecked appearance – and a moment later Myth found himself blinking against bright sunlight streaming through tall stands of bamboo. A path with assorted flowers decorating random spots meandered away in front of them, splitting to the left to go up a slope to a small building while the rest of the path passed through a variety of trees, beyond which were the homes and businesses of Sanctuary itself. Myth cast a glance over his shoulder. Behind them was a giant tree stump with a giant white tulip growing atop it. Below the tulip and slightly to the right was a Nether portal.

He assumed this was a coincidence.

Sausage and Hermes walked past behind him, so Myth fully turned to watch and wait for a sign to follow. Now he saw a second, large-ish tree with a hollow in the middle near the roots. Squinting, Myth could see an armor stand inside. It was here that Sausage placed the Staff on one side of the armor stand while Hermes placed his trident on the other. A shimmer appeared over the front of the hollow as they exited.

Sausage smiled as he returned to the visitors, tired wrinkles appearing on his face. “Needs to recharge. Let’s go refresh at the tavern!”

As their host led the way, Myth none-too-subtly tossed glares at Smajor from the corner of his eyes. Smajor peered at him once with a neutral expression then lowered his head, keeping pace between Myth and Hermes the whole way.

The ambience of a breeze off the sea and call of animals hidden by trees and bamboo was a stark contrast to the stagnant isolation of both the labyrinth and the Deep Dark. When they reached the town proper Myth saw people of every race and species going about their day. Some of them called out greetings to Sausage and Hermes. There was a reverence in a few of the tones, as if they were addressing a king – or maybe it was Hermes’ status as a demi-god. Either way, the Protector and his son responded as friends rather than as rulers.

Upon reaching the tavern Sausage flung the door open and cheerfully called out, “¡Regresamos! ¿Cómo están todos? ¡María! ¡Justo a quién quería ver!” He crossed between tables to a person who, to Myth’s eyes, looked like an anthropomorphic rabbit wearing leatherworker gear. She had been helping an Allay change out tablecloths in the booths along the wall, but spoke an excited greeting then began chatting away with Sausage in his native language.

Hermes waved Myth and Smajor toward the bar. The latter hesitated. “Come on. Take a seat. My little brother can mix up some drinks to your liking. Best bartender in Sanctuary! ¡Hola, Rocky! We have newcomers!”

“¡Hola!” said a gravelly voice from behind the bar. From below behind the bar. Myth was about to sit on one of the barstools but curiosity seized him so he leaned over the bar to see what this brother of a demi-god might look like. He ended up making eye contact with a short, green-skinned person wearing similar brightly-colored clothes as the people around town. They uttered a strange sort of chirp in response. “¡Ay! ¡Papá! ¿Qué te pasó en la cara? ¡Y el pelo!”

Hermes laughed. “No, no, hermano– this is one of Dad’s dobles from another reality.”

“Oh. You could have warned me!” The small fellow chirped again. He added a sort of gargling sound afterward, then went about getting some clean mugs.

Apparently replying to these vocalizations, Hermes said, “Something to give everyone a little pick-me-up. No, I think you can leave out the redstone zest for now. We’ve had enough high blood pressure for one day.” He sat down as Myth settled onto the barstool, explaining, “Rocky is adopted from the goblin kingdom. He goes back and forth between languages in the same sentence, kind of an assimilation quirk of goblinfolk when they intermingle with other cultures they’re exposed to.”

Smajor had remained standing, hovering near the end of the bar. When Rocky stepped up onto a wooden ledge to place a mug in front of him, Smajor lightly shook his head. “No thank you, actually. I think I would rather just sleep. Using up my mana twenty times in a row is exhausting.” He continued to avoid looking at Myth – which was difficult, since he wanted to address Hermes.

Rocky uttered a “Prrrt” and stepped down. He then brought the mug over to Hermes and slid it next to where the young man rested his elbow, making an indiscernible comment. He then exited the bar, walking around to where Smajor was. “Follow me, Don Sombrero de Hongo. We offer the most comfortable rooms in all of Sanctuary to visitors.”

“I have no idea what you just called me,” Smajor said wearily. “But, whatever. Show me the way.” As they headed up the staircase Maria followed, one hand casually resting on the pommel of the dagger stuck through a loop on her apron.

Sausage came over to sit next to Hermes. He pulled over the mug Rocky had left, holding it between his hands. “Maria will keep an eye on him. Just in case.” He took a sip from the mug then let out a satisfied sigh. “Ah, it’s good to be home. I’ll start sending explanations about the Ancient City portals to the other empires in a little while. For now, these old bones need to rest!” He sighed again before taking a long, noisy sip of his drink.

Hermes casually cleared his throat. “Speaking of Ancient Cities, I have a proposal for you.” He swiveled his barstool toward Myth. “I have more training to do as Apprentice-Guardian-of-Realities, and obviously that means I have to go visit a bunch more worlds. You want to go around the multiverse in a round-about fashion. So, why don’t you travel with me? Using the Staff to get around will be much more efficient than having to go through that labyrinth over and over again. Sounds kind of lonely to me, really. Might as well have someone along who can vouch for what’s going on in that place. And I can help you avoid any realities that you’ve already been to – by the way, do the mobs in the Superhero’s world have ten powers, too?”

Myth stared back blankly for a moment, confused by Hermes’ blithe tone. The young man clearly hadn’t gotten enough of a taste of how dangerous it was to be around him. “I wouldn’t be alone, technically,” Myth blurted. “I’m taking Smajor. And there is no way I would risk bringing him along with that Staff there to tempt him—”

Sausage, hands resting around his mug again, calmly interrupted, “Well, there isn’t a Scott in this world anymore, so it wouldn’t cause a cosmic paradox if yours stayed here. Under my supervision, of course. Everyone is welcome to take shelter in Sanctuary, after all.” A small smile graced his visage, his age-lined eyes holding gentleness and patience as he looked at Myth.

Old buried resentment threatened to surface until Myth realized that this was a look of understanding and acceptance, not the pleading insistence of a shining seraph who wanted a cursed angel to give up his pain before he was ready. Still, his voice came out in a grumble. “You can’t be implying that I should stay here, too. You and I still make a paradox.”

“I’m the Guardian of Realities! Come on, now! I can cheat a little bit to make an exception for myself! And for whichever of myselves happen to find their way to my doorstep! But, ehhh, it is probably a good idea to leave with Hermes regularly. Just so no overarching multiversal powers-that-be don’t catch on, if you know what I’m sayin’. It’ll be fine! Don’t you worry for a minute! The multiverse has a job for you, after all!”

~*~   EPILOGUE   ~*~

Three months later…

Sausage walked out of the former L.O.R.E. headquarters after bidding everyone farewell, his sunflower-styled walking stick in hand. The items from the rift incident had been carefully packed away to be replaced by an ever-growing pile of charts and arrangements of different colored string across a bulletin board. The latter was to illustrate which realities shared similarities, noted mainly out of the interest in which ones were parallels of each other. The charts recorded spatial coordinates for each reality and the types of worlds that existed within them.

The initial team of two had grown during their travels throughout the multiverse. The debriefing room currently accommodated the likes of Blood Pearl of Mythland, an accomplished reality-hopper herself, who had been seeking a way to save her dear friend the Farmer King of Helianthia from fated doom; a Time Witch named Cleo who was on a quest to fix her own fractured timeline; and Interstellar Paladin Sparklez, who had been attempting to teach the ways of balance to the multiverse after his goddess, Lady Ianite, sacrificed herself to save his world.

Sausage had listened in enough times to acknowledge that Myth had gotten the hang of things, so he felt he could take his leave. He stopped off at the tavern and the bakery, procuring a picnic basket on the way to fill with some supplies, then headed off into a denser part of the bamboo forest outside of Sanctuary. He stopped briefly near a weather-worn stone memorial to check on a patch of unique flowers with an equally weather-worn wooden sign in front of the small border that surrounded them. The two species of flowers, which only grew in that one location in all the world, were thriving as they always had, so he continued on his trek.

A few minutes later the tall bamboo began to be overshadowed by the caps of giant mushrooms. Shorter clusters of them hugged the sides of the path along the way, some of mixed red and brown, some just one or the other at different heights, and even some warped and crimson fungus were there standing out amongst the mundane colors.

Then he reached the main mushroom grove, where the path itself turned to pure mycelium while around it was grass of a rich, deep emerald color. With even more of the giant mushrooms providing shade overhead, the air felt cooler as well as holding a comfortable dew point, making it seem like a completely different biome had been plunked down in the middle of the bamboo jungle.

Sausage leaned on his walking stick as he admired one of the giant mushrooms that had three joined stems, noting how it had the shape of a brown mushroom but with the bright orange specks found on a warped fungus.

A polite yawn behind him made him turn; Smajor stood there holding the last basket that Sausage had brought out, tiny mushrooms piled up to the point they were going to spill out if he tilted it. “Hello, Protector,” he greeted in a neutral tone. He had adopted the title to use for referring to him, never once calling Sausage by name. “What brings you out here?”

“I just thought I’d stop by and check on things.” Sausage held up the new basket, not needing to include this also meant offering his guest some food and drinks.

Smajor gently set down the one he had been carrying then waved a hand, causing two red mushrooms big enough to sit on to spring up behind himself and Sausage.

“Ah. Thank you.” Sausage leaned over to set his basket down on the ground too, then leaned on his walking stick again as he carefully lowered himself onto the provided seat. “It’s looking very nice out here. It feels serene. I’m particularly impressed with that one, there.” He gestured to the three-stemmed mushroom. “It reminds me of a kingdom I once saw. They also had magically-grown mushrooms in different colors, although that was attributed to special crystals that had been planted alongside regular mushrooms.”

“I thought I would experiment a little with the types I can conjure. As for that particular one…” Smajor paused, his eyes seeming to go distant for a second, then he continued, “They remind me of… home. From a long, long time ago. This place is very bright in comparison, so it’s not going to be a perfect imitation. But when the sun sets and the light is just right… It feels like my own little private piece of a twilight forest.”

There was a wistfulness in his voice that reached Sausage’s heart. “I’m glad you’ve been able to make a place for yourself during your time here. You’re always welcome in town, too, whenever you like.”

A frown pulled at the corners of Smajor’s lips, but he didn’t take out any of his bitterness on the well-meaning old man. “No, I’d rather stay here. Talking to nature suits me better than talking to people, and I definitely don’t want to run into Myth by accident. And I don’t want him to come here.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s too busy to pay a visit.”

"Either way, he will never stop looking at me like he thinks I'm going to murder you all if the wind starts blowing from another direction." Smajor sighed in feigned-resignation. "I mean, I still want to see him dead, but since that is extremely unlikely to ever happen, I'll stick with never seeing his particular face again. Out here is my peace, and if you want more reasons to stop feeling obligated to invite me to town, then think of it as me staying out here makes it safer for everyone. I want to keep it that way.”

THE END

[post-A/N: That wraps things up for Myth and Smajor, along with the Past Unmasked timeline! Well, unless I get struck by more inspiration out of the blue. Obviously this went far beyond a couple of darkfics written for the heck of it and an AU based on a friend's artwork, so who knows! But I do want to focus on other Empires S1 stuff and potentially one more fic for Soul Liminality 2, so please stay tuned! I appreciate everyone who has taken the time to read these bizarre AUs of mine, with a special shout out to those who left comments! The encouragement is greatly appreciated! Thank you so much for staying with me through the development of these characters and their wanderings away from canon. I hope you'll enjoy the fics I write in the future!]

~*~*~

Translations:

¡Regresamos! ¿Cómo están todos? ¡María! ¡Justo a quién quería ver!  -We have returned! How is everyone? Maria! Just who I wanted to see!

Hola! – Hello!

¡Ay! ¡Papá! ¿Qué te pasó en la cara? ¡Y el pelo!  - Yikes! Papa! What happened to your face? And hair!

Hermano -  brother

Dobles - doubles

Chapter Five

The scene at the battle site was quite fiery, indeed. Hermes hovered above, dodging fireballs and baiting Wardens to go after him, then neatly avoiding them once getting them lined up perfectly for a shot from Myth or the Ghast Mage. There were now six Wardens including the one Myth had initially targeted. The sounds behind him had gotten the phoenix’s attention, and while he did try to deliver a crippling blow to the first Warden’s legs, it hadn’t taken long for it to lumber over and join the others.

Not all of them were infested with mycelium. At least three were normal Wardens, although it was getting difficult to tell which one was which with all the fire and smoke in the air. Hermes was doing his best to be mindful of both. Eventually, though, he needed to land to get below the smoke line. He chose a spot behind the Ghast Mage since Myth was turning into a raging ball of fire once again.

The Ghast Mage looked no less angry. His face was streaked with tears, flames spewing from his lips as he yelled, “Phoenix! Aim for the sculk, too!” He turned his runny eyes to Hermes. “You, too – if you can use your lightning to spark a fire on that stuff!”

“I’ll give it a try,” Hermes said. “But are you going to be alright?”

Ghast-sage stifled a cough. “No choice! He can’t handle these things alone, even if he is able to regenerate so fast!”

As if on cue Myth’s form went up in a burst of bright flames – yet this time they were tinged blue. Hermes frowned. “He’s burning hotter every time. I don’t think that’s a good sign.”

“Worry about it later. We’ve got to stop any more of them from climbing out. TIME TO BURN EVERYTHING, BOYS!!” Ghast-sage dashed to the nearest sculk patch and uttered a ghastly shriek as he began pummeling it with fireballs.

Hermes pinched his lightning bolt earring for luck, hoping the alignment frequency remained sturdy, then gathered some power around himself and the trident’s tines. He pointed them at a Warden who was stumbling toward the Ghast Mage and unleashed a bolt strong enough to knock it off its feet.

The Warden struggled to regain its balance, giving Hermes time to direct a bolt at one of the Wardens closing in on Myth, who was peppered with bright blueish-white flames from his latest revival.

This time the glow surrounding his feathers faded to yellow instead of orange.

Just then Scott popped into view, distracting Hermes from his concern. Ghast-sage gestured to himself before pointing from one sculk patch higher up on the wall to one across from it, then to a third near the ground. As they teleported off on that route, Hermes took it as a sign to target any patches except those three – as well as any Wardens who got in the way. The senses of the creatures seemed to have been thrown off by the explosions all over the place, so Hermes decided to cause a few localized thunderclaps to add to the auditory chaos, making one or another Warden turn toward that sound and give Myth a chance to retreat elsewhere.

Not that he seemed inclined to retreat, or move to any spot clear of danger.

When not trying to set Wardens on fire, he was swooping toward patches of sculk and incinerating as much as he could in one touch. He had even managed to use a few beats of his blazing wings to sear moss hanging off the Wardens’ antennae. Concern returned to Hermes as he wondered if the phoenix would turn himself into an inferno to deal more damage.

The roars of agony from the Wardens were beginning to be swallowed up by the sound of whooshing fireballs and Myth’s own snarls. Hermes was glad his father wasn’t close enough to feel the scorching heat. Soon enough even the Staff might be at risk of igniting.

Within minutes of Scott’s arrival, the majority of the sculk patches were eliminated. Hermes had taken down two of the Wardens, while Myth had killed at least three. He was on the last one now, intent on dishing out one or more of his kamikaze bursts of blinding fire. His feathers retained a blueish tint after the latest one, white flames remaining along his arms as well as coming off the corners of his eyes.

Myth glanced around rapidly, hunting for more sculk or remaining Wardens. Scott and the Ghast Mage reappeared; Ghast-sage collapsed onto his backside on the ground, sighing in exhaustion, while Scott opened a bundle and hastily began eating to replenish his powers.

The lot of them went deathly still as they heard a splattering sound.

Somewhere, a patch of the bizarre sculk remained.

Above.

It was somewhere above. They witnessed more sculk vein hit the ground near to where the Ghast Mage sat. It spread with insane speed, forcing Scott to grab his friend and teleport out of the way.

They reappeared beside Myth, who continued to emit the blueish flames. Hermes quickly joined them. He flinched when he felt the level of heat radiating off Myth.

The phoenix didn’t notice the reaction, his stare glued to the subsequent bubbling and rapid spread of sculk across the floor. He murmured with genuine worry, “What happened to this place? It was completely abandoned the last time I was here. There’s no way Smajor could have caused all of this in the time we’ve been in that world… Everything was the same here, right down to the messes we left behind when we fought—!”

The ground rumbled louder than ever before, shaking the surroundings with enough force to send debris raining down from the tops of walls again. An arm shot up from the sculk patch, followed by another. They grasped at the floor beyond, leaving deep furrows in the as-yet unsculkified stone.

Then another arm emerged.

Then another.

Two sets of antennae emerged.

A roar rang out, amplified twofold.

A two-headed, four-armed Warden pulled itself out of the sculk. Its body was a twisted combination of blue-black and grayish-purple. Within its exposed ribcage was a warring swirl of turquoise and violet light, with the shapes similar to those of the faces on soulsand violently contorting in frenzied turmoil. Equal amounts of sculk vein and stringy purple moss hung off of it.

It was also gigantic in comparison to the previous Wardens.

Ghast-sage leaned heavily on Scott. “I… I don’t know… how much more… I’ve got in me,” he huffed. He coughed and attempted to stoke up some fire, but all that rose from his palms and mouth were feeble puffs of smoke that immediately dissipated. “We – We need to run.”

To be fair, the direction they needed to go was currently right at their backs.

But there was one problem.

“My dad and Rusty are still back there,” Hermes said, pointing past the mutated Warden.

Scott patted the bundle he had been carrying. “My power is still recharging, but I need to save some of this. I don’t think I can teleport to them and back quickly enough.”

Myth stepped forward, eyes aglow with blueish-white flames. “I’ll just have to fight it to buy enough time.”

~*~

Smajor groaned as he revived for possibly the eighth time since he had… encouraged… Myth to enter the portal. He pulled the strangling sculk vein away from his neck, grateful that it had gone slack when it perceived him to be dead. He had one block of mycelium left under each foot, but it was enough to get him powered up again.

He freed his arms then did a twirl to unwind the rest of the viny sculk vein from around his body. Mycelium appeared with every step, slowly but steadily spreading. Smajor sneered as he kicked the catalyst that had popped up during his previous death. “This stuff is more persistent than Myth is. But I guess I am giving it a perpetual source of death to multiply from.”

He stepped upward on slippery stairs toward the portal, leaving a trail of tiny mushrooms in his wake in order to give the sculk more to overcome before it tried to surge once again. For the twelfth time he pulled off the sculk vein that had gathered over the bottom of the portal frame, sprinkling plenty of mushroom spores along the frame as another deterrent. He had tried a variety of all combinations of magic that was at his disposal. The sculk was relentless. He had begun to wonder what would happen if he let it breach the portal.

He refused to let it. Not until he had some kind of confirmation on Myth’s status.

Not until he saw that hypocritically righteous oaf stumble out, with or without their missing doubles, exhausted from navigating the labyrinth. Smajor had no doubts about Myth finding his way out.

He smiled bitterly to himself. The downside was whether Myth would come back to this world, or go to their original one. Smajor had taken a gamble by tossing his rival into the labyrinth. The first time they had left it – whatever method had been used, since his own urge to kill destroyed any possibility of Myth telling him about it – obviously sent them and their goody-goody doubles back to their own worlds rather than to the same one.

Smajor directed a mushroom to grow large enough for him to sit on, then he relaxed there for the moment, enjoying what was probably going to be a short reprieve from sculk attacks. He had infinite time to wait, after all.

He didn’t bat an eye as he heard something approach from behind him. He merely prepared to slowly rise from his seat, poised to whip his arm around and make the mycelium surge.

An actual if not distorted voice made him pause. “What have you done to our shrine?!”

“Sp-Sparrow?” Smajor wheeled around and stared, shocked that the odd person had ventured this deep. He then squinted for a second, noticing the sickeningly familiar blue-black and turquoise clinging to an otherwise humanoid-looking Sparrow. “Is that you? Weren’t you a copper golem the last time I saw you?”

“When even was that, Scott?” Sparrow challenged, moving up the stairs with unwavering purpose. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in weeks. What have you been doing while sneaking about? Setting up your mushrooms even down here, I see. Well, I won’t stand for it. This is our home!”

“I only see one of you,” Smajor retorted. “And what are you talking about? I’ve been scouting this place for a while and there hasn’t been anyone else around.” He took a step back, then tried to subtly look for the mushroom closest to Sparrow that he could try using to yeet the intruder away if necessary. He didn’t like the intense look in Sparrow’s sculk-altered eyes.

“All of the Deep Dark is our home,” Sparrow insisted. “All of the Ancient Cities are ours. I didn’t start living in this one, but it is part of our network! You have no right to be infesting this place with your overworld fungus!”

“Sparrow,” Smajor said dryly, “I think you’re the one who is infested. You’ve got a little something growing on your cheek, there. And your neck. And both hands. Might want to check your eyes, too. Have you looked at your reflection lately?”

“Don’t mock us, Scott!!”

“Mock who? You’re still the only one I see.” Smajor let a tiny smile slip onto his face. None of these fools even realized their friends had been replaced.

“The sculk, Scott!!” Sparrow’s volume increased along with the distortion in his voice. “We’re not going to stand for being stifled any longer! They told me something was going on in this city! They told me foreign soil had been placed and it was trying to consume them! But we’re stronger than you think. Did you really expect to transform the whole of the Deep Dark into mycelium? Don’t you have enough places to spread your inferior children?”

“Now, now, Sparrow. Mushrooms grow best in low light, damp environments. Surely we can share? You and I are basically relatives.”

Sparrow drew back as if stung. “You’re nothing like us!” He went still for a moment, then a smile of his own crossed his face. “But maybe I can make you like us.”

Smajor raised an eyebrow in doubt over whatever that would entail. He reconsidered two seconds later, however, when Sparrow’s body dissolved into a cloud of sculk spores and rushed at the fungal mage’s face. He flailed, attempting to bat them away, but as they swarmed close to his nose and mouth he inevitably inhaled some of them.

Some then led to all of them as the first ones took control of his body, the spores seeming to flood his brain. Smajor panicked – but only over the possibility that Sparrow might somehow get access to his memories and learn that he wasn’t the real Scott of this world.

He wasn’t sure why he should care about that. If anything, maybe it would scare Sparrow when he learned just who, exactly, he was dealing with.

Smajor let Sparrow walk his body down the stairs, an obvious choice to get Smajor away from the portal. The fungal mage’s powers were temporarily dampened by the possession, but Smajor was very accustomed to being confined inside his own head without any other stimulation – aside from rolling a clock across the floor of an obsidian-lined cell over and over again. Sparrow hadn’t cut off his mental connection to his mana yet, only his ability to manipulate fungus spores.

“I can make you leave,” Sparrow’s voice inside his head threatened. “I can make you walk to a desert, where it’s all blinding light and drought. I can make you walk into an abandoned corner of the Nether and strand you there. I can do whatever I want with you! All I have to do is leave you on the brink of death, and then you’ll become something else that has no power over fungus! What do you say to that?”

Smajor regained control of his mouth muscles, which he used to smirk. Maybe Sparrow couldn’t see the expression for himself, but he might be able to feel it. “Actually, I have a neat trick for just such an occasion! Watch this – and by that I mean you might want to leave my body.” He instantly expelled all of his mana at once, causing every mushroom in a three-meter radius to sprout up to gigantic height. Mycelium spread across the floor to the same distance.

The cloud of spores that was Sparrow ejected itself just before Smajor dropped lifelessly to the ground. Sparrow reformed himself and stared down in shock. His voice came out normal and trembling. “S-Scott? Scott??” No response came from the fungal mage. “W-Why would he do that? I – I thought he was trying to accomplish something here. He – He fought off all the other attempts to stop him, right? That’s why I had to come down here…”

Sparrow clutched at his head. His voice became distorted again. “It doesn’t matter – he doesn’t matter! If that was his choice to avoid being controlled, then so be it! Now we can clean up this mess in peace.” He walked toward the nearest tall mushroom and directed a strand of sculk vein to begin spiraling its way up the stem, corrupting it as it went.

A polite cough behind him made him turn. Sparrow was unbothered; they could easily deal with the intruder regardless of what he had become—

The fungal mage stood up, looking exactly the same. The smirk was back on his face. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m unkillable. What about you, Sparrow? How many lives do you have?”

~*~

Myth hated to admit it but this new Warden was a lot tougher than the others. Each time it swung around it left gouges in the walls on both sides, leaving the floor littered with even more debris. Ghast-sage had rustled up enough power to finish incinerating the new patches of sculk that had cropped up, but afterward Scott had to teleport him to safety.

After a few minutes Scott had returned to teleport very short distances, acting as bait to keep the mutated Warden busy by warping away just as it tried to grab him. Hermes was still doing likewise, although now his zipping through the air was accompanied by zapping the Warden with lightning strikes. Myth was flying low to the ground back and forth around its legs and launching fireballs into its lower body to try to bring it down a level.

When it finally dropped to its knees and slammed two of its arms against the ground to stay up so it could fend off its attackers, Myth allowed a smug smile of victory. Well, at least it wasn’t completely invincible. He did wish they had another offensive hitter available… He swooped around to where Hermes was taking a quick breather. “Hey! Can you see if The Protector is able to use any of his spells yet? They’ll probably be more effective on this thing than the guy we fought that one time – he’ll know what I’m taking about!”

“The Pro— oh, my dad? A-Are you sure you want me to leave you to fight alone?”

“I can handle it,” Myth assured him. He began to look away. “Where’s Scott? Maybe he can get you there—”

He abruptly shoved Hermes hard in the chest, sending the young man stumbling to the side—

And took the brunt of the mutated Warden’s angled sonic shriek himself. It flung Myth into the wall, where he slumped down gulping for breath, his midsection pressed concave. Half a second passed then his body burst into blue-white flames. His silhouette stood up within the fire, then the flames retreated to limn his arms, shoulders, and wings.

Another sonic blast followed. Myth fell back a step but he was too freshly reborn to be taken down so soon.

Hermes launched into the air, trying to distract the Warden by striking its antennae with lightning that forked in a continuous circuit among the four. He could tell that his attunement was starting to diverge from the trident’s frequency; he needed more time where he wasn’t using it. He pinched his gold earring then summoned his reserves to try for a more powerful strike – only to come to a stop as the Warden directed another shriek at Myth.

The phoenix’s revived strength didn’t hold this time. He felt the wind get knocked out of him just as he was releasing a fireball made of the flames that had been clinging to him mere seconds ago. Myth’s field of vision narrowed. Maybe he had taken another hit too soon after reviving? His energy seemed to drain out of him. He looked down at his hands in horror, unable to summon more fire to his fingertips.

The Warden threw its heads back and roared, rattling Myth to the bone. He looked around frantically for a path of escape. The fallen bits of wall appeared to block any avenue past the Warden. His vision darkened further; he couldn’t see any trace of Hermes or Scott, no flashes of lightning or bursts of teleportation sparkles.

Myth berated himself over how he should have asked The Protector sooner about lending some spells. Even a defensive one would be helpful right now. All he could do was drop to his knees and stubbornly face down the Warden while bracing himself for a final blow, whether it be another shriek or a swipe of the Warden’s massive claws as it raised two arms above him.

He was unsure of which it was, but flames engulfed his body once again. As he regained awareness he realized it felt different this time, like it was actually burning him this time.

And then…

And then…

His orange feathers were burned away, leaving behind smokey-grey ones. The concept of control over fire fled his mind. It was replaced by a different power that raced through his veins. It was familiar to him and yet long, long removed from the line of abilities that he had been through.

The second in that line.

He spared a single rasping breath to look down at his hands again. They had taken on a bony look – but he still felt strong enough. He briefly clenched his fists then threw himself at the Warden, hands now held outward with fingers poised like talons ready to latch onto prey.

Time to find out if these wither powers still worked like he remembered.

If he could cause an entire church to decay, surely he could do some serious damage to a giant Warden. Myth uttered a loud sound similar to an inverted breath, bringing chills to whoever heard; they were all aware of which creature made that sound.

Or, at least it brought chills to four of them. For Sausage, who had been cautiously but steadily approaching the Warden-riddled battleground, perked up. He didn’t know how one of his old allies would have even gotten there because he was fairly certain he hadn’t created a new pocket reality to even have a Deep Dark, but any help would be appreciated.

However, it was not the robed figure of his ally The Wither of Mythland who was attacking the mutated Warden. It was someone with the appearance of a wither, pale eyes flashing between bright blue and white, with a somewhat skeletal visage but with the stature and aura of someone accustomed to being a powerhouse, unlike The Wither’s reserved manner.

Sausage noted the dark grey wings plus now equally dark grey hair, then caught a glimpse of the singed clothes and face as the figure took to the air, and realized it was Myth. The sight made him mumble, “Is that what happens when a phoenix burns out?” He gripped the Staff of Sanctuary tightly, then glanced around for the others.

To his left Scott and the Ghast Mage, holding each other up, came limping out of a cloud of billowing dust stirred up by the Warden’s wildly swinging attempts to hit Myth as he swooped around both heads, his arms outstretched to either side to try to snag an antenna on his way. Hermes wasn’t immediately visible, which made Sausage worry. A brief yet dim flash of lightning sparked out of a dust cloud that was raining down from one of the walls. A shadow beyond it was revealed when Myth flew past and momentarily cleared the air with his wings.

Sausage recognized the sign of his son’s power waning regardless of trident, but he knew his own capabilities were better spent helping the other two. He whispered a spell that lifted Scott and Ghast-sage off their feet and pulled them toward him into the safety of cover provided by one of the larger fallen pieces of wall. They smiled gratefully.

Sausage then handed Scott another bundle of food while in exchange offering to help the Ghast Mage stand. “That’s the last of it. Chew wisely.” Scott nodded. He quickly downed a cold empanada and saved the rest. The three then directed their attention to the ongoing battle.

The Warden was now short one antenna on each head as well as missing one arm. There was no sign of the appendages, but an ashen gray coating was slowly spreading from the shoulder portion on the Warden’s right side where the arm would have been. No blood or bone was visible, only the creeping decay.

“Ah. Hmm,” Sausage whispered. Might as well not draw the Warden’s attention their way by talking at normal volume. “I came back to help but, uh, I’m pretty sure he’s got this.”

They watched another arm crumble away into drifting ash. Ghast-sage quietly cleared his throat. “You know, I used to worry that my Ghast side made me seem like some kind of monster. I don’t really think that anymore after seeing these two.”

“Hmm.” Sausage uttered the thoughtful sound again. However, this time his tone held disappointment.

The Ghast Mage was oblivious. “I guess that’s wither powers at work. Good thing he’s on our side! Sheesh!”

Scott leaned to say to both of them, “One question. How did he go from a phoenix to a wither? He basically just kept rising from his own ashes from what I saw – figuratively speaking, since he didn’t, like, literally become ashes?”

“But the Warden is,” Sausage and the Ghast Mage pointed out at the same time, their voices blending together.

Scott stared. “Okaaaay. That sounded incredibly weird. Please try not to do that ever again.”

They seemed about to apologize at the same time, too, but then looked at each other and then merely nodded at Scott. The transporter smiled sheepishly back at them before returning his attention to the fight between Myth, the mutated Warden, and occasional small forks of lightning from Hermes.

. Myth attacked the Warden with gusto, yet without the madness that had gripped him when he had previously been a wither. He hadn’t wasted much time wondering why, but maybe it was only because neither Smajor nor the shining seraph were in front of him.

Pieces of the Warden continued to decay like crushed fungus but instead of emitting spores, it was turning into dry dust. It mostly roared and ineffectually flailed its top right remaining arm. Myth allowed himself the high hope that having two heads interfered with its ability to produce a sonic blast in its current beleaguered state. He had been disappointed when the decay didn’t spread from the antennae to either head. He supposed that would have just been too easy.

Right after he landed to its useless left side to take a momentary break, his attention was ensnared by a popping sound coming from high on the Warden’s remaining shoulder. A patch of roiling sculk had appeared there. To Myth’s horror, multiple strands of sculk vein slid out of it and began to form a net – or a bandage – over the damaged cavity beneath it. The glitter of regular sculk bubbled up between the strands.

Myth grimaced. The mutated Warden could regenerate itself.

Of course it wasn’t just going to be that easy.

He needed to figure out how to bring it down before all of its limbs reformed, which would leave it less distracted so it could dish out sonic screams again. As he sought an attack plan he saw the roiling sculk surface on the left side of its chest, oozing toward its damaged shoulders. “Hermes!” Myth called. “Distract it a little longer! I need to—”

The Warden sharply jerked toward Myth’s location; its auditory senses were apparently unhindered by the lack of antennae. As it did so, its intact arm smacked into Hermes, knocking him to the ground. The contact with a solid form as well as the involuntary cry Hermes let out when he met the ground made the Warden turn again.  Hermes struggled back to his feet quick enough, but the Warden’s upper arm was already raising above him to smash him flat.

A greenish-golden dome of transparent light formed from out of the ground to encapsulate Hermes. The Warden’s fist bounced off of it, the sheer force of its own strike causing the creature to totter backward from the recoil. Sausage’s voice carried over the distance. “¡¡CORRE CORRE CORRE!! ¡¡ESE CABRÓN TE VA A MATAR!!”

An unexpected pang of panic shot through Myth’s chest. He needed to take this Warden down now. He frantically racked his brain for a way to boost his powers. He ran into a road block of memories tainted by madness; his instincts kept circling back to causing decay. Destroying from the outside. Bring it down, bring it all down, collapse the whole church onto the head of the thieving angel—

He forcibly gasped out loud to break himself from the soul-deep scar of that moment. He couldn’t rely on his own experience of being a wither anymore. But… there were other memories he could attempt to access. Not his. Ones exchanged by accident without his permission. Yet maybe, just a glimpse of events in a parallel life—

He mentally shifted his own perception aside, allowing his mind to relive the ones experienced by his opposite, the shining seraph, who selfishly took a glance into Myth’s soul and memories all just to locate a portal.

Myth’s eyes turned completely white. He launched himself directly at the Warden’s chest, hands held out with palms flat rather than curling his fingers to grab. He had no idea how this was going to feel, or what effect it would have on him – dread had accompanied the borrowed memories, but the process of extracting soul energy was burned into them.

And a Warden’s open chest showcased quite a large number of souls.

Myth shoved his palms directly into the ribcage cavity. He had no intention of pulling them out to eat them, instead focusing on absorbing their energy into his skin much like he could do with fire as a phoenix, and as a blazeborn, and as an angel before his fall. That memory of his own incited his rage. He let out the bone-chilling sound of a newly formed wither again, then began to both exude his power of decay and draw the soul energy into himself, creating a loop that ramped up the speed of the decay. The Warden roared—

The roar abruptly cut off as the light within its chest went out. The behemoth collapsed, its body rapidly overtaken by the decay, leaving it to crumble in on itself and leaving Myth to stand over the pile of dust, suffused by the glow from the energy he was still in the process of absorbing. The shapes of forlorn souls writhed throughout this glow, making him a grim figure, indeed.

The others were hesitant to approach. Hermes was still lying under the protective shield, although he did stare through it at Myth in astonishment. The phoenix-turned-wither calmly pivoted toward the larger group, lowering his arms to his sides to show that he hadn’t lost his mind and wasn’t going to pull out their souls next. The ghostly forms orbiting around him disappeared one by one, furtively being absorbed into his palms when they passed behind him. He had decided this was a less morbid way than capturing them two at a time in each hand and eating them to get them out of the way faster.

It was only after all of the souls were gone that Ghast-sage approached with a companionable grin. “Well, if we weren’t related by fire before, we sure are brothers in Nether now! That was awesome! You took that thing down like it was nothing!” He attempted to clap Myth on the shoulder in congratulations and perhaps also to show he didn’t fear the other, but Myth stepped back with a nervous look. The Ghast Mage yanked his hand away. “Oh, sorry! I should have asked first if, um, touching you might make me turn into dust or get my soul sucked out! Uh, no offense.”

Myth shook his head. His hands clenched into tight fights, trembling slightly even though he knew what he said next was the truth. A lingering remembered fear that wasn’t his own echoed through his head. “I have to be actively using these powers that way, and it’s only if I touch something. It’s safe to touch me. …I just… don’t…”

“Sorry sorry sorry,” the Ghast Mage blubbered. “Let me, ah, say thank you instead! And let’s get out of here before anything else shows up to kill us!”

Myth nodded. He went about searching for a stable part of the wall they had been traversing, passing Sausage as he dispelled the shield and lent Hermes a supportive arm. Ghast-sage retrieved Rusty, then trailed after Myth until an ideal section was found. Scott and Hermes then worked together again to get everyone onto the top of the wall.

This time Myth accepted the transporter’s help.

.

The rest of their journey proceeded without issue. Myth kept folding his wings in tightly, perhaps subconsciously bothered by the sight of them and what they meant for him going forward, only to loosen them a moment later either in anticipation of maintaining his balance or of flying ahead to confirm that they were going the correct way. He was glad that at least he still had feathers this time and actual flight rather than bare wing bones and the limited hovering capabilities of a real wither.

On his final glide he was able to spy the cluster of portals. He circled a few times, pointing downwards to signal the others that he had found their destination, then he perched on the wall nearest to the best spot to get down from. There seemed to be fewer portals than he remembered, though many still hung at different heights and overlapped in front of others by just enough margin that someone could pass between their positions. Maybe his warning to the Superhero had paid off, and word was getting around the multiverse somehow, leading to the portals on the other side to be destroyed.

A much more dismal realization came to haunt him: maybe the worlds on the other side of those missing portals had been destroyed. How would his warning have spread, anyway? The thought ate at him as he checked if the others were close to reaching him, it continued to do so as he glided down to the ground alone.

He had an idea on how to rectify that situation, which he would keep to himself for the time being. He switched his focus to the portals that were still there, attempting to orient himself among them. It took some deliberation because he couldn’t recall which of the missing portals had overlapped in what positions near others. He knew, of course, that the shining seraph had utilized the soul energy of an additional person to get attuned to the matching portal’s energy… but he was on his own to find his.

Not that he had plans to leave Smajor where he was. This was just for the sake of reference.

Really, it was.

As Scott appeared in a flurry of orange particles to create his anchor point then immediately disappeared to begin ferrying the others down, Myth managed to find the best angle to see two portals that lined up perfectly across from each other. This didn’t guarantee that one of them led back to his world; if he and the shining seraph were opposites of each other, it was possible that there were other sets of Mythical Sausages who had opposite fates. He amused himself with the thought of the Superhero clashing with a villainous version of himself.

While Scott was off retrieving the last person – Sausage – Hermes drifted down by himself while holding the Staff of Sanctuary, the trident stashed at his back again. He leaned on the Staff once his feet touched the floor. He smiled wearily at Myth then gazed around in wonder at the cluster of portals. Myth held a hand out to the young man. “I need to test something.” Hermes offered the Staff on the assumption Myth wanted it back, but the phoenix-turned-wither shook his head. “No. Your hand.” Myth did realize that the Staff would probably serve the same purpose, but there was another reason for the test.

Hermes complied, shifting the Staff to lean on it with one hand while grasping Myth’s hand with the other. Myth mentally braced himself—

But there was no need. He didn’t experience a flood of memories being exchanged. Rather, he saw a solid gold sphere at the young man’s core. It was ringed by orbiting lines that were colored in two different shades of green, intersecting each other diagonally. An occasional spark of purple lightning dancing along each ring in turn.

With eyes glowing white, Myth peered around at the portals. One to his right, suspended about two meters off the ground, had green light sparkling within the gemstones the same shade as one of the rings around Hermes’ soul. Myth released the young man’s hand and reached to touch the Staff. He glanced at the portal again; now the light in the gemstones was the other shade of green.

When Myth let go of the Staff the light faded out. He pointed at the identified portal. “Stand over there. That one goes to your world.”

“How can you tell?” Hermes asked curiously as he walked over to it.

“It matches your soul.” Myth turned away before Hermes could ask anything else. He strode over to where Scott, Sausage, and the Ghast Mage were staring agog at all the portals. The last was holding Rusty to keep him from wandering off. Myth eyed Sausage for a moment. He didn’t need a third confirmation, and he was reluctant to touch the Protector using his soul-viewing power anyway, but an urge itched at the back of his mind.

Maybe that same urge is what had driven the shining seraph to grab Myth’s hand and steal a glance into his soul beyond just using the connection to identify a portal.

Myth waved for Sausage to follow him partway to where Hermes stood. Then he took a breath. “I just… want to doublecheck. If Hermes and the Staff both have celestial origins, I might not be right.” He steeled himself, then held a hand out to Sausage.

When the Protector accepted, it was not his soul that stunned Myth but the fact that two portals resonated with Sausage’s energy. The expected one matched exactly the same as with Hermes and the Staff, but another – directly vertical above it – also stood out, yet in a horrifically different way. All of the gemstones were broken, lifeless; what had drawn Myth’s gaze to it in the first place was the stuttering magenta lightning that flashed erratically along the frame, bringing emphasis to the red substance filling cracks in the stone holding the shattered gemstones.

Myth had the gut-wrenching feeling that this was what a portal that led to a destroyed reality looked like.

He made himself blink the power away, then let go of Sausage to gesture at Hermes. “Uh, yeah, still the same. Go over there. And I guess now we see if I, uh, locate a different one when I check with them.”

Sausage nodded, although Myth didn’t see the motion since he had already turned to hurry over to the other three. He also didn’t see the rueful expression on Sausage’s face as he peered upward, having noticed Myth’s head tilting when he became aware of the desolate portal.

Oblivious that he had actually given away his shock but needing to process the unsettling revelation, Myth pushed a reluctant sigh out of his lungs before regarding Scott, Ghast-sage, and Rusty. He couldn’t be sure if a soul connection would work on Rusty. He didn’t want to see the soul of someone who resembled Smajor. That left the Ghast Mage, along with another possible risk of sharing memories. He had already assumed that Sausage’s powers had prevented him from finding out anything else about that second portal.

Myth’s gaze fell on Ghast-sage’s vambrace with its opaque green crystal. The metal was tarnished by burns in a few places but intact otherwise. He wondered if it really did have any other significance beyond a piece of armor.c

“What’s wrong with you?!”

Rusty’s exclamation broke Myth from his thoughts. Out went his hand toward the Ghast Mage. “Give me your hand for a second.”

Ghast-sage adjusted Rusty so he was resting on his hip, freeing up an arm. He was warier than Hermes had been, but then he carefully clasped Myth’s hand. He gasped as a jolt shot through his mind.

Rusty leaned to place a hand over theirs.

Myth pushed away an invading mirrored memory of stumbling out of a Nether portal into the unfamiliar overworld and turned his once-again glowing eyes to the assortment of portals. Due to a blank portal that happened to be situated at the exact inconvenient angle to block it from where they stood, he almost missed the dim series of six colors that oscillated over the surface of the gemstones. It was only when Myth began walking – Ghast Mage in tow – to have a better view that he caught the shimmer of the lights.

“There,” he muttered, letting go of Ghast-sage to use that hand to point at the portal. It was a slight distance to the right of where Hermes and Sausage stood.

“Okay,” Rusty responded, holding onto the front of the Ghast Mage’s robes while his creator stood dumbfounded, apparently processing the shared experience now rattling around his mind.

It was Scott who asked, “‘There’, what?”

“Your portal home,” Myth clarified.

“How do you know for sure?” Scott asked next. He took Ghast-sage by the elbow to steer him toward the indicated spot.

“Wither’s intuition. …I can match soul energy to the world it came from by touching someone. That’s how the other me I met here found the way out.”

Seeing that a major conversation might be about to get underway, Sausage cast a spell that outlined the closer of his portals with golden light, then he and Hermes headed over to listen.

“About that…” Scott decided to go forward with the very question he had been pondering earlier. “How or even why did you turn into a wither? And what were you doing to the Warden that didn’t look like normal withering?”

Myth didn’t know if this was the best time to divulge the labyrinth’s secret influence but there was no way to guess what they might walk into on the other side of the portal where Smajor could be waiting. “This place can unlock someone’s past abilities. It didn’t happen to me last time, but it did happen to the version of me and you that I met here. They came in with one set of powers each and during our fight with them, they regained all the ones they had before. … I’ve been a wither before, but I’ve been over two dozen things since then. I think they only had three or four at that point in their timeline.”

“Wait, back up,” Scott held his hands out in a halting gesture. “From the sound of things, I thought it was you and them fighting Smajor?”

“Smajor and I were both very disagreeable at the time and didn’t trust our doubles. Or, well, I didn’t trust them. Judging by those first holes in the walls we came across, Smajor – predictably – must have attacked my double thinking it was me. They were both gravitals at the time, so it’s no wonder they were leaving craters after throwing each other into the floor and through walls. All that mess you saw back there, where we all met up – that was mostly done by me and Smajor. I was a blazeborn back then, so all I did was burn stuff.

In a tone trying to bring some levity Sausage commented, “You’ve got a theme going on with that, huh?”

“I’ve been the opposite a few times, just so you know,” Myth informed him. “Where I’m from, what you become next after you die is completely random. Except for the time right after we left the labyrinth and Smajor killed me the first chance he got. I became a seraph that time. I… let the power go to my head, because I started as a guardian angel, and it was like the ultimate promotion, so I went ahead dishing out what I thought was appropriate retribution.” Myth was rambling now, the full story pouring out of him. His brain felt like a swirl of emotions that he couldn’t contain; it soon dawned on him that it might have something to do with the vast variety of souls he had absorbed.

He made no effort to stop the tide of words.

~*~

To Be Concluded in Chapter Six + Epilogue

~*~*~

Translations:

-----

Chapter Four

The two followed Myth all the way to the crossroads where he had found Scott. There, Myth seemed to be searching for something. He walked to the passageway to their left and inspected the wall then the floor. Scott warily eyed the small patch of sculk near the phoenix’s hand. He was then shocked when Myth grabbed a strand of sculk vein and yanked it free of the floor. Flames engulfed his fingers, incinerating it. Myth then touched the floor again.

“This way,” he said. He prevented any questions by adding, “Call it a hunch.”

Scott would have commented that this passage ran parallel to the one he had fled from, but saw the wisdom in keeping silent. He did discover what Myth had apparently been searching for when he stepped forward to follow and his foot slipped downward into a divot in the floor. He wasn’t sure what it signified but it seemed to mean something to Myth.

Something that made flickers of flame come off his wings.

To Scott’s relief, however, the sculk thinned out after a point, no longer forming  masses that spanned between both walls across the floor like in the other section. Myth continued to check the ground at the open end of each passageway they came across. He always chose the ones with divots in either the floor or near the open edge of a particular wall.

They seemed to be making good progress this way, at least, although Scott had begun to wonder what had made the divots. His concern really ramped up when they reached a wall with a hole in it. Myth’s flames flared up even more, causing Scott and Sausage to step away from him simply by instinctual caution. Myth inspected the edges of the hole, then stepped through. He glanced back and now noticed an indentation on the opposite side.

Myth hurried back into the first passageway, and was soon rapidly following a trail of destruction through multiple walls. Scott and Sausage attempted to keep up, although the more Sausage saw of the damage, the more it reminded him of the state some of the buildings in Sanctuary had been left when the Superhero had interfered between the two battling angels.

Eventually the holes and debris along the ground gave way to the unblemished walls of an intact passageway stretching off into darkness ahead. Myth continued forward, a scowl of determination on his face. Scott looked to Sausage for reassurance; the older man didn’t seem to have any doubts or lose faith even though Myth was obviously following something he was familiar with rather than whatever influence the Staff was having over him.

It was at the next crossroad, though, that Scott saw what had first signaled to Sausage that he could trust where Myth was going. As the phoenix repeatedly inspected the floor and walls, the gemstone in the Staff twinkled. In that same second Myth decisively turned to his right.

A few minutes later the other end of the passage came into view. First they saw part of a giant statue, then the debris around it became apparent, and upon fully entering this open area, they saw a battleground with more damaged walls and scorch marks in various places.

They also saw two figures: a tall one seated on another piece of a statue next to a perpendicular passageway, and a very small figure on the floor below the first. The latter seemed to be pacing but in very small increments. Myth stopped and gripped the staff so hard it creaked. When Sausage glanced over to reprimand him, he saw that Myth’s gaze was scanning the whole tableau rather than focused on the figures.

It was then that a third person joined the other two – by floating down from above, a trident held in one hand. They immediately addressed the person sitting, who nodded a couple of times before coughing into their elbow.

Sausage smiled, relief flooding through him. He strode around the assortment of debris, disregarding Scott, Myth, and everyone else. “Mijo!” he called, just loud enough to not startle the man that his son was talking to.

“Dad?” Hermes turned in response to the affectionate term. He spread his arms wide and ran to embrace Sausage while carefully holding the trident at the same time. “Dad! I’m glad you’re alright! We were going to go look for you, but my new friend here isn’t feeling well, so I’ve been out scouting while he rests.” He stepped back and gestured to the man seated on the statue, then hastily motioned downward. “Oh, and of course my other new friend, Rusty. He can’t really introduce himself.”

“Hello!” Sausage cheerfully greeted the Ghast Mage; neither of them was phased by the fact that they shared an identical face. “And hello, Rusty! I know someone who has been looking for you!” He smiled at the copper golem, then shifted his gaze to the trident Hermes held and asked quietly, “Um, mijo, where did you get that? I don’t remember you packing it…” He seemed unable to resist the urge to reach out to touch it. “I can sense energy coming off it that feels… familiar?”

“Yeah, I thought I noticed something, too,” Hermes replied. He nodded toward the Ghast Mage. “He found it here in the rubble and thought it might work best in my hands.” The young man grinned and flexed his biceps. “I figured Thunder-dad couldn’t hear me in this dimension, but maybe he found a way to help out, y’know?”

A cryptic if not amused expression danced across Sausage’s lips. “Oh, yes, I get a sense of involvement from your other parent, alright…”

The chance to elaborate on this comment passed when the Ghast Mage spoke up, sporting a cheerful smile of his own.  “It’s nice to finally meet Hermes’ dad! He’s a good boy! Very helpful.” His gaze then slid to Myth and his smile faded to a tight line. He coughed politely – unrelated to his current malady. “And hello, Rusty’s surrogate dad.”

Myth didn’t acknowledge any of what was going on. He was facing away from the group and was clutching the Staff close, apparently staring at something on one of the walls.

If any of them were to have a view of his face they would have seen that his eyes had turned pale and his expression had become haunted by a past memory that took over his thoughts.

Scott, equally oblivious to Myth’s affliction as everyone else, jogged over. “Saus—er, Ghast-sage! Did you run into that thing, too? I never saw you when I was escaping from it. Or, um, I didn’t notice you. I ran into it way back that way.” He pointed over his shoulder. He was dismayed when his Sausage pointed in the opposite direction.

The Ghast Mage sighed in exasperation. “Oh, no, don’t tell me there are two of them! One is enough! Sheesh!”

Scott couldn’t help pointing out the humor in the situation. “Well, there are three of you here right now, so maybe we shouldn’t complain about only two Wardens.”

Ghast-sage folded his arms over his chest. “I don’t know if I should be offended by that or not.”

“You’re handling this well,” Scott said in a softer tone. “I’m still wrapping my head around it.”

“Yeah, well, we were going nowhere fast, so Hermes and I talked for a while and he told me about his dad, and Rusty told me about my usurper, so I knew what to expect.”

Scott pointed down at the copper golem, who was now calmly standing still beside him. “Rusty… told you about… this guy?” Scott rotated his torso to the side so he could gesture at Myth with both hands while not moving his gaze from his friend’s face.

“Yeah. In his own way. I have a special rapport with him,” Ghast-sage bragged.

“I hate to tell you this,” Scott said, “But I’ve seen them interact, and the phoenix hybrid over there can also communicate just fine with Rusty.”

“Oh.” The Ghast Mage looked less proud of himself. “I guess, uh… I guess that just means all versions of me are special! Ahem.” He went quiet for a few seconds, then began coughing again.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. It’s just—” Cough, cough. “You know that trick people use in the Nether? ‘Return to sender’?” Scott nodded while the Ghast Mage coughed again. “It turns out… A sonic shriek… can turn back a Ghast ball, too… Really quickly. Right back into my mouth. Ghast hybrids aren’t quite, ehhh, built for that internally. I can conjure fireballs, not eat them!” He coughed a few more times, then leaned back on his hands. “Whew! Young Hermes there tried to give me a healing potion but it evaporated as I started to drink it. We figured the ones from his world don’t work on people from our world. Or, our world’s configuration? I forget how he explained it, but he’s the one with experience traveling the multiverse, so it makes sense to him, and he sounds very confident about it! Like, there are other realities parallel to ours that have similar rules about physics and nature, and realities like his, where the rules can be slightly different, or completely different! So, the way a certain potion is formulated can vary.”

“Uh-huh,” Scott murmured as his friend continued to ramble. His mind went back to what Myth had said about no one being bothered by a phoenix and a fungal mage taking the place of a ghast mage and a transporter, which made him wonder what the two masqueraders’ world was like.

Suddenly, Myth’s distinctly gruffer voice rang out over the Ghast Mage’s rambling. “I know exactly where we are in this labyrinth, and I know where to go to get out.”

All eyes turned to him, including Hermes’ – and Sausage noticed a look of distress on his son’s face, as well as the young man’s posture tensing, knuckles white around the haft of the trident. He lightly touched Hermes’ arm. “Mijo?”

Hermes inhaled and forced his body to relax. He responded quietly, “Sorry. I… I’m used to meeting other versions of you in different realities, but none of them had similarities to… that one. The… first one I ever met.”

Sausage quickly hugged Hermes. “It’s okay, mijo. This one is grouchy, but the Staff trusts him. You know it has a failsafe now to prevent another imposter incident.”

Hermes gave a start. “Wait, the Staff…” He turned, eyes going wide in disbelief. “I hadn’t even noticed!”

Myth had paused upon seeing that The Protector was distracted by the unfamiliar young man whom Myth assumed must be Hermes. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the cautious looks made him resigned to accept more negativity based on who he was. So, he went on with his announcement. “There’s just one catch.” He removed one hand from the Staff to point upward. “I only know it from above. Last time I wasn’t able to get there under my own power and had help finding it.”

Here he laid a glance over the Ghast Mage and Hermes. “As you can probably guess, it was yet another version of us.” He then looked at Sausage. “One that you personally know. So, if you don’t want to trust my word, you can obviously trust that one’s.”

Sausage frowned regretfully at him in response. “Myth, did you hear any of what we were all saying a few minutes ago?”

Myth blinked. He realized that he hadn’t heard them nor could he even remember if anything had happened between exiting the passageway and seeing the rest of the group comingling without him. Rather than admit his inattention he merely shook his head.

Sausage’s hand trailed away from Hermes’ arm as he took a few steps in Myth’s direction. “Can I be honest with you, triste pájaro de fuego? I think you need to stop comparing yourself to that other angel, and focus on what you can do. If you can get us out of here, please show us.”

Myth harrumphed. “What about you, though? We’ve found everyone we came in here with. Why don’t you just send us all back?” He thrust the Staff toward Sausage. “Just make sure you grab Smajor for me and throw him back into my world, then he and I can both return to our inconvenient existences and not get in the way of someone we happen to look like.” He lowered his head with a scowl – only to sneak a forlorn glance at Rusty. “…Everyone back exactly where they belong.”

Hermes took note of that glance. He was ready to say something, but a slow shake of Sausage’s head made him pause. “I can’t,” Sausage confessed. “My powers are limited here, or else I would have been able to find Hermes without your help.”

Myth’s lip twitched into a sneer as he lifted his head. “What do you mean, my help? We were lucky to find them here!”

“Here, of all places in this labyrinth?” Sausage countered. “The specific point of reference that only you have? The Staff sensed it in you. That’s why it let you hold it.”

“What are you talking about?” Myth scoffed, although his loss of time from a few minutes ago had sparked some internal panic spurred on by Sausage’s words. “How can an overgrown magical stick let me do anything?”

Sausage chuckled quietly. “It holds the magic of Sanctuary, and the magic of all of reality. It knows what it’s doing: trusting you.”

Myth exhaled an uncomfortable breath as he held the Staff at arm’s length and placed the end of it against the ground. He attempted to be subtle about running his gaze up and down the length of it as he reevaluated his opinion of it.

Hermes now saw his chance to chime in – as well as get the group to make some progress toward escaping. He was just as concerned about the Ghast Mage’s condition as he was for what Myth was implying about himself. “You get used to it. I had to wait for the Staff to accept me, too, and I’m a demi-god on my other father’s side.”

The comment worked to sidetrack Myth’s discomfort. “Other father…?”

“Yeah. He has control over the weather.” Leaving those words to sink in, Hermes swiftly continued, “I’ve been to the top of the walls. I can probably get at least two people up there before I need to rest.” He saw Sausage was about to say something out of worry so he added, “There’s something about the atmosphere here that is dampening my powers, too. This trident can only help me so much with the traveling part. I could use my reserves, but I’d rather not do that just yet. In my case it’s probably the lack of open sky.”

Sausage nodded at this reasoning. He scratched at his beard with one hand in thought. “No, you’re on to something. No open atmosphere means no energy connecting outward to the rest of reality, which is what could be preventing my powers from working.”

Myth interjected, “There’s some kind of energy here that influences people’s powers, because—” He stopped himself. In a defeated mumble he said, “…Never mind. That’s about other people. Let’s… uhm, focus on what we can do.”

Having muddled over Hermes’ dilemma, Scott offered, “I can help get everyone up top. My powers have recharged. Hermes, if you take me up first I can set a teleportation point and go back and forth taking one person with me. You can stay there to make sure they recover from any disorientation, and then we can be on our way in less than two minutes.”

The Ghast Mage piped up, “Oh, yes, his teleportation is completely accurate! Not a lot of disorientation at all! Um. Unless you happen to get motion sick from dimensional displacement. Not a big deal, really!”

Scott rolled his eyes, “Saus – er, Ghast-sage, you can stop now. You’re not helping.”

“Sorry, sorry!” The Ghast Mage coughed between words. “Just speaking from my own personal experience, you know! It’s not necessarily universal!”

Hermes couldn’t help a small laugh, then he turned to Myth. “Which wall do you recommend we start from?”

Myth looked around the old battleground again, hoping that this time he didn’t zone out. Scott took the opportunity to help his friend down off the statue. Rusty immediately began tugging on the latter’s cloak while whispering repeatedly, “What’s wrong with you?”

The Ghast Mage gently shooed him away. This motion caught Myth’s attention, causing him first to look away from the walls, and then to hastily move to supposedly study the passageways to his right.

Hermes, in turn, again noticed Myth’s behavior. He glanced down at Rusty, who continued to fuss over his creator. After a moment’s thought, Hermes crossed over to where Myth was. He could see the phoenix’s expression seemed to be one of disappointment – yet it quickly changed to distraction as the gemstone in the Staff twinkled and Myth abruptly peered upward with eyes that had turned pale orange. Hermes frowned. He reached up to touch the earring with the pressed flower, silently requesting for the magic to give him some insight and reassure him that the Staff wasn’t simply manipulating Myth just because he had knowledge of this place.

Maybe it was only a coincidence but Myth’s shoulders seemed to relax. “This one, I think,” he said thoughtfully in response to Hermes’ question from a few minutes ago. Myth looked at the young man with eyes that had returned to fully saturated orange. “I’m going to check for another clue. Could you gather the others over here?”

“Of course,” Hermes replied. He held the phoenix’s gaze for a moment longer – searching those eyes, noting the weary lines under them, lingering on the details of the four additional, horizontal scars across his right cheek. With a nod, Hermes turned to jog back to the group. “This way, everyone. El triste pájaro de fuego found the wall we need to get on top of.”

Scott glanced from the young man to the older Sausage. “Can I ask what you two are calling him? He said his name was ‘Myth’.”

Hermes and Sausage traded glances. “Welllll,” Sausage replied, stretching out the word, “I shared memories with a version of me who met Myth before, in this very place – although I’ve, eh, lost some of the details of most of them at this point. As I recall, the story behind why he goes by ‘Myth’ and not Sausage like the rest of us doesn’t have a good association. I just, uh, decided on the spot to call him triste pájaro de fuego.”

“Sorry,” Scott said, “I’m asking what does that mean? I’m not familiar with that language.”

“Judging by his attitude,” Hermes explained in a benign tone as he shifted his knapsack so he could secure the trident to it, “It seems he’s had a rough time. And he’s trying to hide it. So, he kind of strikes us as a… sorrowful firebird.” He grabbed up Rusty on his way as he turned to where Myth was standing. “Let’s not keep him waiting. I’m getting antsy to be under open skies again – if that’s alright?”

Scott accepted the explanation and nodded, although he would need to think more on this assessment of Myth’s demeanor after having only noticed the coarse edges.  He lent the Ghast Mage a supportive arm as the latter pushed off the piece of statue he had been leaning on while everyone was talking. “I don’t blame you,” Scott replied. “I prefer to know where I’m teleporting to. This place messes with my sense of spatial awareness.”

.

As planned, Hermes flew Scott up to the top of the wall Myth had indicated, then Scott began teleporting one person at a time up with him and returning for the next, starting with the Ghast Mage. Before it was Sausage’s turn, Myth gave the Staff back to him. “I need both hands free for a minute,” was all he said to explain.

Sausage merely nodded. He could feel the Staff vibrating against his hand. It wasn’t ready to leave its new wielder yet; he knew he would have to part with it again.

When Scott returned, however, Myth shook his head. “Not comfortable with that.” He bit back an explanation of the last time a Scott had teleported him around. “I’ll use my own power. Tell them I’m on my way.”

Scott hesitated, only to hop backward a second later when Myth pointed both hands at the ground and released a doubly explosive fireball, propelling himself upward. His wings flared out and with a hearty flap, he ascended farther.

Scott went ahead and teleported to the top of the wall. The others looked at him in alarm due to arriving alone – they also hadn’t missed the sound of the explosion below. “He wanted to come up on his own,” Scott explained. “Either he’s not fond of teleporting, or Ghast-sage made him nervous about it.” He tried to smile at his own joke. The anxious looks from the two Sausages made it clear the joke hadn’t landed.

They heard a sound like a hawk screech, which drew their attention over the side of the wall. A bright orange blur was quickly approaching, first appearing in the shape of a bird then resolving more clearly into Myth’s particular features. Flames streamed from his wings, hair, and eyes. The unspoken thought passed among them of how Myth could have taken off at any time to get out of the labyrinth, leaving them behind. In collective relief, the group parted to either side of where it seemed he might land.

Myth gave one last flap of his wings. In that moment all of the flames dispersed away from his body and feathers. His eyes went wide in surprise. He couldn’t make it all the way to the top on his own. He threw his hands upward out of reflex – maybe he could grab the edge—

Hermes darted to the spot everyone had vacated and dropped to his knees, reaching down to grasp hold of one of Myth’s hands just before the phoenix lost momentum. With a grunt Hermes heaved Myth upward. Through the magic granted by his sandals the young man avoided falling off the other side of the wall as he fully pulled Myth onto the top edge. He then clasped his other hand over the one he held. “Good try, mate. I had to stop myself falling the first time I flew up, too.”

“Thanks,” Myth muttered. When Hermes released his hand, Myth looked out over the tangle of walls spread out around them, taking a moment to catch his breath.

Without a word Sausage handed the Staff of Sanctuary back to Myth and the group set off, with Hermes carrying Rusty to help speed things along and Scott keeping an eye on the Ghast Mage in case he needed a rest. Occasionally Myth would take off for a short flight to confirm the correct direction to go, explaining how last time he had been guided from above by two flight-capable people. The others could follow the bright orange light as he swooped back and forth – as well as see the twinkle of the gemstone when it coincided with a change in Myth’s direction.

On the latest check and return, Myth announced that they would need to cross over five walls to the east, which was the largest change they’d had to make up to that point. This time Hermes pushed Rusty into Myth’s arms for the phoenix to carry across; previously, Sausage had merely piggybacked while Hermes carried them both, but now Hermes picked his father up in his arms for such a long distance.

Myth held Rusty gingerly in the crook of one arm, wanting to hand him off to the Ghast Mage, but when he looked to where the other had been standing he only saw a flicker of orange particles. Scott had already teleported him over to the new wall.

Rusty said quietly, “What’s wrong with you?”

Caught off guard by the tone of the question, Myth stopped short just as he was about to glide off the wall. “I’m… fine. Just focused on getting out of here.”

“No. What’s wrong with you?” Rusty asked insistently.

Myth glanced at the others, then back down at Rusty. He kept his voice low even if the distance was enough that they were unlikely to hear. “This is going to be goodbye for me. I won’t… I won’t be able to spend time with you anymore.”

“That’s an odd thing to say.”

“No, it isn’t,” Myth replied, slightly frustrated. “We found your creator. You go back to your world with him, and I go… somewhere. I don’t really belong in your world. I can’t just stay there. My body doesn’t follow the rules of your universe. And I don’t think the multi-verse will allow more than one of me to be in the same reality for the long term. It wouldn’t be… natural.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“Rusty.” Myth let the exasperation slip into his voice. “You lo— care about him more. It’s obvious. There’s no sharing. I don’t belong.” He ended the conversation by launching off the wall, producing an unintended fiery streak that vented his feelings.

The others once again backed off to give him room to land. Myth immediately pushed Rusty back onto Hermes without even looking at the young man – but Hermes saw the scowl and clenched, bared teeth in time before Myth turned away to lead them in a new direction.

.

The group traveled in silence for about ten minutes before coming across something Myth hadn’t noticed during his scouting: a small patch of sculk near the top of the wall that ran parallel to the one they were on. Since it seemed dormant, he chose to ignore it and walked past.

Scott, bringing up the rear, couldn’t take his eyes off the sculk patch. He suddenly clutched his companion’s arm.

“Ow! Careful, Scott! I’m still sore all over!” the Ghast Mage exclaimed.

“It’s bubbling!” Scott hissed in a panic.

“What? That only happens if something dies on it! That’s a vertical surface!” Ghast-sage argued.

“Everyone—!” Scott called out. “Be careful! Something weird is happening with that—”

There was a loud pop as a giant bubble formed in the middle of the sculk patch and burst. A wet splat sounded out as a cluster of sculk vein hit the side of the wall that the group was on. It was followed by a spray of purplish-turquoise spores, which struck the surface around the sculk vein. The stone then began to bubble just like the patch and soon sculk was rapidly spreading outward from where the vein had landed. It didn’t touch the very top edge of the wall, but the group watched in horror anyway. Sausage, his mouth going dry, whispered, “That’s not normal.”

Scott wanted to say that he had been trying to tell everyone this all along, but he was prevented from even uttering a single syllable by the sound of cracking and crumbling stone. Horror turned to terror as the torso of a Warden with grayish-purple moss hanging off its antennae and cushioning its exposed heart emerged from the sculk patch right below their feet.

The Warden reared upward, more of its body emerging from the sculk. It grabbed Sausage by one ankle and swung him outward, off of the wall, to send him plummeting before it began to pull the rest of itself out of the wall.

Hermes immediately dived after his father, taking Rusty with him. The copper golem was aware enough to maneuver himself around Hermes’ shoulder, ending up clinging to the young man’s knapsack so Hermes’ arms would be free to catch his father.

The Ghast Mage let out an involuntary, alarmed squeak. The Warden growled, its head whipping in his direction. As it lunged fully out of the wall to reach for him and Scott, two things happened at once: Myth threw a fireball at it, knocking it toward the opposite side of where it had emerged from and Scott, with the Ghast Mage clinging to him, chose to teleport blindly down where Sausage had fallen.

They reappeared a few blocks above the actual ground, causing them to land in a heap as Hermes was gently setting his father down on his feet. He then let Rusty down off his back. They heard the Warden roar followed by a pained cry that rang out loud enough for them to hear even at that distance. Hermes scowled in determination and launched upward, intent on aiding Myth. There was an even bigger and brighter explosion next. The sound of the Warden’s howling took on a distressed quality. It then ended in a thud that reverberated from the other side of the wall.

When Hermes reached the top, he saw Myth laying on his stomach facing the opposite side. His wings were giving off steam and he was panting. The tips of his feathers were glowing yellow. As Hermes watched, they dulled to the same orange as the rest. “Are you alright?!” he asked, leaning to offer the phoenix a hand up.

“Y-Yeah.” Myth continued to pant. “It… got me good. And… I… only knocked it off… It might still—”

They heard a roar from below, then the wall they stood on began to tremble. “Oh, no.” Myth scrambled up without Hermes’ help, then took off gliding downward. Hermes followed. His sandals could allow him to drop straight down but he stayed level with Myth’s glide, keeping watch for the Warden’s exact location.

It wasn’t trying to climb back up; instead, it was gouging at the wall as if trying to break through. Hermes could guess at the exact spot where the others were standing on the other side. “Why is it still focused on them? Surely they’re being quiet, or at least sneaking away?”

“Scott said there was something strange about the one he was chased by. I have a suspicion I know why,” Myth replied.

“We need to distract it.” Hermes pulled the trident free from his back then reached up to touch his gold lightning bolt earring for luck. He concentrated for a moment, closing his eyes. When he opened them again they were completely white and glowing brightly. Sparks danced from his hand onto the length of the trident, which he held up over his head. He halted his descent and focused on a spot next to the Warden’s feet. A blinding flash stemming from the tines of the trident zigzagged downward, striking the ground. It was accompanied by a resounding boom of thunder.

While the flash obviously wouldn’t have an effect on the Warden, the thunder certainly did. It groaned and reeled away from the wall, its paws shooting up to clutch at the base of its antennae. Myth landed and immediately started throwing fireballs at it. Each impact made it stagger and roar in pain.

Hermes drifted down, taking time to recover from what had turned out to be a strain on his energy despite having the trident…Or maybe because of it. He studied it again, trying to ascertain what quality its existing energy held that his father had hinted at. Then he remembered what he had discussed with the Ghast Mage about differences in physics depending on the reality. This trident had been imbued with powers from someone who was thunder god adjacent. All he needed to do was attune himself to its particular atmospheric frequency.

Well, as soon as there was time to try doing that. The Warden would have to be dealt with first. He watched Myth assault the creature with a barrage of fireballs until Myth himself was roaring in fury. The fireballs went from bright yellow to orange, and then to red. Apprehension prickled at Hermes; fire darkened like that when it was about to go out.

Myth’s roar dropped down to mere heavy breaths. He threw one last projectile that was more akin to a lump of charcoal than anything else. It hit the Warden on the side of its chest. The Warden responded with a sonic shriek that knocked Myth back a few steps. He steadied himself, although he now sounded desperate for air.

This made it easy for the Warden to lunge directly at him and grab at him. Myth ducked but the creature’s claws caught hold of his wings. Myth yelped. He was out of power. He could do nothing to stop the Warden from swinging him bodily into the wall not far from the hole it had been trying to create.

The Staff of Sanctuary clattered to the ground.

Cracks spread from those earlier gouges, reaching out to where Myth had impacted the wall. Myth smiled grimly. “Go ahead. See if you can finish me off, you stupid—!"

Hermes made a desperate mental pull on the trident’s energy hoping that just by coincidence he might align with its frequency. Unfortunately, for the moment there was no response beyond a tingling in his fingertips.

And then he had to cover his eyes as the Warden delivered a crushing blow to the center of Myth’s chest which was immediately followed by a brilliant explosion of fire that lit the entire passageway.

Hermes lowered his arms to see Myth in full undamaged form again, all of his feathers glowing yellow this time before darkening to orange like before. The phoenix’s eyes glowed brightly, too, and he paid the Warden back with a large fireball aimed straight into its exposed ribcage. The force of the resulting explosion’s shockwave affected the Warden, Myth, and the wall. The Warden howled as it expired. Myth was shoved right back against his initial impact spot. The wall cracked from both the pressure and the heat, with long vertical fissures racing upwards.

On both sides of the now-compromised wall, chunks of stone began to rain down. It included a piece with the patch of sculk.

Hermes grabbed onto that tingling feeling and used it to amplify his voice like a boom of thunder. “Everyone, get away from the wall!” He ran over to yank the dazed Myth out of the way as debris came tumbling down.

The havoc wasn’t enough to bring the entire wall down, thankfully. After everything stopped shaking and the sound of cracking stone stopped, the dust started to clear, revealing a gap just big enough for Myth and Hermes to squeeze through sideways. Hermes was greeted with a crushing hug from his father, who had a small trickle of blood running down the side of his face, likely caused by flying debris.

Peering around at the mess, Myth frowned at the chunk of wall that had sculk on it. It wasn’t bubbling nor was there any sculk vein spreading from it, but he now knew to be suspicious of any of it. He then glanced at his right hand, realizing he was missing something. He slipped back through the gap in the wall.

His fingers started to itch.

Myth found the end of the Staff sticking out from under the rubble that would have landed on him had Hermes not reacted so quickly. He knelt down to grasp the Staff and wiggled it a little to see if it was pinned by the fallen stone. It seemed to scrape slightly, but he was able to slide it out. When he lifted it and examined the crook for damage he saw that the gemstone had fractures running through it. It wasn’t broken yet, but he wondered what would happen to the Staff’s power if it did. He held the base of the crook tightly in one hand while tentatively reaching the other to touch the gemstone.

A jolt went through his brain upon contact. He heard what resembled the reversed sound of shattering glass. His breath appeared visible in front of his face as if he had exhaled steam or if the temperature had abruptly dropped to the cold of the grave. The lines of the fractures within the gemstones flashed blue-white for a split second, then, when he lowered his hand, the gemstone was whole again.

Myth blinked a few times and shook his head to clear it. “I should really give this thing back to the Protector,” he muttered. “It’s getting weird.”

However, as he started to squeeze through the gap to the other side while holding the Staff ahead of him, it was Hermes who took it from his grasp. “We’ve got another problem, mate.”

Myth emerged to see sculk patches forming in multiple spots along the walls around them like a stain soaking into cloth. The patch on the fallen chunk was trembling. The sound of stone crumbling grew louder. A second later, a new Warden emerged from the fallen chunk.

Myth gritted his teeth. They needed to go past it so they could find a stable part of the wall to get back on top. He clapped his hands together before approaching the Warden. Flames flickered from the corners of his eyes and along the tips of his wings as he fearlessly strode toward it. Despite being on a horizontal surface now, the Warden still needed to lever its way out of the sculk.

Just like the other one it had grayish-purple moss on its antennae and in its chest.

“Hey, mycelium monster!” Myth bellowed. “I think I know how you got like that! But I’m sure you don’t want to discuss it! So, come on! I’ve got plenty of fire where this comes from!” So saying, he began to throw fireballs aimed at the sculk that still enclosed the Warden’s legs, burning the blue-black substance.

Hermes passed the Staff to his father. In the half-second that both of them were touching it, Hermes felt a jolt that ran from that hand, up his arm, along his chest, then down his other arm to the trident. He was stunned speechless for the next breath as the jolt seemed to run down the length of the trident then bounce back the way it had come. He could feel that the weapon was vibrating in his grasp now. The tingling in his fingertips returned, buzzing in time with the trident.

Sausage seemed to be unaffected, merely gripping the Staff out of reflex as he took it from Hermes, murmuring, “He really just throws himself right at everything, huh?”

Hoping his father didn’t notice the waver in his voice from what he had just experienced, Hermes commented, “You know him better than us.”

“Well, I only met him once,” Sausage said. “But he did act the same back then, now that I think of it…”

Multiple rumblings rang out at once. The group went on alert, eyes being drawn to the various new patches of sculk that had appeared. Some were bubbling; some had bits of stone being flung out of them.

“Scott,” the Ghast Mage rasped, “Get them out of range, then be ready to skip us around.” He pointed to Rusty and Sausage, then stepped forward with smoke rising from the palms of his hands and from out of his mouth.

“Wait,” Sausage protested, “I can—”

Scott didn’t give him a chance to finish speaking. He grabbed the man and the golem by one arm each and disappeared in a burst of orange particles. They reappeared several meters down the passageway opposite the way they needed to go – which was, thankfully, free of the sculk infestation that had cropped up.

“—Help!” Sausage completed his proclamation. He glanced around, then squinted into the distance trying to glimpse the battle. He uttered a disappointed noise. “Why is everyone treating me like a helpless old man? I’m still the Guardian of Realities! Come on, now!”

“Instinct, I guess,” Scott replied. “And I think that title means we should keep you safe. Can you fight from a distance? Also, um, do you have any more food you can spare? I’m going to run out of energy fast if I follow Ghast-sage’s plan.”

As if on cue, they heard the cry of a ghast followed by explosions. A fiery glow blossomed at the other end of the passageway.

“Oh, of course! Food is still helpful, right? Eh-heheh…” Sausage chuckled meekly, then set his knapsack down to rummage through it. “I can cast spells from a distance – maybe not this distance, need to see the target, you know – but I guess I’ll use this chance to come up with something really good to use! Here you go!”

He handed Scott a bundle full of cookies. The transporter immediately shoved one into his mouth then spoke while chewing. “If you need to get closer, go slowly and watch out for new sculk appearing.” He swallowed then patted Rusty on the head. “You stay over here, okay? You need to keep safe, too.”

Another ghast shriek reached them. Scott disappeared, leaving Sausage to watch the particles flicker out as they fell to the ground. He let out a breath. “You know, Rusty, I’ve been meaning to retire. I can never resist an adventure, but maybe I should admit to myself that I really am too old for it.”

“That’s an odd thing to say.”

“Well, I kinda doubt I’m going to be given another chance to start over and the way I ended up coming into this life was probably not how it’s supposed to go plus I had a good run this time around, getting to spend time raising my adopted children, even if my soul missed out on the first twenty-something years of it.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“It – It’s kind of a long story,” Sausage stuttered. “I’ll tell you on the way. Let’s get to some sneakin’, and I’ll do what I can to help out those scary fire-wielding versions of me!”

~*~*~

Translations:

Mijo – son

Triste pájaro de fuego – sorrowful firebird

_____

Chapter Three

Despite his hopes, Myth was disappointed yet not surprised about losing Rusty during the teleport. One second he was holding his metallic assistant, intent on keeping him safe from being overtaken by the oddly sentient sculk vein…

And in the next Rusty was gone.

When Myth’s vision was free of teleportation particles and he saw the distantly familiar walls, the emptiness between his hands resonated with something inside his chest. He saw no reason to not push the feeling down and ignore it, so that’s what he did. The limbo dimension’s whole purpose seemed to rely on separating the people who entered from anyone they might be with, anyway; flesh and blood or otherwise.

It was more important to figure out from his past experience if he could recognize where he was located. However, a cursory glance to his left, then to his right, revealed that this would not be the case by virtue of the passageway being covered in sculk. That had definitely not been there before.

Or, at least, not in the sections of passageways he had traversed the first time around while trying to find an exit while avoiding Smajor in his gravital form. As a blazeborn at the time, Myth hadn’t been able to fly anywhere near high enough to reach the top of the walls, plus a blaze’s natural gravity caused them to sink after a while anyway.

He might have a better chance as a phoenix, though. Perhaps he could use the force of a fireball explosion for an additional updraft…

He decided to walk for the moment in order to see how the sculk would react, keeping his wings folded loosely behind him. If it proved to be as lively as the stuff back in the Ancient City, he would burn it to discourage it. He scanned the walls as he walked. There wasn’t any sculk vein, and again no sensors or shriekers, and the darkness peppered with turquoise didn’t appear to extend all the way up. The ground remained partially stone in places, too, so he felt safe enough treading on it.

Then he recalled that sculk could spread when something perished atop it. That presented a question about what might have happened to previous visitors or even inhabitants. The parts of the maze he had seen last time contained neither bones nor graves.

Could it be that the ultimate fate to befall anyone who didn’t make it to the exit – or didn’t find their correct portal – was to continue to wander until they stumbled upon the sculk, and be consumed by it?

He had also wondered why all of the portals leading back to individual realities were clustered in one spot.

…Or at least, theirs had been in the same cluster. Obviously, there was an infinite number of realities, but there had definitely been a reasonable number of portals that could be counted in that particular spot.

Or maybe those were simply the portals that still crossed paths with the labyrinth dimension; Myth had once theorized that the Ancient City portal was supposed to lead somewhere else entirely – because what was the point of an entire city with a malicious Warden guarding a link to a dimension with absolutely nothing of value in it? There were no resources unless someone counted the water in the fountains. Not that it amounted to much when so many of them were empty. Then there were the generic statues that had no relation to Wardens or sculk. He highly doubted there would be any settlements hidden between walls. If anything, this was like the product of a bored deity, and some of the Ancient City portals in various realities had the misfortune of intersecting with it.

Myth wasn’t terribly concerned with proving his theory. It was all a rather big inconvenience at this point. He only needed to find Rusty, find the missing doubles, and figure out how to leave the labyrinth.

That last one was the real concern, after all.

Some five minutes of walking later, the sculk receded from the surface of the walls, although didn’t disappear completely. Myth saw the end of the passageway coming up and approached carefully, keeping an ear out for the sound of copper golem footsteps. He eased his head past the edge of the wall, looking to the left first to see what might await.

It was one of the open areas with a fountain in the center. A checkerboard-like pattern of sculk dotted the floor around it, spreading from the side Myth was on. The glowing specks of turquoise glittered more sparsely beyond the fountain. Myth used that as an indication of which direction to go.

Then two very distinct dots of light glinted from the fountain itself. Myth tensed; that wasn’t any sculk. Those were a pair of eyes. They followed his movement as he purposely stepped toward the right, then quickly moved back to the left. Myth abruptly launched a fireball into the air, both to gauge a reaction and to provide more light. What he saw was a face that resembled Smajor but with hair that was a mix of orange and blue as well as two different color eyes, also orange and blue.

Surely, this was the missing Scott.

The man in the fountain stood up as the light from the fireball fizzled out. He kept his hands on the edge of the fountain as if needing support. “Sausage? Is that you? Why do you look… different?”

Even though the combination of the sound of the voice and familiarity of the face made Myth’s eye twitch for half a second, he tried to act casual as he walked closer. Just to be certain, he asked, “What about you? Weren’t you purple and sparkly the last time I saw you?”

“Huh?”

A thin smile crossed Myth’s face. “Just checking. I’m not the Sausage you know, I just look like him. Or maybe he looks like me. I’m not sure how that actually works out since timelines always seem to be out of sync.”

Scott crouched down inside the fountain again, muttering, “I hope I’m not imagining things due to hunger.” He then raised his voice a little. “Hey, if you’re real, do you have any food? I’ve run out, because I had to keep teleporting away from that thing.”

The question made Myth realize that he hadn’t planned ahead for this rescue. He laughed out loud. “Sorry. I didn’t pack a lunch. I’m just here to find you, your Mythical Sausage, and Rusty, and then get everyone out.”

As if on cue, Scott’s stomach growled. He sighed in disappointment. “Then you can explain who you are on the way. The sooner we find, uhm, my Sausage, the sooner I can raid his supplies.” He managed to climb out of the fountain – not that it occurred to Myth to offer a hand, and not that he would have wanted to touch anyone who looked like Smajor, anyway – then Scott muttered, “I’m not completely sure you’re real, though. How can there be two of Sausage? …Does the universe really need more than one? I’m pretty sure one is enough…”

Despite not lending a hand, Myth was close enough by that point to overhear, and another laugh escaped him. “You have no idea. No, really, you don’t.” The smile he directed at Scott was sardonic and quickly fell. “I’ll tell you later when we find him so I don’t have to go over the whole story twice. For now, just accept that I’m from an alternate reality.” He abruptly switched subjects by asking, “Which way did you come from, and which way were you headed?”

Scott twirled the index finger of his right hand through the air in thought, as if accessing an internal compass. The motion created a small, glowing orange circle, which he hastily swiped his hand through, dispersing the circle into tiny glowing fragments. “That side, but opposite where you came from,” he finally said, pointing to the gap in the passageway Myth had exited. “And I wanted to head away from the sculk, but needed to stop and rest.”

“What is with all the sculk, anyway?” Myth asked. “I’ve been here before, but didn’t see any sculk back then. My only guess is there wasn’t any in the area I was last time.”

“I don’t know, I thought it was because the portal was in the Deep Dark.” Scott looked pensive, then abruptly gawked at Myth as he passed by to check out the opposite side of the fountain. “Y-Your wings are on fire—”

“Yeah, they do that. Isn’t your guy some type of Ghast? Is it that surprising to see someone shedding fire?”

“Sausage – uh, the one I know – didn’t ‘shed’ fire like that all the time.”

“Neither do I. It mostly happens when I’m agitated.” Myth went coldly silent for a second, then said, “You can call me Myth if it helps with the name thing.”

“Oh. Um, alright.” Scott finally climbed out of the fountain, revealing it to be one of the empty ones due to the lack of wet footprints as he followed unsteadily after Myth. “Sorry, I might be a little slow-moving. I have a very high metabolism due to my powers and I won’t recover until I eat something.”

Myth turned to size up the transporter. “For reasons I prefer not to discuss, I’d rather not have to carry you… But if it slows us down too much, I will. Also, it has nothing to do with a risk of burning you. Unless I throw a fireball, my flames heal.”

“Got it.” Scott replied. He was still a little worried as he fell in beside Myth as the phoenix looked around at the three options they had for continuing through the labyrinth.

Myth chose the one with the least amount of sculk visible on the floor, which happened to go straight out of the crossroads rather than left or right. “You definitely weren’t going to find any food in here,” he said dryly, then chuckled. “I doubt sculk is edible.”

“Ew. No, I never thought to try it. Although, now that makes me wonder. If it’s anything like chorus fruit, which can teleport whoever eats it, what would sculk do if you ate it?”

“I don’t know, but could you be quiet for a while? I’d like to be able to hear Rusty if we get near to him.”

“Sorry. I babble when I’m hungry. And it’s really a relief to finally see another living soul… Aside from that creature.”

Myth sighed. “Fine. I’ll bite. What creature? The last time I was here, the only creatures were me, my associate, and two other guys who looked like me and you.”

“Uhhh…” From the tone of the utterance, it was clear Scott hadn’t spared a thought to whether or not the Sausage he knew was the only one who had a look-a-like copy of himself walking around.

Myth made an annoyed face, realizing he was giving himself more work with explanations. “Don’t waste time thinking about it. Which are you talking about?”

“Th-The Warden.”

That stopped Myth in his tracks. “One followed you through?”

“No, this one didn’t pop up until I wandered into a spot of sculk and the sculk vein tried to grab me. Even when I teleported down the passageway it was hard to avoid the stuff, since no matter where I went every path had some. The Warden also, um, didn’t look like the ones back home.”

“You don’t say,” Myth murmured. He scowled. Flickers of flame spat from his wings.

Remembering how the phoenix mentioned being agitated, Scott felt this was a good moment to suppress his low-energy-addled mind from babbling. He did want to ask Myth about how he knew Rusty, but he decided it could wait until they found the little golem. He was hoping they found the Ghast Mage first, though.

Something about Myth was giving him an awkward vibe.

.

Some thirty or forty minutes of walking later – with fortunately fewer and fewer sightings of sculk, to Scott’s relief – the transporter perked up when the scent of cooking food reached his nose. He hurried ahead while Myth remained at his own pace, although he did raise an eyebrow at Scott’s sudden briskness.

Around the next bend Scott saw someone sitting on the ground heating something over a tiny fire. The smell made his mouth water and the sight of fire in this place that had no kindling to offer made him think of his Sausage’s Ghast powers. Regardless of how small the fire was, there was a familiar side profile being backlit by it; familiar enough that Scott began to step forward.

By then Myth had seen the seated figure. He also noticed something that Scott didn’t, and it set off that odd pang in his chest from earlier. Before he could intervene, however, Scott called out, “Sausage! There you are!”

“S-Scott??” The tone sounded like he had just heard a ghost, but was still definitely Sausage’s voice plus without the gruff edge that Myth’s voice had. Yet as the man fumbled the food he had been holding, scrambling to catch it before it fell on the ground, the light’s effect changed. Unlike the Ghast Mage who Scott knew, this man’s hair was silver-gray and he had obvious age lines on his face.

The delicious-smelling food was saved, also to Scott’s relief.

Maybe the question of who, exactly, this look-a-like was should have been more important, but at the moment Scott couldn’t help thinking with his stomach.

The man stood up, gingerly holding some type of savory-scented pastry. He squinted. “Wait. Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be in the celestial realm with el ángel guardián de mi hijo? Er, with the angel version of me? Why are you disguised as the ruler of Chromia again?” He squinted a second time. “Or, well, the ruler of Chromia down on his luck, judging by that outfit. But, I mean, your eyes. They’re two different colors again.”

Myth uttered a disdainful noise at the possibility of an extra Scott being in the mix.

The older Sausage shifted his gaze to Myth. “Oh! You’re both here! Why are you, uh, orange? And why do you have only one pair of wings?”

“Wrong angel,” Myth growled, letting his voice be the reminder of the first time they had met when this Sausage was younger. He strode over and picked up the Staff of Sanctuary that had been leaning against the wall. “Didn’t this have red mushrooms on it the last time I saw it, Protector?”

“Oh,” Sausage said quietly, “You’re. That other angel.”

“Why am I the ‘other’ angel?” Myth asked resentfully. “Is it because I wasn’t all brightness and shiny armor before?”

“N-No!” Sausage quickly asserted. “No, I didn’t mean it that way! It’s because the – uh – the one that I assume is still a seraph and I shared a body for a while. Like, in the way where both our souls were in the same vessel, not, uh… anything weird or anything like that—”

“Oh, no, nothing weird about that,” Myth scoffed.

“So,” Sausage attempted to continue, “I’m kind of more familiar with him, making you the other one! Uhm, anyway, what are you now? How did you get like that?”

Scott felt entirely out of his league, but when his stomach growled again he interrupted, “Sorry, um, it seems you two know each other and need to catch up. Can I – ah – can I bother you for that food you’re holding? I’m weak from using my powers too much, and I’m honestly desperate…”

“Oh, certainly!” Sausage exuberantly disengaged from the tense conversation with Myth. “I have plenty! Sanctuary’s finest export, delicious empanadas!”

He handed the pastry over, then turned to take a few more out of his pack and handed them right to Scott since the transporter devoured the first one in an instant.

Myth was in no hurry to answer the questions, so he waited. He wanted to ask about the changes to the Staff, and why there was a gemstone matching the ones in the Ancient City portals now affixed to it. There was an energy coming off the Staff that he was somehow sensing.

It made the back of his neck itch.

Meanwhile, Sausage seemed all too happy to make sure Scott was enjoying the empanadas, chatting away as if he had forgotten that Myth was even there. The fondness in Sausage’s tone had Myth rolling his eyes. This wasn’t even the Scott this Sausage knew.

Tuning out the chatter, Myth idly inspected the Staff. He didn’t have much of a chance to look at either it or the one used by the kingly version of himself back when they had all been in Sanctuary. He amused himself with the thought of how they each had some type of specialty weapon. He supposed that, technically, the Superhero and The Wither used their bare hands for their specialty. The reminder made him reflexively reach for his sword.

The one he could no longer use effectively, because he was no longer seraph-adjacent.

The one he didn’t even have on him anymore, because he had become accustomed to using fireballs.

Myth scowled at his own carelessness and gripped the Staff of Sanctuary a little tighter.

He didn’t notice when the gemstone twinkled, nor did he realize that he had begun to slowly wander back in the direction he and Scott had come.

“Hey, Myth – where do you think you’re going?”

It was Scott who said it—

But it was Smajor’s snide tone that Myth heard.

The phoenix wheeled around, wings flaring outward and small flames forming at the outside corners of his eyes. Scott startled, then disappeared in a brief flurry of orange particles. He reappeared two meters down the passageway with a brief flurry of bright blue particles.

Sausage, meanwhile, gave a stern look that came from years of experience as a father. “I didn’t catch your name back in Sanctuary. I guess there’s only so many times you can repeat the same one. Anyway, I think you should calm down and put the fire away. I assume you’ve both been in the same situation here as me: walking around with almost no sense of direction, trying to find a companion that you came here with? I’ve been trying to find a young man named Hermes.”

Scott walked closer to Sausage, although he kept an eye on Myth. “Yes. Myth here is the first person I’ve seen since getting here, and while I’m not sure anymore how long, exactly, my companion and I have been in here, it’s been long enough that I ran out of supplies.”

Myth made a noise of annoyance, then said to Scott, “It’s been at least a month back in your world.” He folded his wings in and dispersed his flames harmlessly into thin air. He then eyed Sausage. He twisted his hands around the Staff, leaning on it for a moment before sighing. “I came here with a copper golem named Rusty, but I came to your world through a different kind of portal than the ones for the Nether or the End. I was going to save this explanation for later when we found your Ghast Mage, but, well… I’ve basically been filling in for him, and my associate Smajor has been masquerading as you. No one there questioned why we weren’t a Ghast or whatever you are.”

Myth flicked a hand up and down to indicate the transporter’s appearance. Scott stared agog and stammered, “W-Wait, what do you mean masquerading as me? What is he that my friends didn’t realize it wasn’t me? At least you’re still on the fiery side, like some kind of evolution of a Ghast.”

“He’s a very good actor,” Myth replied flatly. When Scott frowned in a way that said this didn’t answer the question, Myth elaborated.  “He’s a fungal mage. He can influence the growth of mushrooms. And, you know… fungus-like objects…” He made a point of turning his head and moving his eyes to implicate the new details on the Staff.

Instead of picking up the hint as meaning Smajor, Scott shifted his attention to Sausage. “What are you, then, with a weapon like that? Do you have anything to do with the sculk here?”

Myth threw a glare toward Scott, his expression flattening in irritation at the missed hint.

Sausage shook his head, although at least he seemed to have cottoned-on to what Myth was implying – mostly due to extrapolating from Myth’s behavior that this Smajor fellow must be of a similar disposition to the abrasive former angel. “No. I’ve never seen this place before. Which is really weird, now that I think about it, because I—”

He paused, wondering if he was about to say too much, then remembered that Myth probably remembered how he had been pulled into Sanctuary in the first place. “—I can travel between realities. I’m basically an authority on them. You might even say I’m a guardian of them.”

Scott scrubbed at the front of his hair. “Okay, wait. This is starting to get to be a bit much. You’re both a version of the Mythical Sausage that I know, but you both know about other realities but I’ve never heard him mention anything about that kind of stuff. Does that mean he’s hiding something from me?”

Sausage glanced at Myth, expecting some camaraderie on the subject, but Myth only gazed back dispassionately. Sausage’s gaze then went to Myth’s right arm; he blinked in surprise when he noticed a very important missing item. He then turned to Scott and tilted his right forearm toward the transporter. “Does your Sausage wear something that looks like this?”

Scott studied the metal vambrace with what appeared to be an ovoid green gemstone or piece of glass embedded in it. “I… think so?” He glanced aside as if trying to access a mental image of the Ghast Mage. “I don’t remember if it looks exactly like that. I don’t really pay much attention to it. I thought maybe it was just some kind of ceremonial accessory from the Nether, or something that helped him maintain a humanoid form.”

Sausage shook his head, then stopped and tilted it in thought. “I guess the only way to know for sure is if I see it in person. Or just ask him! But, anyway, now we know who to look for as we wander around in here! I have total confidence in Hermes in situations like these, so we just need to locate your friends then get back to where we belong!”

Myth abruptly chuckled. “It looks like I didn’t need to come here at all. You can easily send everyone where they’re supposed to be.” He idly turned the Staff back and forth, then scowled. “I was literally thrown in here. Didn’t have as much choice in the matter as I thought I would.” He turned around and again started to head off the way he and Scott had come.

Sausage was about to say something about Myth just walking off still holding the Staff of Sanctuary but then he saw the gemstone twinkle. It made him seriously rethink the situation. He spoke in a soft tone, “Myth, you can hang onto my Staff for now, but if you could maybe wait a few minutes for me to pack everything up before leaving?”

Myth stopped. He shook his head -- more so to clear it than to reject the request. “Sorry, I—” His eyes darted from side to side as if only now realizing the other two weren’t with him. He glanced over his shoulder. “I – I’m just eager to get going. I don’t want to leave Smajor unattended too long. He’s… a troublemaker.”

Sausage nodded, thinking back to some things Myth had said during his visit to Sanctuary. He put out his meager fire by lightly stepping on the kindling a few times, then tidied up the few items he had removed from his pack before turning back to the little pile of kindling. To Myth’s and Scott’s surprise, he gathered it up into a bundle with no issues, neither burnt nor crumbling of what should have been resulting charcoal involved.

In fact, the sticks seemed to be returning to the pale-colored state they would have been in before being burned.

Sausage glanced up while in the process of securing the bundle atop his knapsack. He grinned. “Magical firewood from Sanctuary!  It’s reusable! No matter how many times you burn it, it rejuvenates!”

“Fascinating,” Myth muttered, tone sarcastic. He felt like the concept alone was mocking his form in that moment, causing his absentmindedness from earlier to give way to his usual resentful mood. “Hurry up already. Finding out that I’m redundant by being here made me realize this is now costing me time.”

Sausage didn’t reply. He checked over his knapsack one last time, then hefted it onto his back. “Oof,” he mumbled – yet not too quietly. “I’m getting too old for this.” He straightened up, then motioned to Myth. “Lead on.”

Scott reached after Myth in hesitation. “But we just—”

Sausage caught Scott’s other arm and whispered, “Just follow him. Trust me.”

Scott protested softly, “But there was nothing back that way except sculk. He’ll lead us into a death trap if he goes the wrong way.” Regardless of his warning they both followed after the phoenix.

“He’s not leading. The Staff is.”

“What? How can you tell?”

“I, uh, well I just have a feeling. … Wait, what do you mean, a death trap?”

“I suppose it depends how far he backtracks,” Scott replied pensively. “I used up my powers trying to escape a Warden.”

Sausage didn’t look as disturbed as Scott would have hoped. If anything, he looked intrigued. “I’ve always wondered where Dolores’ people went. Maybe this place has the answers.”

~*~*~

Translations:

el ángel guardián de mi hijo - guardian angel of my child

[A/N: I’m running out of ideas for titles, but not out of ideas for crossovers! | Gratitude again goes to the wonderful Cynthrey/Khyann for help with Spanish translations!]

Chapter One

Myth the phoenix hybrid made his way over to the automated farm area, carrying a toolbox and a satchel full of various sized spare gears, Rusty the copper golem trundling after him. They were headed to the one where the mechanism had begun to constantly spit out seeds, pick them back up, and then just spit them out again. Myth put his toolbox and satchel on the ground next to it, then set up a log post about a meter away and installed buttons all around the top half. Rusty merely watched the malfunctioning farm for a moment. He turned to Myth as if to comment, but when he saw the buttons, he waved his arms in the air and hurried over to begin pressing them one after the other.

Myth smiled, stretching the horizontal scars that marred his right cheek. That would keep the little copper construct nearby but occupied. He figured he could sort out the malfunctioning farm without additional help but he did like having Rusty around. It made up for his ongoing preference to keep to himself without getting too lonely. Most of the other hybrids tended to stay in their personal territories, anyway, building fanciful themed areas or doing tinkering of their own. This world had a great deal of steam-powered technology, different from the world Myth had come from, which hadn’t advanced past redstone.

At least, as far as he was aware. Perhaps once he and his rival, known as Smajor, had disappeared from there, the survivors of the two’s destructive revenge-fueled rampages had rebuilt and developed new technology.

…Probably as a means of stopping either of them, should they reappear.

Well, that was another time, and another life. The recently transformed phoenix had begun to settle into this new life, and while he didn’t intend to permanently replace his double, he wanted to learn as much as he could and try to pretend he could have a normal life.

The challenging part so far was that nearly everyone seemed aware they could come to his home and ask for supplies. It seemed the Ghast Mage who preceded him was, although grouchy, generous. Most of them asked first, some left notes if he wasn’t around, and one person in particular delighted in trying to sneak in under his nose. He suspected she thought he was in on the joke, except that she had no idea who he really was, nor did she know about the past that continued to lurk in the back of his mind.

It was as Myth was wondering when she might pop up that he noticed the number of button-pressing clicks had tripled. Rusty couldn’t move that fast, so he turned to find out who might be goofing around. Rusty and two other copper golems were treating the button setup like a maypole, going around it and pressing the buttons as quickly as they reset. Upon noticing that Myth had noticed them, the two extras scampered over to him. “Hi, Sausage!” said the one that looked and sounded like PearlescentMoon.

“Hi, Sausage!” echoed the one he didn’t recognize, but who sounded like… Sparrow?

“Rusty,” Myth addressed his assistant without acknowledging the two yet, “Did you build yourself some friends?”

Rusty turned away from the button he had just pressed. “That’s an odd thing to say.”

The Sparrow-sounding golem said, “Do I have some news for you, Sausage—”

Purposely looking past this new golem, Myth replied, “You’re right, Rusty. I would have noticed if you were taking from my copper supplies. So, it seems Pearl built herself a friend that follows her around and copies what she says.”

“That’s not true!” protested the Sparrow-voiced golem.

Laughing, Pearl cut in, “Sausage! Stop being silly. I actually ran into him on the way over and we decided to have a little fun. Can never have too many copper buddies running around.” She then threw some redstone dust at Myth, having accumulated it from the button pressing escapade. The other golem did the same in spite of protesting Myth’s observation.

Now, though, Myth looked at this third golem and asked with a forced tone of concern, “Why do you sound like Sparrow?”

“I am Sparrow! I made myself into a hybrid! And it turned out to be copper that fused with me, so now I’m just like Pearl!”

Myth swallowed down the feeling of dread that rose up from his stomach. “You made yourself into a hybrid…?” He attempted to sound curious instead of panicked.

Rusty, meanwhile, spoke what Myth was thinking. “What’s wrong with you?!”

“’Ey, ’ey, easy there, mate,” Sparrow said defensively. “No need to be rude!”

Rusty’s antenna bobbed up and down. “Are you sure about this?”

“Sausage, you need to work on this guy’s speech programming,” Sparrow advised.

“I can understand him just fine,” Myth said distractedly, still thinking about the implications of what Sparrow claimed to have done. “Uhm… don’t tell me both of you are here to clear out my copper reserves?”

“Nah,” Sparrow replied. “I was only accompanying Pearl to prank you! I mean, I did want to show you that I succeeded in my experiment, but I have another destination to get to right now. You can just give all your copper to Pearl!” With that cheeky declaration, Sparrow waved and hurried off through the ferns that now stood taller than him.

Myth bit back the urge to call after him demanding further explanation, because he knew his desperation would show as he imagined what horrors might result if Smajor found out about the possibility of augmenting his existing powers. Sure, the fungal mage claimed he was peaceful now and happy to have a little garden of mushrooms and avoid conflict because it had a detrimental effect on his life force. But if supplementing his abilities with something that could counter those weaknesses was available there was no reason to believe he wouldn’t take advantage of it to return to his old ways…

“Hey. Hey. Hey, Sausage? Are you overthinking what Sparrow said he did?”

The feeling of Pearl tapping on his leg drew him from his spiraling sense of horror.

“Personally,” she continued, “I think he changed because of the same reasons we all do, but was having so much fun with his inventions that he wanted to make it sound more interesting than ‘I accidentally tripped and landed inside this weird chamber I built’.”

 “Oh. Um. I guess. So, uh, I do have some copper to spare at the moment, but I need you to leave me a little for a project I’m doing this afternoon—”

“Oh, I didn’t really come here for copper, Sausage,” Pearl said benignly. “I honestly wanted to check on you. You’ve been keeping to yourself way more than normal.”

So. She finally noticed, Myth thought to himself.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Pearl continued. “I know you don’t remember some stuff, but we could still have a chat to try to work out a few more details.”

Myth glanced toward the malfunctioning farm to make it seem like he was directing a distasteful face at it instead of in response to her suggestion. “I… appreciate the offer, Pearl, I really do. But I’m not worried about what I can’t remember.” He forced a weak smile as he returned his gaze to her. “I’ve started to think of it as a way to make new memories. And as for keeping to myself, well, I just really enjoy tinkering around with all this machinery that the past me set up! It’s a fun way of relearning and building new things, giving structures more purpose than they usually would have! And when something happens to break, like this farm, it’s like a little puzzle to figure out which component isn’t working properly!”

The antenna at the side of Pearl’s head twitched. “Well, at least you’re sounding like your old enthusiastic self again! I gotta tell ya – and I mean this in the nicest way possible – you were quite gloomy for a while there, even for someone who used to be part Ghast!”

Noticed that too, huh? Myth kept that thought to himself as well, then said aloud, “I’ll have to take your word for it. The whole Ghast thing has slipped my mind.”

“Maybe it’s not worth bothering with after all, and we should focus on new things instead, like you said.” Pearl jumped up onto the side of the farm. “How about we start now? We can hang out while you fix this, and I’ll see if I can help with it!”

“Only if you have no other plans…” Myth said, trying to stall. “I don’t think it will take too long, and—”

“Sausage. There you go again, trying to be by yourself. Come on, buddy. At least give me an hour. Half an hour. Some company might do you some good. You need someone to talk to besides a regular old copper golem.”

Rusty rotated his head mid-button press. “What did you say?”

Pearl laughed. “Sorry, little guy. You’re all right.”

“Okay,” Rusty replied, then stepped around to the next button and waved his arms in the air.

Myth heaved a quiet sigh, accepting that she wasn’t going anywhere. He started to disassemble the farming mechanism. “If you want other reasons for me keeping to myself, I do have one major thing on my mind. S- Scott asked me for a favor, and it basically comes down to being his bodyguard because of his whole Gaia-mana thing, and he kinda needs my help, specifically, and I’m pretty set on not getting involved because of a… certain other argument we had.”

“Is it the sneaky planting of mushrooms around your base?” Pearl asked as she leaned closer to inspect the inside of the farming mechanism. “He left one patch by my mud farm, but you have a lot of areas around here where he could have hidden them.”

“No— Well— I mean, I guess you could say it involves his propensity for being an annoyance that bothers me.”

“Did he prank you by teleporting you more times than you mentioned, before he became a mushroom man? I could see that being a problem when you were a Ghast Mage and if he teleported you into water, but that would be something part of the lost memories, wouldn’t it?”

Myth gave pause with the wrench half-raised to remove some bolts as a memory did, indeed, come to him – of being teleported back and forth out of water when he was vulnerable to it.

But that had been a different Scott, who had the intention of literally cooling Myth’s temper rather than trying to kill him.

“I mean, it could be a subconscious thing like that,” Myth said, trying to sound like he was mulling over the idea. Then he spoke jovially, “I guess you have a point that somewhere in my head I’m holding a grudge for things that happened in the past.”

He felt amused to himself that it was the exact truth; she didn’t need to know the real details which went along with it.

He let her carry on with theories and suggestions, doing his best to remain polite out loud even though inside he kept vacillating between wanting to blurt out the whole sordid tale of what his version of Scott had done to him, and wanting to break down crying in relief at hearing her voice, even if she wasn’t his version of Pearl. He held it all in as they worked to troubleshoot and fix the farm, which went smoothly up until the wrench Myth held abruptly started glowing red-hot in his hand – something he didn’t register right away, since heat never bothered him, but when it turned into molten metal and began to drip onto the machinery with a hissing sound, he yelped and jumped backward.

Two things happened simultaneously after that.

Myth’s entire body erupted into flames; he could swear that for a full second his consciousness switched off into oblivion, then switched back on and he felt completely refreshed – even the ache that he had been ignoring in his elbow from turning the wrench was gone. There was, however, a ringing in his ears, and it was taking its sweet time to fade away.

Meanwhile, Pearl had also tumbled backwards and had pointed at something somewhere above and/or behind him, but after the flames died down she merely stood speechless.

No, not speechless. Myth couldn’t hear her over the ringing. He began to shrug at her and point at his ears, but then it finally faded out.

“—That should have killed you, Sausage! How are you still a phoenix?!”

He would have to ask her to specify what that had been, because he hadn’t felt a thing. He found himself staring at the now-solidifying puddle of melted wrench. He still didn’t know everything about being a phoenix. Did his body have an early warning sense for impending death? Was the sudden flare of heat – enough to melt anything he was holding – a precursor to his life cycle kicking in to remake him upon the moment of death?

But… that’s not how the rules of this world worked. It was the same as the world he had originally come from: when you die, you revive as something else entirely. Those cosmic rules would surely cancel out the abilities of a phoenix to rise from its own ashes.

“Sausage? Hey, Soos – are you shellshocked or something? Buddy? Can you hear me? Don’t tell me that wiped your memories even more!”

A new voice, languid, joined in. “Hmm. He looks shellshocked to me, that’s for certain. I missed what happened – that massive fireball is what caught my attention. I thought he was dealing with a raiding party, or hostile water-ability-wielder. How did you not melt, Pearl?”

The beguiling tone poured into the last word snapped Myth out of his stupor. Speak of the devil… He leveled a displeased look at the mushroom-clad Smajor. “Well hello, Scott. How do I know you didn’t have something to do with this?”

Smajor put his hands out, implying innocence. “I’m just a peaceful little mushroom tender who happened to be passing by—”

Pearl cut in, “Are you sure you weren’t checking on that clump of mycelium by the villager house? Because don’t think I didn’t notice it. That’s our guy for trading with.”

“Well, I might have left that there last time,” Smajor replied with a casual shrug, “But, really, that’s a small matter. The real question here is how did Sausage manage to not change? Does becoming a phoenix exclude you from the fate anyone else experiences upon death? Or maybe it’s a limited time effect with only so many rebirths-through-fire…” He clasped his chin and did a very good impression of seriously considering the matter.

Myth’s brow lowered into a frown. He could guess what Smajor was actually thinking based on that additional comment. Smajor was lucky Pearl was there, or else Myth would have tested if Gaia would forgive him for violence upon fungal mages. “Pearl,” Myth said, trying not to snap at her, “It looks like this is an opportunity for me to discuss that matter with Scott that I was telling you about. Thank you for your help with the farm. I think I’d prefer to talk one to one with him.”

“Oh?” Smajor purred, “You told her about a matter between us? Which one?”

Pearl glanced from one of them to the other. “You know, this is starting to sound like something I don’t want to be in the middle of, anyway. If you’re sure you’re okay, Sausage, I’ll leave you to your, um, personal chat.”

“Yeah, I’m okay now, Pearl. I was just… disoriented for a few seconds. I’m used to random bursts of flames, but that sure was a big one! I’ll, uhm, let you know if I feel side effects later.”

Smajor smiled pleasantly at Pearl and waved. When he was certain she was out of earshot, he said, “I’m sorry, I seem to have the worst timing when you’re having a coping session with an old friend. Old-new friend. I’m not sure how best to describe that particular relationship of yours—"

“Get to the point,” Myth growled. “Wait – actually.” He grabbed Smajor by the arm and dragged him toward the house. The fungal mage complied, cowering by reflex despite Myth not even paying attention to his reaction. Rusty pushed a button one last time then trundled after them; Myth was now also too preoccupied to remember that the copper golem would automatically follow. He shoved Smajor inside then slammed the door. “Okay. Now get to the point.”

Smajor rubbed his arm but didn’t comment on the man-handling.  “Ah… Well. I now have two things to talk about, seeing as what just happened… happened.” He leaned a little closer.

Myth instinctively drew back.

Smajor sighed, then settled for keeping his voice quiet. “About that. I died the other day. But I revived exactly the same as I was. Either we’re not bound by the rules of this world, or there’s something going on to keep us what we specifically are right now. I mean, I don’t mind spending the rest of my, um, immortal life as this – not sure how you feel about it – but someone might begin to suspect something is wrong about us if they notice.”

“You’re the fool who literally just mentioned it to Pearl,” Myth scoffed.

“A phoenix might be less obvious, though,” Smajor pointed out. “To an extent, as I said. And I know we had a hundred-some-odd lives, but as far as I know, no one here has hit any kind of maximum yet, which means we didn’t just so happen to step in when our doubles reached the end of their turns. Well, I know that for a fact, actually.”

Myth folded his arms across his chest. “Yes. I remember what I said to you the last time I saw you.”

“Uh, yeah. The whole not returning here unless it was with them, but… Well, every bit of evidence that I have found leads me to one answer, and you are not going to like it, because you’re the only one who knows how to get out of it, since I was unconscious at the time…”

Myth’s expression fell into a deep scowl. “You’re kidding. …Well, no, of course you’re not. That’s too obvious of a trap – you know that, right? Do you really think I would enter that labyrinth ever again? And by choice? We would end up separated, tossed into some random corner of the maze, and – and – with no way of orienting ourselves. Even if we found the spot where we fought the other versions of us, the only reason we got out at all was because they got their previous powers back, which was just enough to get above the walls and search!”

Myth pointed emphatically at the ceiling before continuing, “And even then, it took that shiny-knight version of me using his wither abilities to find the correct portals home. If you hadn’t noticed at the time, neither of us got back any old powers – thank the gods.”

“I think it’s in part because they had only a few under their belts,” Smajor theorized. “And, perhaps, the power behind the labyrinth leaned in their favor because of their good intentions. Maybe, if we go in with the spirit of rescuing these versions of us at heart, we’ll have better luck.”

Myth uttered an ugly laugh. “As if I could believe you have anyone’s best interest at heart.”

Smajor took in a deep breath and let out a long sigh. “It’s rather selfish of you to keep living in your double’s shoes instead of looking for him. This isn’t your life to live, Myth. Or are you just that jealous of all those other versions of yourself that you’ll gladly take over for one of them? Be honest. What’s in your heart right now?”

Myth began to emit flickers of flame, an annoyed growl rising in his throat. Before he could respond, however, the door burst open and Rusty exclaimed, “What’s wrong with you?!”

Myth now sighed. “Rusty, you know about me. Don’t be so accusatory.”

Somehow managing to sound sarcastic, Rusty asked, “Are you sure about this?”

The bright flickers died down. “Don’t tell me you’re on his side!”

“That’s an odd thing to say.”

“Then don’t agree with him!”

Smajor blinked and raised an eyebrow but merely observed the conversation.

“Are you sure about this?”

Myth opened his mouth to reply, then closed it and looked aside away from both Rusty and the fungal mage.

Smajor waited a minute to see if Myth would say something, then finally commented, “I’m not sure how you’re able to interpret what that thing is implying, but I think I appreciate its efforts.”

Rusty looked up at the fungal mage. “What did you say?”

Smajor blinked down at the golem. “I said I appreciate you helping me convince our fiery friend here to help me.”

Myth snorted. “He meant you calling him an it. You seem to think he’s just some empty automaton.”

Smajor shot Myth a flat look. “How about we get back on topic? If your concern is being able to get high enough for an aerial view of the maze, I can grow mushrooms to any height I want. It just takes a lot of mana. So, I’ve had to be cautious about approaching the entire problem. And the only thing I don’t have is a way to get everyone out. Myth, it is not fair if we leave them wandering lost in there forever while stealing their lives!”

Myth stared at him with a bitter scowl. “How did you die, by the way?”

“Huh?” Smajor was caught off guard by the change of subject.

“You said you died, but woke up still a fungal mage. Did your attempt to rescue them by yourself cause your death?” Myth watched his rival’s face carefully.

Smajor looked away as if embarrassed, then mumbled, “Zombies…”

“Excuse me?”

“I got cornered in a spider-infested catacomb by some zombies and had no choice but to defend myself to escape. But Gaia makes zero exceptions, and… I ran out of mana on the threshold of the exit, so all it took was one hit from the remaining zombies to take me out.”

Myth snorted in derision this time, yet then – miraculously – cracked a smile. “How far the mighty have fallen. I suppose if you’re that helpless, I’ll have to lend a hand. Since you can’t tell anyone else and are so afraid of what might happen if we get found out.”

Smajor frowned right back at him. “Really? That’s going to be your only reasons?”

“I’m nobody’s hero, Scott. If you want a truly sincere reason, then I’ll do it for Rusty’s sake. I didn’t intend to replace his original creator forever. I just… needed some time.” Myth directed this last comment toward Rusty.

The copper construct gazed back, then said, “Yes.”

~*~

Elsewhere in the multiverse…

The Protector of Sanctuary, graying of hair but still solid in his duty, stood before the lodestone in the Tower of the Sun God, one hand hovering over the bouquet of feathers tied with a braided cord of purple and gold thread that sat atop the stone. Over the decades he had figured out how to shape Sanctuary’s magic to imbue a focal point around an object that was associated with a specific person. Not only could he communicate with the self-appointed deity BdoubleO100 who had first built the tower and who resided in a whole other universe, he could now reach out to any receptive person that he had a token for.

Granted, it was easy to connect with someone of higher power like Bdubs or Joel – whose token was a solid gold statuette of a figure holding a trident in one hand and a lightning bolt in the other – but the bouquet of feathers with its significant colors served just as well for contacting the demi-god that Sausage and Joel had incidentally managed to bring to life and co-parent until Joel ascended to the celestial realms.

The lodestone hummed as it reached full telepathic connection range. Sausage spoke to the air, “Oh, Hermes~ I know you can hear me! I don’t know which universe you’ve adventured off to this time, but I need you to come home right away! Something is telling me I’ll need the Staff very soon!”

He waited for maybe three minutes, idly gazing out the window at the stands of bamboo that lay below bathed in sunlight, then he focused on the feathers again. “Mijo. This is a Guardian of Realities matter. I need that Staff back now.”

Sausage could feel the slight warping of time and space as a ripple appeared in the air over the lodestone. He moved back, and a half-second later Hermes emerged from the ripple. Accompanied by the jangle of bracelets and other gold accoutrement, the toga-clad demi-god with a purple streak in his pale blond hair stepped downward out of it onto the spot Sausage had just vacated.

“Sorry, Dad. There was a bit of a matter of an argument between two chosen heroes who I had been helping in the Mianite nexus, and I was trying to settle things peacefully when you called.” Hermes grinned apologetically and held out the Staff of Sanctuary. The sunlight from the window glinted off his earrings; one in the shape of a thunderbolt, the other a miniature flower pressed in resin.

Sausage smiled in understanding as he took the Staff from his son. “Okay. Just making sure you weren’t dilly-dallying anywhere dangerous which, ahem, could have been what my multiversal senses were telling me.”

“Nope,” Hermes assured, although he looked oddly nervous. “Just a regular old adventure.”

“Hmm. Alright,” Sausage said, pretending not to be suspicious as he headed down the stairs. “You can tell me about it later! I’m going to check if the magic can reveal some clues to me, so I can find out exactly where I need to go.”

Hermes followed him to the special tree that allowed them to communicate with the magic that sustained Sanctuary. Here Sausage placed the Staff into the hands of the armor stand for the magic to manipulate as needed. He declared, “Oh, Magic of Sanctuary! Hear me and answer! The energy of all reality is calling to me! Is there any aid which you could lend me to find my goal faster?”

A bright glow suffused the Staff. When it faded, the mushrooms had turned blue-black and were now speckled with bright turquoise spots. A translucent, dull-blue gemstone was now suspended in the center of the Staff’s crook. Sausage heard a chime that indicated the magic was done giving its response. He took the Staff in hand and carefully held it closer for inspection.

Hermes glanced over, too. “That looks kind of like… sculk. I guess it’s telling us that the first place we need to look is somewhere in the Deep Dark.”

“‘Us’? ‘We’?” Sausage asked skeptically. “Sorry, son, this is my job.”

“Aw, can’t I please come along this time? I know the cosmos hasn’t, like, officially deemed me a Guardian of Realities, but I’ve learned a lot and can probably help!”

“‘Probably’?” Sausage raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re not just looking for another adventure? These Guardian duties are not to be taken lightly, believe me!”

“I know, Dad, I know! I haven’t forgotten that first time, with that guy who was a splintered-off piece of you! And that time you summoned a bunch of other versions of yourself from other realities! Even as a kid, I knew how important the rule was to make sure no one got mixed up and returned to the wrong universe!”  Hermes went quiet, lowering his head, then added in a mumble, “I’d like to have a multiverse-type trip together again. It’s been great that you allow me to travel by myself now, but just like that rule, I don’t get to take anyone around with me, and if I make any friends I have to leave them behind so that they complete the destiny they have in their own world.”

Sausage uttered a sympathetic noise and patted Hermes on the back. “Sorry, I should have realized you might feel that way about it, since the events that led me to this responsibility brought out my loneliness.” He tapped the Staff on the ground and nodded decisively. “Well, starting today you start your training to be an apprentice Guardian-of-Realities-in-Training!”

Hermes lifted his head, giving a little laugh. “Dad, that came out a bit redundant.”

“Oh – Hush! Let’s go ask Dolores if this gemstone means anything to her!”

.

Once, early on in her stay in Sanctuary, Sausage had wondered why he couldn’t communicate with Dolores like he could with other animals. Then it dawned on him that Wardens weren’t creatures of the sculk, but perhaps had once been an entire race of people of their own, perhaps even the ones who had built those Ancient Cities. So, he began spending time sitting by Dolores’ cave and passively teaching her words in Common – passively as in doing so while she was distracted by the noise machine, which he figured was a preferable safety precaution.

However, after a time she seemed to be drawn by the sound of his voice. It started with her standing by the machine but facing toward him. Then, during one week she began walking away from the machine and looming a meter away from the bars for the entire time he sat there talking. She would immediately walk back to the machine as soon as he indicated he was leaving for the day.

In the end, Sausage surmised that he was proving to Dolores that he wasn’t a threat, and she was lowering her guard. He then included Hermes in these sessions, and although Dolores emitted wary noises at first, she eventually stood calmly when both of them were there.

Now, however, this behavior caused Sausage to become worried when their approach with the modified Staff was met with loud sniffing and decidedly fearful-sounding whimpers. Dolores was already standing right at the bars by the time they reached the front of her cave.

“Hi, Dolores!” Sausage made extra effort to come off as cheerful. “The magic of Sanctuary changed my Staff to help us with a little adventure. We figured it’s indicating something in the Deep Dark. Does the, uh, smell of this gemstone mean anything to you?” He held the crook of the Staff closer to the bars.

The heartbeat visible through the exposed section of her chest grew faster. Dolores uttered an uneasy rumble followed by a whine, then she took two steps back and rumbled again.

Hermes frowned in concern. “Does she seem afraid to you? Because, personally, I’m a bit worried of what could make a Warden feel afraid.”

Dolores uttered a sad croon and turned to lumber away, much to Sausage’s scrutiny. Rather than return to the noise machine, Dolores walked to the very back of the cave and faced the wall. Then she raised a claw and scratched a roughly rectangular shape right through the lichen and the rock itself.

Sausage’s demeanor became somber. “The Ancient City portal. I’ve always wondered where it led to, but even I agreed with Bubbles about not testing it.” He looked at the gemstone. “Apparently, now I’m being called on to find out.”

Hermes spun on his sandaled heel and headed for the storage warehouse. “I’ll start packing some gear for us. I know the ‘City under Gobland has been fully carpeted for safety, but we should take a few stacks of wool in case the other side of the portal needs a light step, too. Should be a few pairs of Swift Sneak boots left in the armory. Oh, and maybe some invis potions, too! Could come in handy for scouting out if there are any dangers immediately on the other side.”

A smile made its way back to Sausage’s face after he quietly thanked Dolores then followed after Hermes. “Good idea, mijo. I’ll pack some food. This sounds like an adventure that needs a good number of empanadas and cookies to get us through it!”

~*~*~

Translations:

Mijo - son