Chapter 855 - 5

No reincarnating angels

Any fallen angel a devil wishes to reincarnate must have lived as such for at least seven years before a devil is allowed to bring them into their peerage

No reincarnating those excommunicated from a church who have not been as such for less than a year

Seraphs may audit peerages at their personal discretion to insure these and other rules are being followed

Seraphs do not need to inform any of the four Satans about a peerage audit until after it is completed, though they can choose to inform the members of the body before if they so desire.

The devil faction government and clan Astaroth must pay for all medical treatments, therapy, funerals, tertiary education and elective surgeries of all victims of Diodora Astaroth including but NOT limited to all his peerage members past and present.

At the bottom hastily scribbled in bright pink marker was a final one.

Serafall Leviathan of the four Satans will spend an amount of time to be disclosed later with Gabriel, henceforth known as girltime.

"Do we have to do the last one?"

"Yes. Every time we meet you're stressed out. You need to hang out with your friends or something."

"We aren't friends and I can't hang out with Sirzechs and the others, they kinda suck hard."

"We aren't? You could have fooled me."

Looking back, I do hang out with Gabriel a lot more than anyone else, and I don't really hate her guts or anything.

Oh fuck, I really am friends with her!

Gabriel grabbed my shoulders and shook me gently. "Sera? You feeling okay? You've been standing there in silence for almost a full minute. I'm getting really worried."

"I'm just having an existential crisis over here. The two people I want to hang out with are my mortal nemesis and a guy who fed me part of a candy monster. And So-tan, but that goes without saying."

"Ha! So you do want to spend girltime with me! Wait, candy monster?"

"Yeah, this guy gave me a piece of a mint monster he killed a couple of minutes ago. It tasted great."

"Do you know where this guy's from, or anything about him?"

"His name's David and he's the weirdest person I've ever met. I think he was from the Mythical City of Cockaigne, actually. Considering all the other stuff he said, it makes the most sense."

"That place actually exists?"

"I don't know, but I saw him make matter with senjutsu or something. At this point, anything is possible."

"Huh. That is unusual."

Hold on. Why're we paying for therapy?

"Wait, his peerage is still alive?"

"Yes."

"Where are they? They should be the responsibility of the devils."

She placed her hand on her generous chest. "They're ours. We're keeping them. You clearly don't care enough to look into the situations of peerages, so why do you care now?"

I don't have an answer for that. I've never had an answer for that. The peerage system is broken. It was made broken, and it still is broken after half a millennium of existence.

I only signed off on it because we were desperate back then. Our population was tiny. Like less than the Fallen which was very bad when one of the weakest Fallen can chop down our weakest Devils like a farmer cutting wheat. We had like seven hundred and twenty high class devils tops right after the civil war. And that's by political rank, we had far less of them in terms of actual power. The only reason we weren't instantly dead was the angels not teaming up to wipe us out.

The pieces would have let us regain the bottom of our population, which did happen.

But not well. We didn't define what a peerage meant beyond the physical existence of the pieces. Which has us royally fucked right now. There's less than two hundred peerages right now, but what being in a peerage means changes from peerage to peerage. My sister treats hers like family while Diodora… Well, that's self-evident.

I'm part of the problem. My peerage is basically just my chauffeur and makeup artist. Was that the intent at the time of recruitment? No, that was a brain-dead attempt to save the lives of people in front of me with no long term thought behind it.

It's our fault for not seeing the social issues coming. We fucked up and added a social class with no explanation as to what they're supposed to do. In the beginning, this was used as an excuse to move a lower ranked devil into the life of a high ranked person, which was good. Those couples did successfully have more kids than regular Noble Devil to Noble Devil relationships. Not by that much, and they'd nine times out of ten not carry the family trait, but every kid counted.

Then that crimson fucker reincarnated a human and everything went to shit. God-damn Sirzechs. He made my life hell by doing that. I'd have frozen his balls off if Grafiya hadn't stopped me.

Suddenly people were like, "Hey, what's the coolest thing I can force into my petting zoo?" There was no thought to the consequences of those actions.

Do you want to know who has to deal with the consequences?

ME!!!

I have no idea how we didn't get genocided after that. Luck I assume? That or Sirzechs and Ajuka being strong enough to ward off everyone else by then.

The only bright side is the non devil reincarnated had a much easier time having kids than anyone else. Not that it really mattered, the average power of our race kept going down. Not in the reincarnates, but their children were weak as fuck. No idea why, but it didn't really help.

We may have two of the most powerful people in the world, but that means jack shit if the enemy can take out everything they aren't directly protecting.

I don't know how we let this happen, but I blame Ajuka. It was his idea to even make these things.

I swear Ajuka I don't care what the others say, I'm going to castrate you for this. I will make it permanent somehow. Or maybe I'll put him through eternal castration somehow.

"Sera, Are you good?"

"No. gulp, but that's what girltime is for. Right?"Last edited: Aug 28, 2025 Like ReplyReport Reactions:ghostreaderm, Kido5217, Eduba-san and 589 othersDarkchespinAug 11, 2025NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter 4: Daddy issues New View contentDarkchespinAnaheim Electronics TechnicianAug 28, 2025Add bookmark#202text: telepathy

______________________________________

David POV

Yesterday was an odd day. My friends haven't shut up about this girlfriend I supposedly hid from them. No matter what I say, they assume this has been a thing for weeks, if not more. Not even lying and saying it's a new thing works.

I just hope Leviathan can sort things out with her sister. Her friends honestly sounded kind of useless. I'm lucky to have the guys.

Technically, I should be packing my bags for the trip. I'm already overpacked because of magic bags, but I never did that stuff for a piece of actual luggage. Not that turning luggage into another magic bag was hard, but still, that takes an extra six seconds I could spend actually finishing my angel defense system.

Yeah, I should do that.

Not that it really needed much work. Angels have already been in production for months. I just need to make it easy to unleash them on the world once the big war goes down. I've been procrastinating that feature in case I made the threat detection too sensitive or something. It wouldn't do for them to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world that isn't in the middle of the inevitable Phyrexian invasion or other conflict.

I moved out of the prime material dimension to my still unnamed angel pocket dimension.

I have some unchecked notes to myself. Huh.

"Include Ascension mechanic…"

Shit that makes way too much sense. Why didn't I natively include this? Having local commanders would make the war far smoother.

That honestly isn't even that hard. I'd already copied a ton of the work of Serra, Asha, Razia, Sorin, Karn and Latulla among countless others. I was only able to directly consult Sorin and Karn on their work, given everyone else was super fucking dead. Local planar systems for places like Cappena, Innistrad, Mirrodin, Kaldheim, and Zendikar among others were also cross-referenced for this system to function.

So it was definitely producing angels of varying conception. A couple were clearly Zendikar inspired, having the six wings and large halos over the eyes, others were more Innistradi with much more bird like wings. The appearance wasn't the most important element to this system anyway. The main goal was ensuring each angel has Halo and significant power in the face of New Phyrexia.

I'd succeeded at the first goal, but the second was debatable. They were definitely strong, but Phyrexia is incredibly powerful. Luckily, this isn't my only planned defense system for the coming Invasion. Heck, it's not the first one I finished, either. That honor went to Project Second Rig followed closely by Myrmidon, Starfield, Destroyer, GECS, Mechan, and VOLTRON among others. Those weren't nearly as time and mana intensive as the angel system. However, the angel system just made sense to me. It was weirdly easy to make the system.

I'm rambling again.

What my countless inspirations meant was there were some rather, odd things I just left in as artifacts of inspiration that were only sort of done, including the Valkyrie ability to deal with the afterlife, parts of the Serran ascension system I'd forgotten to remove and the odd prayer to angel pipeline, and this really weird telepathy system that connects all angels that can also share unique powers. I have no idea where this originates from, but it's the one weirdly consistent thing among angels. I suspect it's a Serra original idea. It just reeks of her involvement.

My point being that I had incomplete segments I could easily configure into an ascension system. Hell, I could make multiple. One for incarnating righteous dead, one for mortals who earn it in life, and others still for non-sapiens like dogs and stuff. Lucky me that Serra's magics were incredibly easy to understand, even if they were energy inefficient.

Why was I focusing so much on this angel system? The angels have the best track record against Phyrexia besides Dominara itself. The invasion of Cappena was a total Phyrexian rout, even if it cost most of the world. Sure, Serra's realm fell, but that is one hundred percent Urza's fault. I can't just copy Dominara though, its specific preparations were millennia in the making across vast cultures and institutions. I have maybe 10 years tops to prepare for Phyrexia depending on how the invasion goes.

Worst case scenario, New Phyrexia invades multiple planes at once within the decade. Best Case, they invade one. Hypothetically, an army of planeswalkers successfully destroy all the oil and leave Mirrodin to its hundred-something inhabitants could happen, but that's the biggest pipe dream of all time.

I personally am betting on it being the multi planar assault plan. Norn is arrogant enough to assume that's a good plan, even when Mirrodin isn't the biggest place and would fall to the numbers of the rest of the Multiverse, given enough time and early success at the start. On the other hand, if she does get momentum, everyone dies, and even if she fails, there's a high likelihood we see another New Phyrexia within the century. After all, one drop of Oil is all they need to return.

Every solution I have is basically brute forcing combat capable forces as fast as possible and stemming the tide when it comes, and from there hopefully take Mirrodin back and follow the invasion's other paths if they exist.

Ahh, there we go. Beta ascension system and the mass transit from this pocket dimension should be online. I can't test the ascension system, but the transportation should work fine. That's not terribly complicated. I'll have someone test it later once I get back from my meeting.

Not that I'm going right away. I should check on the Angels here.

There weren't that many around, we'd only recently crossed the thousand threshold. That's not to say they're the only ones here. We have quite a few constructs and assembly-workers working diligently to arm the armies for the war to come, along with the Myr. I originally made the Myr as a back-up in case the ones on Mirrodin went extinct, but they have since developed into their own unique culture. One that has a deep desire to invade New Phyrexia to liberate their brethren.

They weren't really native to this pocket dimension. I'd made an earlier one to store them, and included ways to move between the various places I was working so they weren't trapped in a single location. This did include Earth, but there was protocol and equipment to make sure they weren't noticed.

Technically, Angels could use those as well, but it's kinda annoying to use what was basically a freight elevator to deploy an army. Thus, the purpose of the deployment system. It automatically connects to the threat analysis system and should send a suitable force to deal with an issue, or deploy a newly made angel to the scene. They could also use it to leave on their own as well if being cooped up here gets to them.

I should inform my people of this. They can check if this works while I'm away. they deserve the freedom to go and live their own lives before shit hits the fan.

As I walked through the base I saw Linnea, one of my angels.

This is angel number thirty-three, Linnea. She took from the Innistradi angels in appearance, the feathers of the wings being tinged black at the outer edge with colors that ranged from white to a light gray in sporadic patches elsewhere. Her hair differed from her wings, being a light greenish color. Her outfit was simple, a simple brown tunic over a chemise with a small incision to push her wings through the back of the outfit. No idea why she went for medieval clothing, they have enough internet access to know of later clothing and how to make it, and her wings can just phase through the clothes. I made sure of that entirely so they don't have to worry about clothing issues, but here they go making unneeded choices.

I think I prefer her dark green dress with the flowers over this, even if she does look cute. Not that my opinion matters when it comes to how she dresses. She's her own person.

"Hey, Linnea. How's everyone been?"

"Same old, same old. Rosie keeps making new weapons, Ryzia keeps nagging us about magic practice, and Veronica keeps complaining about not being able to leave often enough."

"Well, that should change now. I just finished the new deployment system."

"Really?" Linnea looked extremely excited upon hearing that.

"Yes. I'm sorry I procrastinated on finishing it."

"It's okay. You've been busy." I've really not been busy, though. I should be better than that but thank you for accepting my foibles.

"Yeah. There's just so many things I need to do right now."

She put her hands together like the blond guy from the Alchemy cartoon I brought back from another Earth. "Oh! Does that include the angel you raised down there?"

"The what?"

"You ascended one last week." Last week? That's when I was at the party getting drunk. Please, for the love of god, tell me I didn't turn some random drunk into an angel capable of levelling the city.

Is this in my sticky notes?

Not explicitly, but remembering ascension exists would probably mean I did an ascension myself. I forgot about it for this long, I wouldn't be surprised if that's where the idea came from.

I can just cross-reference my list. She's probably networked in somewhere.

"Angel one thousand seven hundred fifteen: Claire. Former human. Status: activated. That's weird. I don't remember doing this at all." The list did have other stuff on it. Location, estimated power, stuff like that. She was looking weirdly weak. Her power was strangely below the presumed threshold the spells I'd use to raise her would require. Must have botched something when doing it drunk, or it's a mental block. I'd have to do the inspection in person, but I have things I planned to do today and for the next month.

I vaguely trust Claire not to burn down the country while I'm out, and if worse comes to worst, I have over a thousand people ready to stop her here.

"She's not listening when we call to her. It's super rude."

"That's odd. The telepathy was the first thing you kids figured out. But I'm reading out that she's weak, so maybe that's interfering with the signal?"

"Or she's just being a meanie." Linnea was pouting now.

"Well, you have the ability to leave, try going and meeting her in person or something."

"Go make one of the big shots, do it."

"Or you can ask one of them to do it."

"Maybe I will." Is this what parenting feels like?

A pause followed.

"I wanted to ask you something."

"Go ahead."

"Do I have to fight?" I could see she was worried about my reaction. After all, I'd made her to fight. Asking not to do that seems insane.

"No. If you don't want to, there are other ways to contribute to everything. Your halo will need to be harvested every once in a while like usual, but if you want to work in production or something, that's okay."

"I want to garden. Not make weapons."

"Is this a pacifism thing?"

"No. I just… I don't like fighting."

I put my hand on her shoulder.

"Do you want to know a secret?"

"Uh huh."

"I hate fighting. It's the worst. If I had my way, I'd never engage in combat ever again." That's not entirely true, but that isn't what she needs to hear.

"Really?" She looked at me right in the eyes.

"Yes. It's just that sometimes we don't get to choose. Someday, Phyrexia will try to take over the Multiverse again, and when that day comes I'll be there to face it. That is a choice I've made, and everything here is in service of that." All of it.

"Even me?" She whispered.

"Yes, but you also have a choice here, Linnea. You get to choose if you want to fight or not. If you don't want to fight, that's okay. Your decision may hinder my plans, but if I didn't care what you wanted, I'd be no better than Phyrexia."

"So I can garden?"

"Of course. I'm not going to stop you. I'd just like you to keep training. Phyrexia might force you to fight even if you don't want to. I don't want you to be unprepared if you have to fight."

"I'll keep that in mind. Thanks dad." She gave me a quick hug.

"I'm not really… never mind."

She already left.

I should get her some nice seeds or something. Let her really get to work with that gardening stuff. I'll have to pick up some things from my personal stash to give to her. And a book on alchemy, maybe she'll pick up potions.

Now to check on the others.

___________________________________

POV: Serafall

Time to face the music, come on, you can do this Serafall. Kuoh was nice this time of year at least, clear blue sky and clean air. Even if her being here makes me worry. Cleria's death is still unsolved all these years later.

But I believe in my little So-tan. She can handle it, especially with Rias backing her up. She might be a bit lazy and coddle her peerage a bit too much, but she has it where it counts. It being the ability to fight herself.

I could just pop in on her. Teleport right into her little student council chamber and make her hang out with me, but that would cause tension with her. David is right about my actions distancing me from her.

She needs more space than I normally give her. That's why I waited until school was over to meet up with her instead of randomly crashing in on her. It's also why I actually informed her I wanted to hang out last night and set a time to meet with her. I even chose not to wear a magical girl outfit to make this smoother. It's not my business outfit or anything, just a nice little ice themed dress.

"So-tan? Are you ready?" I spoke up.

"Let me finish this paperwork." She looked bored.

"Have your queen do it. I want to spend time with you." We don't talk enough.

"But…" She looked reluctant to stop working.

"Sona, you have to learn delegation. I have a staff to deal with small things like stray devils for a reason. You are the president of a student council, not ruler of a nation. You can stop working for a couple of hours to hang out with your amazing sister."

"But I'm studying how schools work."

"This school will still be around when I'm forced to do something else."

"Can I at least ask you to leave when I feel like it?" So-tan asked firmly.

"... If it makes you feel better."

She sighed and turned to her queen, who was silent.

"Tsubaki, take over for me. I'm going into the lion's den."

She got up and walked toward the door.

"That hurts. I'm not going to hurt you."

"You're going to make me do something embarrassing, like always." Her tone's exasperated like this is an inevitable outcome of us being together.

"Do you not like our time together?"

She looked a little guilty.

"Can we do something that isn't cosplay for once?"

"Of course. You pick whatever you want. I'll go along with it." I smiled.

She paused. It seemed to go on forever.

She looked straight ahead of us. "That isn't like you."

"What do you mean?"

"We're always doing whatever you want. You've never shown interest in what I want to do."

"I…"

Am I that bad? Jeez, that really does hurt. I've failed as a big sis, haven't I?

"What's the deal with you?"

"I had a talk with someone, and it made me think about how we talk to each other. Do I push you around too much?"

"Ummm."

"Be honest. I'm a big girl. Sera-tan can take it."

"You sometimes do." Oof.

"I was afraid of you saying that."

"You said to be honest."

"And I'm glad that you were. I need to hear how you really feel about me."

"I.." She looked like she didn't know what to say.

"You know that I love you, right? That I think the world of you?"

"I do. You're my sister."

"Not just as your sister. I genuinely believe you are one of the most talented in your generation. Not just in magic or anything, but as a person. You're the only one of the next generation with a tangible goal and the ambition to achieve it."

"Thank you."

"Really So-tan I wish more were like you. Sairog has the ambition, but he has no actual plan to achieve his dream for all devils to be able to pursue their happiness. The rest don't really care about anything."

"Rias does." She's a nice girl but no.

"She cares about not marrying a blond guy. That's not a lifelong dream. I don't doubt she'll find some way to get out of it with how much her father and brother are pushing for it. Sona, you're the only one prepared for when our clans finally lose their heads."

"That'll take centuries." So-tan spoke dismissively.

"It's coming a lot sooner than you think. Has father…"

"What about Dad?" What? They haven't told her?

"We're going home right now."

"What's happening?" They haven't told her.

"Sona tell your queen Tsubaki and the rest of your peerage that you'll be busy at least for the rest of the day."

I messaged the household that So-tan and I would be arriving in less than a minute. We teleported back to our family's home in the underworld.

"Ahh, Maou Serafall, Lady Sona. How are you?" Jeeves, our head butler, was already outside waiting to let us in. His grey skin was paler than usual, the man needed to take better care of himself. His knife like ears were longer than his conical head and his snake tail was ramrod straight, likely from stress. The man's left eye was redder than usual, too.

"Fine, Jeeves. Where is my father?"

"In his study. Why do you ask?" You know why Jeeves, you wouldn't be this stressed otherwise.

"We need to talk with him."

Our mansion wasn't exactly a labyrinth, but it was far too large, like every pillar home. Most could barely fill out the staff they should have even now five hundred years after everything went wrong.

"You're scaring me. What's going on with Father?" So-tan looked concerned.

"Just wait until we get to our father. He'll explain everything."

Father's study was how I remembered it. Far too many books I know he hasn't finished and reports about our families medical facilities and new treatments for diseases strewn about in a seemingly chaotic mess he could perfectly understand.

"Sweetie, what are you doing here?" Father looked well for a man in his condition, dark hair, tan skin and a well-kept mustache. He was wearing his black, gray, and white striped suit, a favorite of his since the nineteen sixties.

"Why didn't you tell Sona?!?!" I shouted at him.

He looked away from us. "It's just a preliminary result."

"It's been four tests, Father. You're getting sick." Don't even try to weasel out of this.

"Dad's sick?" The words barely came out of So-tan's mouth.

He sighed the same way he did during the Civil War when he found out about who was lost in a battle.

"Sona, I'm starting to show signs of the sleeping disease."

Her face darkened. I remember having that exact same situation when I found out from Sirzechs. The one time he actually cares about his internal affairs job is to tell me my dad is terminal. Bastard.

"That's impossible. You can't be sick. You're too young."

"I thought so too, when we first had you, but it's been happening more frequently in the pillar houses. It started with Misla, but it's spreading. I shouldn't be telling you this, but since you'll be head of our house soon you'd find out soon enough. Our hospitals are projecting that a quarter of the current lords will be showing at least early symptoms of the Sleep Disease within forty to fifty years and within a century and half, it'll be all of us."

"We can find a cure for this." Sona was spiraling. For all her act of being an unfazed strict girl, she was soft. She hadn't experienced tragedy the way my generation did, and if I could prevent that from ever happening, I would. This isn't something I can stop. The sleep disease has been the bane of our people since we first came into being.

"Maybe, but it won't be ready before we hand over the reins to your generation. This is why so many of us are arranging marriages for our kids right now. We want to see you happy before we enter the sleep. We want to experience holding our grandchildren for even a moment. Those memories will be all we have while we sleep."

"Father, when will you be…"

"Sometime in the next few years. I'll hopefully see Sona graduate college, but beyond that I don't know. That's why I didn't want to tell her so early, Sera."

"How can we go on without you?" I wish I knew Sona.

"Your generation is the strongest we've seen in a long while. The average power we wield won't change that much. You'll be okay." Classic Father, avoiding the question we actually wanted to be answered. I always hated that about him.

"What about mom? Is she going to go"

"She's not showing signs yet. Hopefully, she'll see the two of you get married."

"That's unlikely. Onee-chan hasn't shown interest in anyone her entire life."

"..." The guy who gifted me Sailor moon was kinda cute-

"Wait, you actually found someone. Was it the guy you mentioned earlier?" Huh? Did I say that out loud?!

"I never said it was a guy."

"I can't believe my daughter finally met someone." Father practically jumped at that. "Five hundred years of waiting, and it happens right now? Your mother is going to love this. I'm calling her right now." Are those tears?! Wait Mom?!

"I'm not in a relationship with him!" I've only texted him once!

"So it is a guy." Et, tu Sona?

I put my hands on my hips. "Ughh, Sona, you're supposed to be the serious one. Stop bullying me!"

"Think of this as revenge for everything you've done to me since I was seven. I'm milking this for all it's worth."

"Honey, what is happening?" And of course mom shows up the minute I lose control of the situation. Typical. Mother was ghostly pale looking with blood-red lipstick on and her hair was draping down just passed her bust. She wore the same black dress with shredded sleeves she's been obsessed with since eighteen ninety-one.

"Sera has a crush."

"No way. My little Sona is this true? You know how your father lies about such things always getting my hopes up."

"It's true." So-tan spoke with a smirk.

I'm going to die.

"Yeah, I bet it's some crazy person." So-tan spoke up while adjusting her glass

"He's not crazy. He's just from Cockaigne."

"From where? Onee-chan did you just say 'Cucking'?" So-tan took a step back and stared at me like I had two heads.

"Cockaigne So-tan. It's a legend from France. It's a land of plenty or something. I thought I mentioned it before you went up to Kuoh."

"You mean that four hour long lecture on every possible supernatural faction I could encounter? The one where you mentioned the possibility of aliens, extradimensional horrors, and spaghetti breakfasts? I thought you were making things up so I'd stay."

"She was. Sera, Cockaigne doesn't exist. It's like El Dorado except it wasn't even inspired by something real. He's crazy if he said that place is his home."

"Shut up, mom. How would you know?" Sure, I never heard from them or found the place, but it's not impossible they're just closed off or something. We lost Atlantis, for crying out loud.

"Your grandparents looked for it back during the great war when our family switched from being nudists to doctors. They found no evidence it ever existed. Are you sure that's where he claimed to be from?"

"David never said anything about it specifically, but."

"So he has a name, and you assumed about where he came from. Sera, we talked about this when you first became Satan Leviathan. Don't assume anything."

"He gave me candy harvested from a candy monster, what was I supposed to think?"

"He gave you candy on the first date? How romantic."

"Moooom, it wasn't a date! He just showed interest in what I liked after we had a tussle." That was a nice time.

Mother smiled at me. "You fought, or are you saying you already took him to bed?" Why are you no, no we are not mother why.

"We had an adversarial conversation. There wasn't any fighting or anything else." I can't deal with much more of this.

"Oh I knew she was into people who fight her. Honey, remember the Gusion heir from back in the day? Arutorando Gusion i think his name was. She was totally into him." No, I really wasn't.

"I never heard about this." Sona, you don't listen to anyone.

"That's because I hated Cudal Gusion. The fucker was an asshole. Always spouting about how nothing we did mattered because Lucifer would return and ruin our peace or whatever. I'm glad he died in the final battle so we never had to hear his stupid shit again."

"We could have used his clan's future sight ability. Shame the house went extinct."

"There are plenty of little bastards of the line around, our butler Jeeves has Gusion blood. Sooner or later, one will have the clan ability and rise through the rating games." So-tan interjected.

"That's not how house extinction works, sweetie. Even then, there's only been like four peerage members who reached high class, and they are still subordinate to their original king." It's closer to, like, one hundred and twenty, but it is still a fair point. The high class promotion is notoriously impossible for most devils to even qualify for, let alone pass.

"That's stupid."

"That it is, Sona."

"This is the first time we've been together in a while. I'll start working on dinner."

"I'll help."

"Sona, you can't cook."

"Onee-chan likes my food." It isn't that bad. I don't care what anyone else says.

"Your sister can't judge taste at all. No, literally. She has partial ageusia, it's a serious medical issue. Someone is going to poison her sooner or later." It's not that bad.

"I'm just going to put on some shows I just got in the theater so I can ignore you." Should I put on Sailor Moon or Nanoha?

Mother stepped forward and pointed. "Did you get those from your boyfriend?"

"For the last time, he's not my boyfriend!"

"I believe that's a yes, mother."

"Why don't we watch this as a family? There's no reason we can't try to enjoy our time together anymore."

"That sounds good, Dad."

"And maybe you can tell us more about this handsome French boy that's drawn your eye."

__________________________________

David POV

I'm lucky I was practically finished with the angel system stuff already. The modifications only took hours instead of weeks.

Fuck, I'm gonna be late.

Planeswalking was a trip. Not in a physical sense, even if it technically was, but in a more drug haze one. No two planeswalkers experienced it the same way. For me, it used to feel like being everywhere at once, like I was a quantum particle with no defined location.

The war changed that. Now it's a roulette wheel for what I feel. Right now, it's like staring at a shelf of DVDs. Each plane's a DVD and I'm the DVD player and the guy choosing the DVD. I was both moving and perfectly still in a non place where there is no time.

Does that make sense? No? Good. The Blind Eternities thrive on not making sense.

That feeling is supposed to be related to what the Eternities look like, but these days I don't exactly get that luxury. Experiencing the Blind Eternities differs from person to person. For me, it changed every time I came here. Last time it was gears. Lots of gears moving around. I think that was similar to Ral's perspective.

Right now, it was a neverending representation of the cycle of life. It's something straight out of the classes I took at Strixhaven last year. I believe Vraska sees this as well, but it's been years since we had that conversation, and it's not like I can ask again. I only got away with that because I was a child. You don't just ask about something that personal.

This ended up in a situation where I was basically trying to pick up a copy of Ghost in the Shell while a forest died and rose again around me.

Not particularly bad or anything, but it was definitely an experience.

My experience getting to Kamigawa definitely helped. Knowing where you're going is a lifesaver when you're breaking through the barrier between realities.

The destination was Tamiyo's home for a meeting of her social club, the Story Circle. It's one of the few social gatherings of planeswalkers that's semi consistent. We usually meet here on Kamigawa, but occasionally we meet elsewhere. A friend of mine set up a small little place for the meetings back home, for instance.

The membership varied a lot from meeting to meeting. Narset, Karn and Ajani were consistent about showing up. From there it got more complicated, Jace and Vraska started showing up after the war intermittently. Ayesha, one of the other planeswalkers from home, had a stronger attendance record than that, but wasn't there every time. She has a life beyond planeswalking.

I'm much more liable to be there. The circle consists of the only people who can fully understand me. I like my earth friends well enough, but I have to keep lying about myself with them. Here, I can be myself, or as close to myself as I want to be.

Tamiyo has a big house. It's in the more traditional part of Ootawara close to the palace Ooborro. Less shining metropolis modern mansion, and a bit more traditional home. Most of it still kept to the wooden style, with circular openings and wooden posts poking out. Some of her many children were walking around. Little Nezumi was scurrying around talking to some of the guests, mainly the beastkin like Ajani. There weren't many up here for him to talk all the way up here, so he's probably savoring the chance to speak with others like him.

I wish the captain was here to take the heat off Ajani. I've invited him before, but he won't come to these. He wants to make up for lost time with his daughters. I can't blame him for that. He was stuck on Ixalan for over a decade. The crew has to do the meetups with him on his home plane.

Whatever.

Some of the other people here were Kasmina and Daretti. Kasmina wasn't that surprising. She's always been an enigmatic weirdo who is far too in tune with what's going on in the multiverse. Daretti, though, was strange. He doesn't really leave Fiora. Leaving for any long period could mess with his current position in Paliano's political structure, which is to say his place in the goblin revolution. Without him, they wouldn't last more than a few months.

There were others I vaguely remembered from the War of the Spark. I think the woman in blue is named Mu or something. I don't remember, she was just kinda there during the war. Her friend Jiang I did know, however. He has Mowu, one of the best dogs in the multiverse.

Beyond that, I can't name most of these people. Attendance soared after everything, and even now, two years later I still can't name everyone who comes.

I must have focused too much on the ones who died. The people we couldn't save.

I don't like thinking about it.

I have to focus on what I'm here for, catching up with my friends.

"Daretti, my man. How's Fiora?"

I'd met Daretti a long time ago, when I was a younger, more innocent man. Back then, he was hiding, looking to make himself a wheelchair and take revenge on the academy of Paliano. I'd learned a bit of the Fioran brand of artifice from him, which took a lot of convincing. Last I heard, he'd successfully taken that revenge.

"Unstable as always. That fool Marchesa doesn't know how to solidify her position."

"And that doesn't have anything to do with you?"

"Perhaps." Daretti smiled.

"Nice upgrades to the cogchair. That looks like Kaladeshi techniques." It's hard to explain why some planes have such specific aesthetics to their artifice, but it does make conversations with artificers in the know truly fascinating. I'd love to hear Urza's opinion on the Perihelion II, for example, but then I remember every biographical mention of him calls him an asshole and my interest dies.

"Indeed. The wonderful people there weren't nearly as aggravating as the ones of my homeland. That Saheeli woman was wonderfully accommodating to my needs. She even brought me here."

His chair made a few motions with the manipulator arms in her direction. She's sitting with Hualti drinking whatever tea Tamiyo prepared for us.

"Saheeli is definitely one of the nicest of us. What brings you here? Networking for a new project?"

"In simple terms, yes."

"This would be the place for that. You liking Kamigawa so far?"

"It's much different to Paliano in a good way. It's much more accessible to me."

He let out a little laugh.

"Yeah. Kamigawa is truly one of a kind. I can't think of anywhere with nearly as harmonious a connection between its artifice and magic."

"I want your opinion on something. Look at this."

He handed me a schematic for a thruster. An extremely complicated thruster derived from rocketry, and not just any kind of rocketry, goblin rocketry. You could tell by how unsafe the design was. This isn't Daretti's usual field in the slightest.

"It's a thruster. Where'd you find this?"

"Some plane I never learned the name of. That's not important. What is important is the potential of the design."

"If you want to fly, there are easier ways. If you want to fly and then explode, there are still easier ways to get that done. You'd have to modify the intakes here and here, so the engine smoke isn't re-entering the oxygen supply and modify the nozzle so you're getting the thrust to go in just the single direction."

Darettii looked at it again.

"I never considered using this for flight. The goblins I got the idea from used these or motor vehicles to massively increase their speed. I'll have to look further into that."

"Well, that explains the nozzle design. If that's the plan, this depends on the vehicle you're strapping it to. Your chair isn't a great place for it. Far too many moving parts as it is now, and you'd get whiplash with how out in the open you are. But, let me sketch something real quick."

Do I always have blueprints on me? Yes. Artifice never sleeps.

"Now, this would work wonders. A cockpit to protect yourself, backup engine to keep the car going if the rockets fail. Decouplers to allow you to shed the thrusters once fuel burns out. And you can eject if things go wrong."

"Interesting. What about this? How'd you describe it?"

What he gave me was clearly where the thruster design came from. The car was definitely gaudy. It had some spikes, but not so many as to point this design as being from Gastal. Those Mad Max wannabes couldn't stop adding spikes to everything. It was unsafe, yes, but not nearly as unsafe as my first impression was saying.

"I think I vaguely remember this plane. It's the one where the local goblins worship the god of speed, right? I can see it from here."

"The BOOSTGOD, but yes, that is where I saw this. You recognized this as goblin made at first glance, yes?"

"It's a common theme among your people to like explosives. The more unsafe they are, the more likely goblins are to be involved."

"Would it be worthwhile to try teaching my people about these designs?"

"I'd make the attempt. Grenzo is into arson, right? You could easily pivot that into explosives, and from there push them to make something that is constructive once you get beyond just rioting."

He took a sip of his tea.

"If only Grenzo would think that far ahead. We'd be allies with the revolution by now."

"You're not wrong, but didn't Grenzo try to kill Selvala or something? That would probably make an alliance harder to produce."

"Fair point."

"I'm going to get myself some tea. It was nice seeing you, old friend."

I moved back through the crowd. There'd not been many new arrivals.

Oh hey, it's Sakura.

Sakura was one of the many unfortunate souls whose first experience with planeswalking was the war. The Interplanar Beacon was strong enough to forcibly awaken a dormant spark, and that's one of the worst things that can happen to someone. Countless people died from that, but that was from immediately getting vibe checked by the Eternals.

Not her though, she almost died because of things already inside her body the minute she showed up on Ravnica. They were weird worms I barely understand even now, and I'm the one who removed them. I had to replace like forty percent of her nerves during the operation.

She gave me a wave.

Shit, is she due for her next check up soon? I had a calendar for this somewhere.

No, the next appointment is in a bit over a month. We're good. I won't have to skip anything from the trip for that. Nice.

Wonder why she's here? I've never seen her at one of these before.

Oh, yeah. I need to give Tamiyo a gift. That's traditional around here.

Lemme riffle through my bag. Fuck, most of my stuff is weapons. Why do I forget to leave those at home for these situations? Uhh, a first edition copy of Barrin's notations on advanced destruction, but no. Tamiyo doesn't fight.

Ahh, here. A guide to the birds of Texas. Brilliant. I doubt she has one of these. And a deck of Myriorama cards. She paints landscapes sometimes. She'll probably enjoy 'em.

I don't know where to put them, though.

I can just ask. It's not like she's talking to anyone right now.

"Hey, uhh where do we leave the gifts?"

"Oh David, glad to see you made it. It's a pleasure like always."

"I feel the same." Tamiyo was a weird person. I think she believes I'm an orphan or something. She keeps trying to mother me. It's odd. I liked her, though. She didn't cause bullshit and knew stories I wanted to hear. That's enough for friendship.

"The gifts go in a corner near the entrance."

"Cool. Is everyone here yet?"

"I know of one other who's supposed to be here, but they haven't been to Kamigawa before. I was planning to go give them a path here once everyone was settled."

"I'll go with."

"You don't have to."

"You're a pacifist Tamiyo. I'm not taking chances with my friends anymore. Not after Dack. You have a family to come home to."

"Look at how precocious you've gotten."

"I went to war multiple times within the past five years. Don't patronize me."

"It's all in good fun. Kyodai knows we need normalcy now." That's the first time I've heard her swear to something.

"That we do."

We left the house to planeswalk. Planewalking leaves behind small bits of magical residue in an oddly consistent shape. It decomposes incredibly quickly, but it could theoretically damage things. Especially when multiple planeswalkers appear at the same time in the same place where you get damage to reality itself. That's only really visible if theres like hundreds of planeswalkers, and here there's like twenty tops. If we all left the most we'd do is cause a mild breeze that knocks over a telephone pole.

Two however, could knock over a vase, and it'd be annoying to fix that vase with magic. It'd take, like, three seconds, but that's three seconds we could spend doing literally anything else.

Following someone's wake is way easier than going alone. I don't have to focus nearly as much on how I'm moving. I just let myself follow the trail like I'm following the current of a river.

We came to a desert. Not in an Ahmonkeht sense, I could feel that world's war against death in the air whenever I'm there. This was more, mundane, if that makes sense. We weren't that far from a small trading hub I could see in the distance.

"This is Rabiah."

"Wait, what, I thought Rabiah was shielded."

"No, that's a spell to keep Taysir out, which is moot considering the fact he's dead."

"There's no way that can be right."

I pulled out my copy of Taysir's journal. Let me see, Hmm, fused together, left the plane couldn't get back in… dammit, it really does say 'barrier against me'.

"I'm an idiot."

"Your words, David, your words." Tamiyo said with a smile as she leaned back on the wall of a buried house.

"Are we just going to walk or do we need transportation?"

"I can fly."

"Ok. I guess I need to as well."

But how do I do that? I could just do some levitation, maybe go for arcane wings or something.

Actually, I have just the thing.

"Come Nightmare!" Out came a smoky horse born of the darkest dreams of the mind.

It looks like a horse with a billowing mane of shadows. So spooky.

Nightmare is an old summon of mine. I don't use it that often anymore, its main ability being it is a good flying mount, and that has been superseded numerous times by various other creatures and my ability to give myself flight. It is however a pretty strong creature, so it still has some niche applications.

Really, I'm just using this for nostalgia's sake, and that's fine.

"Where are we going anyway? Is it that town in the distance or nah?"

"That is the destination."

"Alright cool."

And so we fly toward the town. From up here I can see it is definitely small. Not terribly small, but it's definitely a rest point between major settlements. It's mostly a bazaar with very few residences. Further out, I could see a much larger city on the horizon. That is likely the major trading post of this route, or at least is one of the stops on it.

The architecture hadn't changed from what Taysir's journal had described. There were still brass men walking about the street. I could even make out the winged women the journal mentioned.

I've always wondered if they were just aven or some type of angel, but apparently they're just women with wings. They were at least colorful, like birds of paradise usually have.

"Who are we looking for anyway?"

"A winged maiden by the name of Fatima."

"Ok. Are you going to describe her or?"

"You'll be able to tell who she is by looking at her."

"That's totally not cryptic."

We did finally reach the town.

The town itself smelled like dehydrated turkey and laundry soap. I was not going to ask why.

The area did remind me of Aladdin, in architectural style at least. There wasn't a big palace or anything to focus upon, so it's just the vibes of the market stalls and canvas covers above the streets that sell the feel of the place. There weren't places to roost, which kind of made sense. The winged people didn't have the talons of a normal aven or other humanoid bird species like the Owlin.

Man, it must suck to sleep. All those feathers around your bed.

We came to a shop that screamed random occult objects. I can't read what it's saying, but I've been in enough shops to know the smell of cheap incense anywhere.

The inside didn't destroy that vibe. Pentagrams, shoddy summoning circles, and a couple empty djinn lamps were placed on shelves. There weren't any prices marked, which probably means you're supposed to haggle for stuff. I'd say there's no way the planeswalker is here, but that's probably the intent of the place. A false front meant to hide the real mage underneath.

The owner was definitely a bird woman. The colors on her wings were less vibrant than the ones I saw flying earlier. Muted shades of red and green dominated the wings, instead of the much more vibrant colors of the women outside. Whether that referenced age or was due to little sunlight is anyone's guess. The woman was definitely somewhere in the forties. She looked to have actual age to her instead of the common trait of older women just, not looking like they aged a day since twenty-three. I guess it's hard to get a good skin care routine out here in the desert.

"Ahh Tamiyo. How do you do this fine day?"

"So-so. How's your daughter?"

"Being an Owl like always. She's still asleep. Why?"

"I'm supposed to be bringing her to a party." Oh, the daughter's the planeswalker. I was sure it'd be the shopkeep.

"She did mention that."

She pulled out a broom and started smacking the roof.

"Fatima, get up you lazy fuck!" Huh, what are the odds that two planeswalkers from Rabiah are both named Fatima? Wild.

"I'm up geez. Do we have customers or are you just yelling for no reason again?"

Huh, I didn't notice the stairs over there. I guess this is one of those home and business packaged deal type places.

"Your friends are here to pick you up."

"Finally. I've had enough sand for today." She gave me a look of confusion at my presence, but moved on. I guess having a bodyguard isn't a foreign concept here.

"Please make sure my daughter doesn't do anything stupid." There was a story there, but I would prefer not to learn it.

"I would never." She put on an effort to look shocked.

"I've known you for two seconds, and I can tell that's a lie."

"So you do speak strange man."

"I'm here as a bodyguard. That doesn't require me to talk."

"But then I don't learn anything about you." oh no. It's another manic woman. Fuck.

"I'm going outside before I catch whatever you have." I'm already drained enough from Serafall. I can't do this shit again.

This was technically worthwhile. I know where Rabiah is, but at the cost of my dignity.

The streets' still clear. There is still that single Brass man moving about. Are we that close to Rabiah's edge that they're moving around here?

"Ow fuck. My ear."

Stop being rude. We are guests. Be respectful.

Gah, fuck. I hate it when people randomly throw their thoughts at you.

She's not wrong, though. I did not have to act like that with this girl. I'm being an asshole.

Fuck. Now I have to apologize.

"Sorry. My deep-seated insecurities got the better of me. Let me apologize by escorting you to a glorious evening of hijinks and stories."

"I accept." Why are you blushing?

I looked over to Tamiyo who also had a look which said she was enjoying whatever the hell this was.

"Let's go then."

We walked out of the shop.

"So, when do we go?" The energy was still there, but it was more reserved.

"Is she new to all this?"

"You could ask her yourself." Well, yeah, but she's clearly got complicated feelings about my rudeness right now.

Just ask.

"I guess. You new to this?"

"Kinda? I didn't know others existed until a couple of weeks ago."

"Damn, you've just been blindwalking the whole time. That sucks."

"Blindwalking?"

"It's what I call planeswalking without a clear picture of where you're going."

"Is it that bad?"

"I fell into a volcano, no wait, two volcanoes, blindwalking. Yeah, it's the most dangerous form of what we do. Besides maybe the description method. That's only slightly less accurate than going blind."

"Huh. Guess I'm lucky."

"You can fly, of course, you are lucky." Again with the blushing, is there something wrong with her blood flow?

"If you're done flirting, can we go? I'm afraid Nashi crashed a drone into the roof again."

"This isn't flirting."

"Sure it isn't." It's like talking with my mom after school all over again.

"Lead the way." Fatima grabbed my hand. She doesn't need to do that for leading to work, but she'll figure that out later.

We walked back to Tamiyo's home without incident.

"What's your homeplane like?"

"Boring. Painfully boring. We have zero fucking magic. None, nada, cero. It's all science and technology. If I lived in an era when anything was happening, I'd say it's not boring. But nothing fucking happens. Outside there being yet another war in the Middle East I guess, but there is always a war in the Middle East, so that's still a nothing happens feature. "

"So, it's just Kaladesh." Everytime I hear Kaladesh my brain keeps yelling that I'm saying the wrong name, but that's literally what the Consulate named everything, how could that be wrong? I'll have to look into that one of these days.

"Yeah, but we grind up dinosaur bones to fuel everything instead of aether. It's like whatever Gastal was like pre-apocalypse."

"That doesn't sound boring."

"Oh, but it is. We have no sapient species beyond humans, and the most dangerous animals are boars and hippos. It's the most baby mode plane in the multiverse. Except…"

I materialized the one piece of the puzzle I hated speaking about.

"A gauntlet?"

"This is a weird soulbound artifact native to my home world. This is the one piece of magic back home, and I have no fucking idea where it is from or why it exists. It's the one thing that doesn't fit a single thing I said just now, and yet there's not a single fucking reference to anything like it in history or mythology. And it's not a one-off, I have seen other ones. It's just so fucking weird, I can't find a single fucking thing about these things when I can read conspiracy theories about lizard people in the government. That one, I'm pretty sure, is false, though."

"What does the gauntlet do?"

"It doubles my power every time I activate it. It used to only be once until it wears off, but I eventually fixed the problem preventing me from using it multiple times. And I added a couple other features for good measure."

"You do artifice?"

"I dabble in many fields."

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

"Shit, I need to go home. I'll probably see you at the next one of these."

And there goes the sudden burst of texts once I return home. Cell service doesn't go past orbit, let alone beyond the universe. Every time I get home, my phone acts like it finally has signal again and front loads all the notifications at once.

Serafall Lev

I need to vent

My dad's going to be dead in five years

Everyone i know thinks we're dating

My sister isn't ready to lead our house

You Flowers for Algernon'd my tastebuds

Please dont block I need to talk to people that don't suck

I hate my coworkers

Morons can't do anything right like at all

Also thank you so much for the DVDs and the advice you gave about So-tan I think it worked

BTW one of my useless friends/coworkers showed up while I was watching Sailor Moon with my family and the music was amazing

It destroyed all his dreams he deserved it

He thought he was talented at music

He's reallllly not

Damn. I have to respond to that drunken mess.

I'm quitting alcohol.Last edited: Aug 31, 2025 Like ReplyReport Reactions:ghostreaderm, Kido5217, Eduba-san and 646 othersDarkchespinAug 28, 2025NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter 5: Mr. Worldwide New View contentDarkchespinAnaheim Electronics TechnicianNov 10, 2025NewAdd bookmark#338Our trip was complicated to say the least. One month and a ton of different countries. I don't know how my parents plan to see everything. I have the advantage of not needing to sleep most of the time, and being able to perform time magic to get in the proper amount of sleep at unreasonable speeds. Then again, they're close to retirement. Maybe it's a scouting thing for trips later in life?

We were starting in the United Kingdom. I did know of the place, if only tangentially due to history class. That was one of the classes actually unique to this Earth, so it is the one I paid attention to. Being who I was, I didn't pay attention in classes I had learned at one of the hundred odd schools of magic I'd been to. After all, outside a couple edge cases like Xerex, math and science were consistent enough even if the exact numbers change.

England was vaguely similar to Eldraine and Lorwynn weirdly enough, well historically speaking it was anyway. Modern Britain was like none of the planes I'd been to. Most of the buildings were old rustic aesthetic with a ton of relatively newer buildings mixed in between them, and I know from history class that is from rebuilding after the blitz. An intentional rebuild of the city to keep older architectural landmarks the same is different from a continuation of older architectural styles. There was some genuinely new stuff mixed in as well, but those were skyscrapers which are the most mid buildings ever of all time. Not knocking them or anything, but the ones back home always look incomplete with the square roofs.

The ones here did at least try to make skyscrapers cool. There's the weird spiral cucumber looking one, the walkie-talkie, and the vase. These are at least more interesting than just another variation of a rectangular prism. Then again, most prism style buildings are just for corporate drones, so maybe it's a warning to turn back or whatever. Unfortunately, they fixed the building that apparently used to melt cars.

Kamigawa's cities were superficially similar to the more modern aspects of London, and Earth cities as a whole, but we both had no major connection to spirits and weren't in the cyberpunk era just yet. Also we didn't get cool city features like Boseiju standing as tall as the skyscrapers or flying cities like Otawara with the water flowing down from them or energy flowing lights on every building. Even something simple like trees growing out of walls don't happen outside of art installations.

It's not that surprising though. Earth generally was in a weird middle ground technologically between every other plane. You had more advanced ones like Kamigawa and Kylem, and ones far further behind like Innistrad or Belenon. I guess that's a response to how… dead we are magically. We have like seven mages, and all of them are planeswalkers. There's nothing else. Maybe the sample size of a single city and quite a few nearby towns is too small, but out of three million people, I saw nothing suggesting magic existed. Even Kaladesh, one of the least magical planes in existence, has more than that. Magic was a known quantity in society, even if it was extremely rare.

Here, what people call magic is just sleight of hand, a trick. A fun skill for sure, but it wasn't magical in the slightest. Magic's a children's fantasy, not a real thing worthy of discussion. Every magic show I've been to had nothing of substance, every history of magic documentary and piece of evidence I've looked into was a complete bust. The Leylines are incredibly undertapped too, so it's not like I can track magic that way either.

It's not like I had much time to look, either. Between school, exploring the multiverse, learning magic across the multiverse, searching for artifacts, learning artifice, fighting against a dozen extraplanar threats, finding media that doesn't suck ass and sound like nails on chalkboard to watch with my friends, the search for magic just hasn't been a big priority since I was like seven. It's not like I was bad at sensing magic back then, either, so my old conclusions are probably correct.

Unless every single scrap of magic is hiding in a pocket dimension I missed or are at the concealment level of the Dimir, there's just nothing telling me that magic exists at all out here. Sort of like the Edge and its limited magic, but at least they have spaceships. Outside the soul artifacts that some people have anyway. They're the one wrinkle in all this. I only know there is more than one of these things because Ayesha has one too, and she's a fellow walker.

The artifacts are annoying. They're clearly designed to connect to something, but it's just not there anymore. I can't tell why that's the case. Is the system they originate from broken, or did leaving the plane disconnect it? I can't tell, and certainly can't figure out how to reconnect them. Whoever made these things did not leave notation on what the fuck these things do or how they're made. It made reverse engineering them such a fucking pain in the ass.

I did pivot from trying to find magic to exploring this mystery, but all I get is new dead ends and questions. I didn't have the ability to sense these, so I had to spend time figuring that out, and hoping using the only two examples I knew of would lead me down the right path. As far as I can tell, it either did not, or these things are so rare that looking into detecting them was a waste of time.

I'm of the opinion those artifacts have to be some old walker's project. It's the only way their sheer lack of existence in history could be justified otherwise. An artifact deployment program targeting embers is something I believe could happen. It's probably some test Urza did and forgot about.

Fucking lazy dickhead Urza.

And if I'm wrong, does it really even matter? If there is some secret magical society hiding from everyone, what does that change for me if I never find it? The answer is actually jack fucking shit. This plane is practically magicless, so it might as well be if they're hiding from everyone. Unless the apocalypse is started by some secret cabal of wizards, it doesn't matter, and if they try that, I'll show them exactly why Bolas isn't around anymore.

I'm getting distracted again.

England was fine. There's a lot of rain, but that's not that bad. Shenmeng has far worse rain than this. The landmarks were okay. I liked the Eye. I've always been a sucker for Ferris wheels, and this is one that makes use of the modern aesthetic I associate with home. The Tower of London was just an old fort. I could literally planeswalk to several exactly like it whenever I want, and it'd probably be in better condition. I'm not knocking it, but the charm of old castles doesn't carry as much weight when you have been in like a thousand of them. Especially if you've almost been executed in a few of them.

I looked over at my parents. "Mom, where are we going next?"

"The British Museum." Mom smiled.

"Isn't that the place with all the stolen artifacts?" Not that I can judge them, I was friends with Dack Fayden. We stole so much stuff together. With me as the distraction, Dack could steal practically anything. And what I did with Dack was nothing compared to all the grave robing I've done with that one egotistical kleptomaniac.

I really, I just really miss Dack. He, maybe if I had been faster, or I could have just come up with a better plan, maybe he'd still be… No, no use beating myself over this again.

Dad was looking away from us at some buildings. "Yes."

Mom looked at me, concern clear on her face. "You okay David? Is something wrong?"

"I'm fine mom." I replied.

"David, you don't look fine."

"Well, I am now, are we going to British Grave Robbing Museum or not?" I smiled.

"Good. I really wanted to go to the British Museum."

"Not that I'm against museums, but why're you so excited about this anyway?" I'll steal something in honor of Dack. Fuck the wine collector though, I'm not stealing shit in his name.

"My degree was in history." Huh, I didn't know that.

"I thought it was law?" Dad chimed in.

"That was in law school. My undergraduate studies were in history."

"Then why don't you like watching documentaries with me?"

"You watch Ancient Aliens. That's not a documentary."

"I watch it to make fun of them. The hoops they jump through to explain basic stuff are entertaining."

"Yeah, I guess they are." Mom shrugged.

"You know David if you wanna take a look at anything or go on ahead you can just meet back up with us later, your mother and I will be going at our own pace.

"That sounds good. I've had a hankering to look at the roman exhibbit."

The collection here wasn't worth stealing. Sure, art is worth a lot, and gold is always expensive, but that's not why you steal stuff. With Dack we stole mostly items with mystical power. He did it to steal the spells in them, I did it to figure out how they worked. That was massively useful to my eventual ability to work on my dumb soul artifact, and it helped me figure out how to replace it.

Most of this stuff was statues and art, and they didn't even have the decency to be magical. The few cool looking items that weren't stupidly massive like goblets were also not very magical.

These could be fakes, though. That one museum on Cappena had display relics that were just fakes to hide the real ones elsewhere. Given Heist movies are a genre of film, I would be foolish to assume that's not the case here.

I can't exactly touch the thing to check. Go long range psychometry spell. Dack had this ability as an inherent power, like Jace's mentalist powers, but that doesn't mean you couldn't make a spell to do something similar if not better than that.

Mental acceleration fused with the ability to see the past of an object was a great intelligence gathering tool.

Let's see, made back in 1988 by some decent forgers… ahah, the original was taken by…

That's weird. Why would it be taken by the Golden Dawn? Those guys have like zero political power.

I only knew about that organization from when I looked into the magic of Earth. Nothing fascinating came up from my internet searches, mostly sleight of hand types and old religious orders who seemed perfectly mundane. I was so disappointed by the modern era that I didn't even bother looking into older legends. The Golden Dawn were a bunch of charlatans who couldn't cast for shit, and had already fallen apart before my grandparents were born. The fact they apparently could just steal an artifact from the British Museum is… bizarre. Especially after their heyday, the group mostly broke apart sometime in 1930 with its final remnants dissolving in like the 60s. What would a faded secret society want with a paleolithic axe?

This warrants investigation.

The backrooms probably have at least something of value, whether that be inventory logs, or something that hasn't been replaced with a fake yet. The issue is getting out of the tour crowd without anyone noticing. You can't just turn invisible in the middle of a crowd, that leaves evidence in the camera footage. What you can do, is utterly befuddle everyone by both turning invisible and leaving a perfect illusion of yourself in the exact same spot simultaneously.

This trick isn't the best tactic, but I'm not sensing anything that can detect me.

I do kind of regret leaving the tour behind, but this is way more interesting. I'll find out what the tour was about when I absorb the illusion anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Walls are not an issue either. Intangibility is a common enough spell that I have loads of methods to do it. I personally prefer Kaya's method. Something about being ghostly just tickles my fancy.

That sounded way too British. I need to go to WcRonalds or something to be more American. No, McDonald's. I'm not settling for this world's dollar store version of fast food.

I just realized I have no fucking clue where loading or inventory are. Damn. I'll just search everywhere then.

Painting room. Skip.

Coins, yeah no.

Here's something, Paleolithic Archives. It's just a fuck ton of shelves, but that makes this super easy to work with. You have to find the thing I stole in a collection of tens of thousands of artifacts.

Is anything here particularly interesting? As a historian with a few degrees from Lorehold college, yes. You can learn many things from the past if you pay attention. Admittedly, historians here can't just ask a spirit what something was used for, but they did learn some things even without that massive advantage.

Most of this is rocks. I'm truly shocked. The Paleolithic exhibits having a ton of rocks? Who'd have guessed?

Hold on. That axe feels weird. In a metaphysical way, not a degradation over time way.

What?

No.

It can't be.

That's a magic item. Extremely primitive for sure, but it's definitely magical.

I don't know how to feel about this. Like, this is the missing link to me. Knowing that magic was a thing for even a second is great, but…

How the fuck did we forget magic if fucking cavemen knew how to do it?!? Not knocking the cavemen for being idiots or anything, but that is pretty goddamn weird.

Calm down. I have psychometry. I can figure out what's relevant here.

Let's go back slowly.

Study by regular scientists, then back in the drawer. Keeps repeating until 1991. Here is… yeah, that's magical society. I can feel the magic through the memory incredibly easily. So much so that I could probably use psychometry on stuff in this memory, and that usually isn't possible.

Go further back, and 1989, yeah. This is the object the Golden Dawn took. The fake looks like shit if this is the original. Pushing forward again showed the Dawn clearly researching this ancient magic with confusion. I don't see what's so weird about it, and the people in the memory aren't confused by the existence of magic, they're confused about the specific type of magic.

I don't see the hubbub, this is a very simple enchantment. Formed from paying homage to the spirits of the world in order to be sharper and chip less easily. I didn't even need psychometry to figure this out, the magic on the axe told me more than enough to understand what's going on.

Maybe they use a wholly unknown system to me, and that's why they're having issue with fundamentally simple magic. It wouldn't be the first time a style of magic is so far removed from the present it would be unintelligible to the people of the present. Magic from Archavios' Blood War generally had this same problem, even though documentation of it was still in the Biblioplex under heavy lock and key. Sure, that's entirely because of it being classified by the Founders who took great pains to make sure most examples aren't in the wild anymore, but I've read that shit. They made the correct call in locking that shit up.

This naturally can't be the case here if the locals are willingly researching it, but whatever.

The methodology was also weirdly archaic despite a surface level appearance of refinement. There were computers, but they were almost entirely pure engineering off the feeling I was getting, the magic investigation was done by hand. Did they not figure out sufficient artifice yet, or was that a mechanic of their local magic?

I said local magic because I was having issues sensing it. That did sometimes happen when I was encountering a wholly new magic system. Sakura did shit I couldn't sense for a bit until my senses adjusted to the new sensation. There was clearly more going on here, though. The spell itself was actively trying to make itself undetectable to observation. Not to preserve the sample or anything which would make sense, but to hide it was happening at all.

I don't understand why so much is being put into hiding this magic in their own base. You should have wards for hiding from others, there shouldn't be a reason to hide the magic within every spell. That's only done by organizations like the Dimir, and they only do it because their fucking entire thing is secrecy and information control.

Are… are these guys literally just the Dimir then? No. They're researching magic in a government sponsored context. I can literally see the handoff being treated as a genuine thing by the representative of the museum, who just said, "The crown signed off on this."

Wait, the fucking British Government knows magic exists? Not only that, the fucking limp dick monarchy knows? The monarchy, which has barely any political power, knows about magic.

Am I walking through a conspiracy now? Is the crown actually in control and everything I learned in school a lie?

Wait, wouldn't that mean every colony that successfully broke away knows about magic? I can't imagine the tactical advantage of magic not deciding literally every war forever. Does that mean I somehow missed everywhere having magic?

Am I just that bad at sensing magic?

I configured a quick spell to detect whatever it is the Golden Dawn spell was like.

PING PING PING.

That's a lot of shit. Most of it pinging weakly as well.

I need to check those artifacts, but first I need to pick up this one. I may not have the authority to take this legally, but it was worth studying for its historical significance and for what I can glean from it about modern magic.

The last step of a good theft is leaving behind fakes. Unless you were doing it to make a point, in which case you leave a calling card. Magic once again was stupidly useful. Recreating objects entirely with magic was not easy, but I'm the type to learn hard spells for the funny. Most of what I was stealing was boringly simple objects, so it wasn't super time-consuming or difficult. High level artifacts were pains, an ancient axe which had the earliest proto-enchantment in Earth history wasn't high level.

There were a couple other items here too. A couple early pieces of jewelry, old bone charms, stuff like that. Most of these had also been studied by the golden dawn over the years, with them getting frustrated at a lack of understanding of them.

Whatever magic they use has definitely limited their minds on what's possible then.

Unfortunately, this isn't the end of the mission. Stealing is fun, but now I actually have a reason to do this.

Most of the pings came from the more modern storage centers based on the map I'd pilfered from a nearby desk, but I needed a better picture of when the shift happened.

That means going back era by era.

First has to be Neolithic storage.

Most of the stuff here was more or less identical to what was found in the Paleolithic section. The magic was of a more refined quality, but it was still incredibly primitive by my standards. This stuff however wasn't entirely studied by the golden dawn.

One piece, a ceremonial dagger used to appease local spirits originating from Scotland based on the inventory data, was studied by a German organization called Rozenkruzer.

Great, now there's a second group in this conspiracy for sure. Now I'll have to look into even more shit.

After that, everything moved to geographical storage centers, which is annoying. What a terrible storage system. Pick a theme and stick to it.

Fuck it, let's try British stuff. That's close to where I am right now.

Ok. I have a preliminary date for whatever shifted magic. Five hundred AD. Earlier magic was much more detectable than this.

Ok, so it's the fact literally all the magic made after five hundred AD are hyper specialized to hiding themselves. At least European magic, anyway. The new method seems to have become adopted practically overnight for some reason.

What possible event could force this sort of culture to exist?

These objects were a lot more annoying. No real connection to modern supernaturals, which is an unfortunate dead end, but the creation of them was interesting. This was presumably the prototypical version of modern magic, and while it was more detectable, it was still a weird sensation that took a second to properly grab onto.

It's like what I had to do when I first learned to detect magic. Actively look for what it feels like until it becomes second nature.

I'd needed to do the same thing for the aether on Kaladesh back in the day. Maybe this was a similar thing? It might use a different energy source or something.

Why did I never consider that before? Hubris?

Or was I just lying to myself? I kept putting off the search for other things after all. Was I just doing that to keep up the illusion that my home was safe? That I could relax here instead of dealing with everything happening around me?

Or maybe I'm overthinking it. I missed something, big deal. It's not the end of the world. Sometimes you just don't learn about things. I missed out on a ton of information the first time I was on Ravnica because I didn't know about the Ismeri Library.

Everything else in my haul was a non-magical fake, or something funny to me, like ancient toys.

Just as a little thing to mess with the thieves if they were still around, the fakes I stole were replaced with things that were similar to what they replaced. They won't be 1-1 with the originals given, I had to observe them through the memories connected to other objects, but this is to send a subtle message.

And hopefully have them take one for analysis so I could triangulate their base.

And so I slipped back into the crowd my parents were in, taking the place of my frankly overengineered illusion spell designed for situations like this. I did have the decency to edit the security footage to no longer show me. No one deserved to be fired for incompetence when they were dealing with the best thief in the multiverse. Even if that title is only mine by default.

Maybe I should liberate a few more baubles from the other museums here in the United Kingdom, just to see what is going on with these guys while I'm still here.

__________________________________________________________________________

POV Seraphina David's Mom

This place was incredable! Every time we go somewhere here, it's just spectacular.

"I should have taken you here years ago, honey." My husband Elijah spoke up.

"You should've taken us out somewhere. We never get out nowadays, not since we got married, but yeah It's wonderful, isn't it." I spoke before kissing him on the cheek.

"David's clearly enjoying himself too." Our son was looking at a bunch of the exhibits in Bentley Priory. I didn't know he was that interested in WWII history. Then again, he's been pretty invested in all the museums we've visited today.

"Yeah, Doctor Moroni was right, getting him away from home was the right call." I replied calmly.

"He's been in the game a long time. Trust that my friends know what they're doing."

"I've never met any of them outside Moroni. How can I trust that it'll be fine?" I pouted.

Elijah put his hand behind his head. "I'm not a terrible judge of character."

"You married me." I joked.

"Ha ha, very funny, but I'm serious."

"Hey dad?" David spoke up after having been transfixed by an exhibit on the London Blitz.

"Yeah son?" Elijah took a step towards David.

"Do you ever feel like some of these things happened for no reason?"

"I don't understand the question."

"Hypothetically, what if the British had better answers to the bombings than just scrambling other fighters, and they just didn't use them?"

"They didn't son." He looked away while responding.

"Mom, do you have any opinions on this?"

"If they did, there must have been a reason not to use it." Like royals being stingy cousin fuckers. "Also, that's someone not doing something they should for no reason, not doing something for no reason."

"Alright." He shrugged.

With that, he went back to staring at the model Hurricane behind the glass.

"Why'd he ask that?" Honey, why are you acting like it's important?

"It's not that strange. This is a museum about military tactics, questioning them is kind of the point of learning them." The way he phrased the question did suggest he knew something specific they could have done, but it's probably something that only is visible in hindsight.

"Since when are you a WWII expert?" he asked, confused.

"My undergrad work was on the civil war, and I had to reference these sorts of places often."

"You don't defend a thesis for undergrad work."

"I studied at Vanderbilt. We had a ton of these places around, so they made us look at them a bit too often. I think the university had a deal with those places or something."

"Ahh. I'm surprised we never really talked about this before."

"When's the last time you talked about your life before med school and after you graduated from high school?" Something happened back then, I wish you could just tell me. Not that I have a leg to stand on.

There are some things best left in the past.

"Touché."

"Look, he's taking notes on the tactics." I tried to redirect the conversation.

"Why though? Most of that stuff is invalidated by long range missiles and drones."

"Historical tactics don't need to directly inform modern ideas."

"I'm just concerned. He's never expressed an interest in joining the military or studying history before now."

"This is better than the silence." I was referring to the ending of the worst part of my life.

__________________________________________________________________________

A Few Days Later, David POV

Unfortunately for me, the rest of Britain was rather boring. After the first guided tour of a castle, the rest became repetitive. The first time at least was new. Every time I've been in a castle, it was still in use. Stonehenge was also nice. There was definitely some mystical property to the place beyond being built on a leyline like most other important places, but it's near impossible to tell what specifically was the point given how long it had gone unmaintained.

The trip was only worth it because I was with my parents and my theft spree.

I'd been hitting a lot of places, banks, museums, ancient castles among other sites. I'd noticed some attempts at magical defenses, but they were beyond paltry. There's been no evidence of anyone actually being posted to stop me, but the existence of new magical defenses did at least tell me they were still around.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything further on the Golden Dawn. Those thieves either used old boxes that hadn't been relabeled, or they'd really gone to ground. Not that I expected to find anything, I was looking into a 40-year-old cold case. If I'd found something in a cursory investigation that lasted like three days, I'd be pissed because that organization clearly wasn't worth the effort to track. I could probably scry something, but that's cheating. I have to practice non-magical skills, or I won't learn anything. Besides, they probably have protection against scrying if they're this paranoid about being detected at all.

I did learn of a couple other organizations, though. MI6 definitely had a magic division, for instance. Which says… something. I did find information on a few more organizations, though. Grauzauberer, Hexennacht, and Rosenkreuzer were the most common I'd seen, but there were smaller ones like Nilrem. And one was just vaguely Norwegian? I didn't catch the name of that one.

All in all, clearly we had mages. But I couldn't figure out the big mystery of why they'd gone to ground. At first, maybe I thought they couldn't do much or whatever, but they're in government positions. That has to come with relevance. At minimum, that means they're useful in a military or intelligence gathering way, which should mean a level of public awareness of them. But it just doesn't exist.

They also can't logically be the shadow government. More than four different organizations and at least the British government having knowledge means by proxy every major former British colony should know of this too. Like, that can't be a shadow government with that many other people involved. And that ignores the fact that you'd eventually get inbreeding issues if there isn't new blood inducted often enough.

My current theory is that some extremely powerful individual must have forced this to happen. I don't know why, but it does kinda fit everything I know. It'd take, like, a full pantheon's worth of gods to do this, or maybe an extremely powerful planeswalker. They have to still exist, though, otherwise this couldn't be the state of the present, so that cuts the prime suspect out of the equation.

For once, Bolas didn't do it.

I'm back at square one.

But that's fine though.

I have time to figure this out and a few angels with nothing better to do.