There were gods that suffered a fundamental change to their beings once they ascended to divinity. Cale had been worried that Seer would be one of these, but that didn’t seem to be the case. When his shadow descended upon them, he was less an unfeeling avatar of the Black Vault and more… well, a contrite and apologetic man.
Which did match up with what Cale suspected Seer really was: a man who had been isolated in the Black Vault for what must have amounted to thousands of years, unable to do anything except observe the Great Realms through the lens of the Nothing. It wasn’t particularly surprising, then, that that lens had been particularly fixated on Cale, nor that Seer’s only available hobby had evolved into a sort of obsession.
In the end, it was the Nothing’s fixation on Cale that had allowed Seer to find his way back to the entrance of the Black Vault. Though Seer had melded with the Vault over the centuries and learned to control many of its functions, it was by its very nature an endless realm of void.
And the ability to open and shut a door mattered very little when one did not know where the door was.
Once Cale stayed in the Black Vault for long enough, though, the path toward him became clear. Even then Seer had been hesitant to approach, though for a more understandable reason than he had first admitted.
“I have not spoken with a single soul in eons,” the shade-god admitted. “Seeing so many crowded around the entrance to the Vault was—overwhelming.”
Cale raised an eyebrow. “You were overstimulated? You’ve been watching me, though.”
“It is different when I am there,” Seer defended, though there was little heat in his voice. “And I no longer remember how to speak to mortals.”
Cale laughed at that. “He opened by telling me I was too much of a risk to the Realms to let out of the Black Vault, and told me he was going to keep me here unless he judged me worthy,” he explained to his apprentices, who seemed amused at the mere idea.
“Good luck trapping Cale in the void with you for a thousand years,” Flia said. “I’d give it a month before you let him out, and even then, only because you’ve been watching him for… what was it?”
“Eons,” Seer said, now with a distinct note of embarrassment.
“And you see everything he does?”
“Almost.”
“Maybe two months,” Flia decided. “But not a good plan, either way.”
“I am aware of that now.” Seer shuffled his feet nervously, a rather impressive feat for a shade-god that did not, in fact, currently have any feet. “It was reckless to call your opponents back into reality the way I did. I am… sorry. For the distress I have caused.”
Cale shrugged. “People have done worse to me for worse reasons,” he said, and something in his voice softened just slightly. “Besides, as much as that sucked… a part of me does appreciate seeing him again. And I think I might understand the Nothing a little more, now.”
“Indeed.” Seer’s voice turned wistful. “My understanding now is greater than it has ever been. To be a god of my own domain, yet to be bound to nothing—to the Nothing—it is not what I expected. I do not yet know what I can do.”
“It won’t last,” Cale cautioned.
“It may last longer than you believe.” Seer hesitated briefly. “Time in the Vault was subject to my whims, even before I was granted this power. I could… stretch it, perhaps. Remain a god in this domain.”
“Do you want to?” Cale asked. His apprentices were looking at one another, probably rightfully worried about what that could mean.
“I do not know,” Seer said, which at least meant he wasn’t about to turn into some power-hungry tyrant. “It is difficult to explain, but I feel it may be important to hold on to this power. Would you not agree?”
It seemed Seer had caught some glimpse of the same truth Cale had, in the moment he had opened that gate to the Nothing. Cale fell silent for long enough that Damien started to look concerned; before he could say anything, though, Cale sighed. “You might be right about that,” he muttered, though he looked rather troubled. “Something awaits beyond the veil…”
“What?” Damien asked, alarmed. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing bad,” Cale assured his apprentice quickly. “I would’ve felt it if it was. I just had a strong feeling that there’s something… waiting. In the Nothing.”
“That still sounds ominous,” Leo pointed out.
“It’s not waiting in an evil way,” Cale said. “Trust me. Live long enough and you’ll be able to tell whether something is waiting ominously or not. It’s basically a survival skill for immortals.”
To Cale’s abject dismay, his apprentices glanced at him, then turned to Seer for confirmation. It was only when the shade-god nodded in agreement that they sighed with relief.
“Fine,” Flia said. “But if you’re wrong about this…”
“Why are you trusting Seer’s word over mine?” Cale complained. “He just tried to trap me here forever! I mean, I forgive you for that, but still—”
“We’re not,” Damien assured him, patting Cale on the shoulder. “We’re going to check with Headmaster Akkau too. Seer has spent too long around you for us to completely trust him.”
Cale grumbled. What was that supposed to mean? His sense of scale was perfectly trustworthy.
Still, the most important thing here was that by some miracle, they were all intact. Even Irides, who staggered drunkenly out of his ritual circle before Seer caught him and carried him gently back toward them; the fellrune raised a runeline to point weakly at Cale, tried to mutter something, then gave up and flopped weakly back into the shade-god’s arms.
“You know,” Cale said. “We could use your help managing the Black Vault so I don’t have to stay in here all the time, and you’re going to need to learn how to interact with people again eventually. What do you say? Want to become a sort of guardian deity? We’ll need to figure out how to maintain the divine void if you’re going to stay a god, but—”
“I can do that,” Seer said immediately, not even letting Cale finish the sentence. “Irides figured out how to do that. Just now.”
“…Just now?” Cale glanced skeptically at the unconscious fellrune lying in Seer’s arms.
“Just now,” Seer said. “He is my worshipper. I can borrow his intellect. We can sustain the paradox with a ritual.”
“Alright, then,” Cale said, shaking his head. “No, don’t tell me the details, paradox magic is just going to give me a headache. I’ve tried to understand it before. One time I reincarnated trying to understand it, do you know that? I’m not sure what happened, but I’m pretty sure I thought so hard I died.”
Leo glanced at Flia. “…Do you think he’s telling the truth?”
“You’re asking me?” Flia shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“I could believe it,” Syphus said thoughtfully. “I’ve always thought that thinking could be dangerous. It’s why I prefer shooting magic at things.”
“You realize you shot magic at something that could have killed us all, right?” Damien asked Syphus, who shrugged.
“It did not,” it said simply.
And that was how they exited the Black Vault—still bantering with one another, but safe and sound, with a new guardian deity watching over the void realm.
“Hey,” Cale said, pausing just at the entrance, after his apprentices had left. Seer hovered protectively over him, but startled and jerked backward when Cale looked up at him. “We’re going to need a new name for you, I think. Can’t keep calling you Seer if you’re going to be the god of this place… that, and I don’t want anyone asking you why you’re calling yourself that. No one needs to know you were staring at me for eons.”
“Oh,” Seer said. He seemed oddly excited. “You will give me a new name, then? A new title? I do not remember my own name.”
Cale paused. “Yeah, sure, why not,” he decided. “Let’s call you—”
He paused. He’d been calling all sorts of cosmic deities Bob for as long as he could remember, but unlike the others, Seer would know if he just went for his default option.
“Ecibhor,” Cale said, thinking quickly. “Guardian-God of the Vault.”
Ecibhor bowed deeply. “Thank you,” he whispered, looking emotional. Cale nodded at him, then fled before his new friend could think too hard about how he’d gotten that name.
It was no surprise, Cale supposed, that his apprentices had questions. He had questions, too, and it was far past time to get some answers. A lot had happened, it seemed, while he had been trapped in the Black Vault.
First things first, Cale pulled up the spell description for Sourcefire.
[Sourcefire, Level MAX] [Twentieth Tier, Active (Unique)] [1.0e100 Mana]
Ignite an ember of the Source of Magic upon a target vessel.
…It was, alas, not nearly as illuminating as he had hoped.
The description confirmed that the spell had something to do with the true Source, at least, if the sheer amount of mana the spell consumed wasn’t an indication on its own. No wonder he had been exhausted after that duel. Cale suspected that was very close to his true limit, and between that and what he had done to forge Rulebreaker, it was no surprise that he had been out of commission for a few days.
If anything, it was surprising that it hadn’t been longer.
Cale had hoped it was a spell that simply sounded like it was related to the Source. There were a great number of mages that named their spells after the greatest magical mysteries, after all, and there were countless spells named after the Source in particular.
[Spark of the Source], for example, had been developed by some mage who believed he had discovered a way to tap into the Source. In reality, he had tapped into a leyline while under the effects of several hallucinogens, and the name had stuck, mostly as a way to tease him. Then there were spells like [Source Spirit], or [Source Well], both of which claimed to commune with the Source in some way but in fact simply made contact with entities of the Outer Planes that mimicked the Source…
That was a problem, actually. The entities pretending to be the Source were rarely good, and the mages that made contact with that were very often driven mad.
In any case, Cale trusted the Gift’s descriptions of spells, which meant that [Sourcefire] was in fact an actual spell that tapped into the Source. But what did “igniting an ember of the Source” even mean? It wasn’t nearly enough information for him to work with when it came to casting the spell. He didn’t want to accidentally set Utelia on fire and turn it into a replacement Source or something.
He sighed. He was going to have to interrogate the Gift about this.
“Cale,” Flia said. “You need to stop doing that thing where we ask you a question and then you stare at the Gift and contemplate things in complete silence for fifteen minutes.”
“I have a lot on my mind!” Cale complained, though he grinned at Flia to show he appreciated being pulled out of his own head. “Uh, I don’t remember what you were asking.”
“We wanted to know what the deal was with that guy,” Leo said. “Not Seer. Or, uh, Ecibhor now, I guess? The other one. Valev-yetah.”
“Also, are you okay?” Damien chimed in. “Because it looked really personal, and, um…”
“It was a good speech, but you did also admit to spending every waking moment dwelling on how dangerous you are,” Flia said dryly. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t be worried about what you can do, because… I mean, obviously. But we’re a little concerned about the ‘every waking moment’ part.”
“You paid attention to all that, huh?” Cale felt mildly embarrassed. “I mean, it’s fine. It’s in the back of my mind, it’s not consuming my thoughts or anything.”
“There’s a difference between being aware of what you can do and dwelling on it,” Damien insisted, poking him in the arm. “I think all the stuff you said to, um, Valev-yetah, was it? I think you were right, and the stuff you said was important, but it sounds kind of like you hate yourself, and you’re not allowed to do that.”
“I’m not allowed, huh?” Cale raised an eyebrow.
“Nope.” Damien shook his head fiercely, and the rest of Cale’s apprentices followed, much to Cale’s bemusement.
“Well,” Cale said, “I can’t really get over centuries of ingrained trauma just because my apprentices say so, no matter how cute they are, but I can agree to try my very best.”
Damien exchanged glances with the rest of his apprentices, for some reason. It was only when they all gave him a slight nod that he turned back to Cale and nodded. “Good enough,” he declared.
“That’s it?” Cale asked. “You don’t have any other questions?”
Damien shrugged. “We’ll listen if you have anything else you want to tell us, but it seems kind of personal? We didn’t really want to push.”
“Also, I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m pretty sure that terrifying eldritch greater-than-Monoliths monster moaned when you bit him, and I don’t know if I want to know anything more about that,” Flia said, her tone still perfectly dry. Cale managed to choke on air.
“I—no he did not—” Cale tried to protest, but his apprentices were already moving on.
“It’s probably more important to update you on what’s happening at Brightscale, anyway,” Flia said, glancing toward Leo. “The Red Hunters came by while you were gone.”
“What?” Cale immediately snapped to attention, his embarrassment forgotten. He’d sensed Leo’s secondary core and the advancements his apprentice had made with his magic, but he hadn’t stopped to consider what could have catalyzed that transformation. And given it was Leo who had grown…
He could guess at what had happened, and the looks on his apprentices’ faces confirmed it. “Leo?”
“Yeah,” Leo said quietly, looking down. “It’s alright. I’ve made my peace with it.”
“Okay, if I’m getting called out, I’m not letting you get away with that,” Cale said sternly. “I’m sure that you have, one way or another, but it’s rarely that simple, is it? It leaves a mark.”
“It does,” Leo admitted. He glanced back up to meet Cale’s eyes. “I am at peace with it, but it still… it still sucks, you know? I hoped they would be better. I wanted them to be better.”
There were murmurs of agreement. “Well,” Cale said. “Not that this is going to make it any better, and this is probably a bad time to give this to you, but…”
He pulled a notebook out of his pocket. “I do wish they were better, too,” he said. “And maybe they will be one day, but it’s not your job to get them there. Akkau will find out what he can about the Grand Magus from them. He’s got the excuse, now that they attacked you. And in the meantime, you’re always going to have us.”
Leo opened the notebook, and Cale grinned a little when his eyes widened, first in surprise, and then with emotion. It was a tally of Leo’s points for all the accomplishments that Cale had pretended to forget to give him points for, yes, but it wasn’t only that.
Cale had known Leo would figure out what he was doing, so he’d asked for a little help. Annotated in that notebook were observations from all of Leo’s friends and professors, each one in their own handwriting awarding him with a number of points—for being a good friend, for helping them with their magic, or for answering questions in class when Cale hadn’t been around.
“Oh,” Leo said softly. He hugged the notebook to his chest. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Cale smiled at his apprentice.
They spoke for a while more, making plans in soft murmurs, but before long Cale could tell his apprentices were too tired to really get into it. It would be best, he decided, if they called it an early night. They had enough on their minds anyway—Leo wanted to work on sealing away the Nothing, now that he had the pieces of a spell that could potentially target it; Flia wanted to seek out the Grand Magus; Syphus needed to master its new eye. Damien…
Well, Damien was waiting on Cale to take him to see the Source of Vitality. Strangely enough, seeing Valev-yetah again had eased something within Cale. He no longer dreaded the idea of seeing Vital again.
He’d take his apprentices out tomorrow, he decided. For now, they all needed some rest, and he had a Gift to interrogate.