Sitting in the captain's chair on the bridge of his dinsion ship, Jota Withers let out a sigh. This was not the trajectory his life had been ant to take. The universe-city of Interstice was, for most practical purposes, the centre of the cosmos. Only diamond rankers were allowed entry without invitation, with gold-rankers like Jota only allowed in as nial workers. Even so, to be a resident of Interstice was to stand at the pinnacle of the cosmic order. Jota had never made it.
The population of Interstice ca from two places. One was the wider cosmos, where people ranked up in various universes before entering the cosmic community. Diamond rankers only occasionally erged from such realms, like soone from a small town making it big in the city. At the other end of the prominence spectrum were the polities that spanned multiple dinsions, like the Radiant Sovereignty and the Constel Empire. The diamond-rankers from such realms at least knew what they were getting into.
Standing above them all was the universe-city, Interstice, and the peripheral universes attached to it. Those connected realities largely existed to produce the future elites of Interstice society, dedicated to raising people to gold and ultimately diamond rank. Those who graduated the feeder programs had unparallelled knowledge, training and resources.
Few sapient species were born as gold or diamond rankers. Not even dragons, phoenixes or garuda could boast as much. In the peripheral universes of Interstice, the people born there had every advantage to help them grow strong. Staggeringly rich in ambient magic, their civilisations were advanced in knowledge of both science and the arcane. Those born into such conditions had unparallelled opportunities, with an inside line to Interstice that even citizens of the cosmic empires envied.
Jota, like everyone born in such realms, had been part of a feeder program that would ultimately lead to reaching Interstice at gold rank. To be a servant in heaven was still to stand above everyone outside it, promising a place amongst the cosmic elite on reaching diamond. The harsh reality, however, was that the success rate for such programs was infinitesimally small, most never making it to a gold-rank posting on Interstice. There was nothing stopping them from heading there on reaching diamond, but only as a normal person, not a specially grood mber of the chosen few.
Just in his solar system, let alone his entire universe, Jota had been one of trillions to fall short. Most moved on with their lives, still enjoying the massive head start their upbringing gave them. So, however, were unable or unwilling to accept their failure. Like many before him, Jota had taken his talents and abilities to the wider cosmos. Even a failure from the Interstice lesser universes was a prestigious figure on the cosmic stage, or so Jota had believed.
The reality he discovered was that the cosmos was unkind to gold-rankers. They were not built for the challenges of roaming the deep astral, operating out of high-magic universes and artificial pocket realities. It was a place for diamond rankers, astral entities and even transcendents, and a gold ranker needed to find a patron amongst them.
A patron made it possible for a gold ranker to establish themselves, acquiring the resources to operate successfully. Most important was having a backer, soone to ward off those who would see them as prey. A patron was a shelter for a gold ranker to huddle beneath until they achieved diamond rank for themselves. Until then, they were little better than servants. It was not lost on Jota that this was a reflection of Interstice itself, but without the prestige that ca with it.
Jota's arrogance over his background had cost him opportunities and taught him harsh lessons. By the ti he learned to humble himself, his choice of patrons had beco lean. He ended up in the service of a self-styled cosmic admiral who, in reality, was a pirate lord preying upon isolated worlds in astral backwaters.
Decades after Jota had left his ho universe, diamond rank seed a distant dream. His failures had impacted his path to self-realisation, stunting his advancent through gold rank. He had long ago co to terms with the fact that he would need to lay low, be diligent and slowly find his place in the cosmos. Only with that stability could he go back to the exploration of self required to advance as an essence user. That wasn't easy in the employ of 'Admiral' Aractus Jakaar.
There were rules about entering universes and the worlds within, especially those with native life. So of those rules could be nudged and others pushed, and this was the bread and butter of the Jakaar fleet. They were careful, however, on what they did and who they crossed. For all his grandiosity, Admiral Jakaar was careful to avoid the Cult of the World Phoenix. The dreaded first sister might have retired to beco a hierophant and transcend, but that did not mitigate their influence. While her successor settled into her duties, the other sisters had been aggressive in the execution of their duties.
As his dinsion ship traversed the astral, Jota wondered what the admiral had in store for him. His vessel was a rarity, being only gold rank, but that was a necessity for certain jobs. The lower the rank, the less strenuous the rules around entering universes. Jota and his gold-rank crew could go places and do things the admiral and his main forces could not.
Not wary of letting his emotions show while he was alone on the bridge, Jota sighed again. His thoughts dwelled on the next isolated backwater he would inevitably be sent off to, the latest in a long series. He told himself that he had co to terms with his shattered expectations, but the lies rang more hollow with each passing year. If he had truly reached acceptance, his progress through gold-rank wouldn't have stalled out.
***
Jason carefully placed the little plastic roof on the head of his eple like a hat, then retuned it to the hex.
"I'm building a dwelling, obviously. I'm going to use coins in place of…"
He trailed off, tilting his head as if listening for a distant noise.
"Sophie," he said. "Your mother is waking up."
***
As his dinsional vessel neared the dinsional boundary, Jota reflected on his unexpected life as a cosmic pirate. He fancifully compared it to the age of sail experienced by many primitive worlds, with universes as islands in the ocean of the deep astral. From his cultural studies, he knew that many worlds romanticised frontier eras, legendizing often elevating brief and brutal periods to beco cultural touchstones. The stories masked the harsh and grim realities behind them.
Jota's ti sailing the astral had borne this out. His arrive, like a colonial force, never served to make things better for the locals. Because of his low rank, it was always to so low-to-mid magic world where gold rankers were like god-kings. He needed only a thin pretence to satisfy the intrusion rules, then he would take the planet for all it was worth. Strip mining; people trafficking; essence seizure. It had bothered him, in the beginning, but not enough to not do it. And never that much, if he was entirely honest with himself. He was from a place so far above these little worlds that the natives might as well be animals.
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Jota signalled his bridge crew to assemble for the transition into the universe where the main Jakaar fleet was holed up. He hoped the location was sufficiently advanced this ti; he was sick of backward worlds where the use of magic had stalled out the growth of technology. The ones with all tech and no magic were just as bad, their advancent choked in the bottlenecks of physical laws that magic could neatly sidestep.
They shifted into physical reality, arriving in space at the outskirts of a solar system with no inhabitable planets. The vessel's sensors picked up extensive mining operations and a large space station orbiting a moon. Jota checked the detailed sensor logs and smiled. It wasn't everything he could hope for, but still a proper magitech station. For this far off from major traffic lanes, it was better than he expected. He confird that the fleet was docked there and directed the helmsman to rendezvous.
***
"I'm sorry that your first experience outside of my spirit realm is inside what amounts to a smaller version of my realm," Jason told lody. "The timing was unfortunate."
"It's fine," lody said, sitting up in her cloud bed. "I've been living in your soul realm all these years, and I've watched it go from an unstable pocket universe to housing a planet as solid and real as the one I was born on. I didn't feel cooped up, and now I get a whole new world to explore…"
She squeezed the hand of Sophie, sitting beside the bed.
"…with my daughter. I couldn't ask for more than that."
After her reunion with Sophie and checkup by Carlos, Arabelle and Neil, Jason had been let in to speak with her. Alongside Sophie, he had explained their current situation, travelling between worlds. After their conversation, Jason left mother and daughter alone, finding the three mbers of Healer's clergy outside her room. Carlos was a soul healing specialist, Arabelle a ntal healing specialist and Neil a traditional body specialist. After her ordeal, lody was in need of all three.
"How is she?" Jason asked.
"Better than we had any right to hope," Carlos said happily. "She's suffered extre and prolonged physical and spiritual trauma, but all signs point to a slow but full recovery."
"Her desire to explore your world with her daughter is good," Arabelle said. "Once she discovered her daughter was alive, lody's desire to reunite even overrode the brainwashing she'd gone through. She's showing healthy signs of dealing with that, with little of the obsession that drove her to push back the influence upon her. She needs ongoing care, but I'm optimistic, given the positive signs I'm seeing. Early days, though. You know yourself, Jason, that ntal recovery is neither a smooth nor short process."
"So long as she's protected," Carlos said, "I see no problem with having her roam around a low-danger world. No self-defence, though. Not using her powers, anyway. I have a strict plan for the resumption of using her abilities, to avoid any long-term spiritual damage."
"Her body is going to take ti," Neil added. "Like when you overdid it with that portal in Rimaros, the spiritual strain has rendered normal magical healing ineffective. I'd like to discuss bringing in Jory and his alchemists, since we have them with us. A more dicine-based approach might get us better results than trying to pump her full of healing magic."
Jason left them to discuss treatnt, wondering if he could get soone to take Sophie's place when he resud the board ga.
***
Aractus Jakaar was an unusual man in that his body carried a lot of fat as a quirk of his power set. He was also taller than most, making him a very large figure. He had a scraggly beard but a thick, bushy moustache. His long, greasy hair was mostly stuffed into a pointed hat that he claid pirates had historically worn on his howorld. The result was a comical appearance that Jota knew was a very bad idea to mock. He'd seen it happen and the depravities Aractus had carried out in retribution.
"This is an interesting one," the self-proclaid pirate admiral said. He was sitting behind a desk in his captain's cabin, in a chair that struggled to contain him. He tossed a file onto the desk for Jota to pick up and peruse.
"It was sealed to anyone over silver rank?" Jota read.
"Yeah. Which ans it was effectively sealed to everyone, because what silver-ranker is roaming through the astral? The World-Phoenix just opened it up to gold-rankers, though."
"If the World-Phoenix is paying attention to this place, shouldn't we avoid it? I don't want the attention of its cult to fall on us any more than you do, and that's at the best of tis. If it made a point of opening the place up, what does it know that we don't?"
"Normally, I would agree, but almost no one has a full and ready team of gold-rankers that can go after this. The new boundary is a hard line, so no diamond-rank support."
"That doesn't fill with confidence, Aractus."
"There is also the reason it was closed off in the first place. Keep reading."
Jota did as instructed.
"Reality cores?"
"Yeah. The locals have lost access to them, but with the right magic, we can start digging them out again."
"Again, I have reservations. If nothing else, wouldn't farming them destabilise a planet the World-Phoenix has put significant effort into stabilising?"
"Yes, but if we get in first and farm them up quick, we can move onto plundering other resources before it goes too far. Leave the next guy to face the wrath of the phoenix's cult."
"That still sounds risky, especially reading this background information. This universe is connected to another one. One with fewer restrictions, but even so. And the pair of them was the reason the original Builder got replaced? Which is why the reality cores are even accessible."
He dropped the file back on the table.
"The more I read, Aractus, the less I like it."
"There's risk," the admiral acknowledged. "But the rewards are worth it. Reality cores, Jota. Under normal circumstances, they're impossible to extract. Just the attempt would have the Builder cult swooping in to stop you. But this world is different, and it's been cracked like an egg. Best of all, the Builder has already been burned interfering with it. So long as we don't push our luck, we can do this. Even if we can only get a few of the cores, it's worth it."
"You an, pushing my luck."
"Don't be an idiot, Jota. You think the great astral beings will leave be if you take things too far? Look, yes, I don't like that we will get attention from both the Builder and the World-Phoenix for this. But the advantage of using only gold-rankers is that they won't be too harsh. If we go too far, they'll start with a rap on the knuckles for and I'll take you off the reality cores. Move you on more traditional exploitation while everyone else either watches with envy or draws the ire of the cults away from us."
Jota's sigh was unhappy but resigned.
"What's our pretence?" he asked. "With this much attention, we'll need to follow the rules on this one. Nudging our way around the letter of the law is trouble we can't afford, here."
"Ah, now, this is the beautiful part. Keep reading."
Jota picked the file back up and skimd forward while Aractus continued to explain.
"The locals have an issue. Of these two worlds, soone got sucked off the more restricted one and sent to the other."
"An outworlder."
"Yeah. That was a couple of years ago, and now he's apparently heading back."
"With more power than the people of the restricted world are ready for," Jota realised.
"Exactly. There's only so much my scouts have been able to observe of this world through the restrictions, but the locals are desperate for a solution. I've offered my help, and the native powers have accepted. You can stroll right in, free and clear of the rules, courtesy of an invitation from the locals. An invitation those following behind you won't have."
"That does make for an appealing opportunity," Jota conceded. "We just have to deal with this outworlder?"
"Yes. He'll have so people from the other world, but it's still just an isolated backwater, and the restriction on diamond rankers still holds. I'll expand your team to make sure and you can wipe out the lot of them. Once that's done, you've t the conditions set by the natives and you can start changing the deal on them. Once you're in, you're in."
"How many of these gold-rankers will we be dealing with?"
"Our information is one team, so five, maybe seven at the outside. But rember these will be backwater bumpkins, not proper warriors."
"Don't underestimate those who trained in the cosmic wilds, Aractus. I've learned the hard way that training in the best conditions can make you soft."
"Don't worry. I'll boost your numbers to make sure. You'll have twenty-five or so; enough to solidly overrun them. The last thing we want is a fair fight. I don't intend to lose anyone over this."
"Thank you, Aractus."
"I've told you before, Jota: call admiral."
"Sorry, Admiral."
"Thank you. There's a reason I'm wearing this hat."
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