Nightmares jolt Jeremy to sheepish wakefulness. He checks his surroundings to find his bearings, confirming that he is safe in his room. It has been three days since his trip to the Astral — but the knowledge he gained from his visit still haunts him.

That damned turtle!

His ill-timed nap atop the stone turtle, after struggling with the bone sphere, opened his mind to alien knowledge with horrific implications.

The massive turtle was no statue — it was the remains of a dead god. What appeared to be stone was a collection of memories, experiences, and emotions. Jeremy’s somewhat open mind connected to the fallen god, giving him unwanted knowledge.

Unlike the gods of this world, the turtle was created by the faith of men. Its world was borne out of the primal chaos — taking millions of years for life to form.

Millions of years…

As for as the wizard knows, the world he considers his own is barely ten thousand years old — now he doubts it.

Still, he’s never heard of dark blood from beneath the earth or black stones that produced fire. The dwarves of Ironhold use wood, fire stones, and magic in their smithies. If there are non-magical black fire rocks in the mountains or beneath the earth — dwarven miners would certainly have found them already.

However, the knowledge that his world is young and that gods can be borne of faith is not what’s bothering the wizard — it is something more horrific and inconceivable.

Jerms.

The fact that jerms could somehow ascend to become plants, animals, and humans terriffies Jeremy. He gets out of bed, determined to rid himself of the feeling of insignificance.

Omicron.

The spell informs him it is almost dawn, approximately 48 minutes before sunrise. He dons his circlet of shorn horns and then heads to his home’s Spawning Chamber.

He likes the name. Spawning Chamber — it has a nice ring to it.

Sebas suggested calling it the Aesthetics or Transformation Room, but he thought it was too quaint.

The room houses his vats of dandelion sap. The three skeletons are inside, held in human-shaped vessels filled with sap.

They should be ready by now.

Jeremy approaches one of the skeletons, running his hands over its coating of dandelion sap.

It feels like skin. A bit rough like the hide of a beast — but unmistakably skin.

“Stand,” he commands the skeleton.

The sap-covered undead clambers up from its coffin-like chamber. The sap seems to hinder its movement, making it seem sluggish

It has the basic features of a human — two legs, two arms, and a head. It just wasn’t rounded off — like a person cut from a block of wood, all squares and angles before the sculptor can shape its being.

Jeremy struggles on whether to call Sebas, but he decides to let his butler sleep.

He picks up a knife from the table, noting its mak. It isn’t magical or made from exotic metals, but it is sharp enough to do the job.

The first cuts are a bit wide. Jeremy hesitates to cut too precisely into the sap. Too much would reveal the skeleton underneath and too little would make it bulky. It’s also easier to make further cuts down the line than repair cuts that go too deep.

Slowly, the head takes shape. The sap-covered skeleton’s head didn’t have a nose, ears, or any other features expected in humans — but it was round enough to wear a helm and that’s enough for the wizard.

The arms and legs follow. Jeremy decides to articulate the fingers, just in case his creations would need to perform precise actions and movements that required digits.

Damn

Jeremy finds a problem in the joints of his sap-skinned skeleton. The sap prevented bending to a certain degree — however, cutting it to grant flexibility will expose the skeleton within.

His sap skeleton or skeletal golem would need some kind of overlapping layers — similar to armor — to cover its joints and hide what was underneath. Covering the entire skeleton would also insulate it from mana — making it less likely to turn evil or get turned by priests.

He purposefully told Sebas that they were Astral golems, just in case someone asks. Sebas has this irksome inability to lie, even about little things. However, his faith in the wizard allows the butler to accept his words as truth. In a way, the skeletons can be considered golems — bone golems, to be specific — and they were found in the Astral.

A knock on the door alerts him of Sebas’ presence.

“Come in.” He motions for the door to open — using a sliver of his will to make it move.

The butler enters the room, placing a tray of tea and bread on a nearby table.

“I started early,” Jeremy explains.

“Indeed you did, Master Jeremy,” Sebas agrees while inspecting the carved facade of the astral golem.

“What of the power?”

The wizard beams before moving to a lump of rock as big as a melon. He breaks off a piece of the stone the size of a fingernail.

“This piece of stone can absorb all the mana I pump into it,” he explains, “even if I charge it for half a day.”

He hands the strange piece of stone to his butler.

Sebas momentarily flinches, his master’s words reminding him of his own previous circumstance. The seemingly unremarkable stone now holds an inordinate amount of mana — and it didn’t even register to the butler’s senses as magical when he first saw it.

“What is this thing?” Sebas asks as he continues inspecting the stone.

“Godstuff,” Jeremy answers. “From a strange world.”

“How strange?” It was rare for his master to find something strange — especially when he considers the infernal and abyssal quite commonplace.

“It’s millions of years old for once, and it wasn’t made by a god.”

“I see,” Sebas’ tone seems stifled. “I need to get back to my duties.”

The butler hands back the godstone to Jeremy before hastily exiting the room.

The wizard stares at the leaving butler.

What’s with him? I haven’t even gotten to the part about jerms ascending to become human.

***

The memories are real.

Sebas remembers the feeling of helplessness in his youth — and that of a room filled with dead people with him at its center.

The cultists performed a ritual that required the lives of a dozen victims — all so that they could make him a vessel to an infernal entity.

It failed — and miserably, at that. The cultists didn’t even manage to connect with the right plane — or any infernal plane, for that matter. However, something came through.

It was a soul — borne from another world.

It tried to take over Sebas’ body, but it was a futile attempt.

The soul was weak. Its will was molded by belief and indignation — not by suffering and determination. It was as if it lived a life of contentment, ease, and safety.

In their struggle for domination, Sebas easily won. His soul devoured the entity’s — and with it came the memories of a world without magic.

Sebas remembers the shock of living a life that wasn’t his own.

It was a quiet life, filled with routine and mundane activities. Battle was relegated within screens where people stayed safe controlling a simulacrum of themselves or what they wished to be.

There were no dragons or magic. Instead, they had airplanes and science.

The lack of real gods both blessed and cursed the people of the strange world. They could travel beyond their world or explore the depths of the sea. The world was linked by a network of wires and floating metal devices, allowing communication at whatever distance. What they achieved was beyond what this world has accomplished with magic — but they still died from disease.

The world cycled from weakness to strength, hardship to comfort. Sebas was lucky the soul he battled lived in the cycle of weakness. Everything was provided for and there was no real motivation to strive for anything — unless you were a visionary or compelled by avarice.

The comforts of the foreign world called to Sebas, tempting him to renounce his own and wallow in despair.

It was a hollow temptation. There was no way for Sebas to cross worlds and longing for a different world made no sense to the realist butler.

He could always replicate a few of the world’s comforts — especially food and beverages, to a certain extent. Music was another aspect he wished to explore, but his limited knowledge of instruments and their crafting made things difficult.

No.

Sebas shuts down his thoughts of the other world. Reminiscing felt too much like the whisperings of tainted mana — nudging him to greater power in order to open a gateway between worlds.

He heads to the kitchen and begins cooking sausages, eggs, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, and toast — a proper English breakfast.

***

“You seem distracted,” Jeremy asks his butler while finishing his breakfast. “Is it the woman who came by yesterday? She seemed friendly when she bought a potion — what potion was that?”

“The first one,” Sebas answers.

He didn’t expect Min to visit so soon after what just happened — especially after the horrible screaming. He didn’t expect her to buy a bottle of the same potion either, and she held it with such grim determination.

“It’s good that you’re making friends,” Jeremy notes. “Even Shelby has that group of farmhands she plays with.”

Sebas stays silent, a thin smile on his lips.

The two head to the Spawning Chamber, ready to make the final cuts to the golems. It takes them two hours to shape the three sap-covered skeletons into something that would pass of as human — especially after covering them with layers of armor.

Jeremy takes out a piece of godstone, thrusting it into an opening near the skeleton’s spine. The stone should be enough to power the astral golem for half a year — maybe more.

The wizard’s eyes glow with unrestrained power. He could feel his empire beginning to take shape — even if his army numbered a measly three.

***

“What have you learned about this Scourge?” Malice waves a dismissive hand, as if merely saying the name was distasteful.

The pretentious wizard is a menace to their operations. Bountiful’s guards are always at the alert for signs of cultists, and the nobles took it to themselves to root out their operatives.

“Nothing of note, Enlightened One.” answers a hooded acolyte. Tremors in his hands reveal his fear of their leader — his reputation of wantonly killing their own fresh in his mind.

“What of the spies?” Malice’s voice rises. Their network isn’t perfect, but it could certainly handle a simple alchemist.

“T-the snail, sir,” stammers the acolyte. “The creature sensed every spy we sent, warning them with a strike or a spell that it knew of their presence.”

“Send for their head!” roars Malice. A mere snail thwarting the Serpent’s spies? What kind of inept subordinates did they fetter me with?

The acolyte leaves the room, fear evident in his exit. Someone is going to bear Malice’s anger — he’s glad it isn’t him.

The head of the spies tasked to the scourge enters the room with the acolyte after a few minutes. He maintains a brave facade, hoping the show of strength will dissuade Malice from killing him.

“What is this talk about a snail thwarting my spies?” Malice roars.

“It’s huge sir,” the spy stammers, “bigger than an ox.”

“Then why not kill it — and the wizard while you’re at it?”

“It was formidable, sir,” the spy explains. “It had flails on its head and it could shape the earth like a mage.”

“Enough!” Malice turns to the acolyte. “Tell the other spies to choose a new leader — one with enough spine to get rid of a god-cursed snail!”

The spy turns to the leaving acolyte — knowing his fate is sealed.

“Killing you would give me little satisfaction,” Malice sighs.

“Thank you, enlightened one, for sparing this unworth—“

Malice clenches his fist as if grasping the groveling man’s heart — the spy falls dead.

“Sometimes, a little satisfaction... is enough.”