“So are they like a Rothschild or an Illuminati or something?” Ben asked himself, looking around the interior of Anna’s mansion. Even with his limited sense of how much things cost and were consequently worth, Ben could tell he was standing in a den of wealth. Frankie, and his still unknown, and still growing army of lesser Utility Pocket Elementals, moved cautiously, able to see clear as day the various anti theft devices and enchantments layered on everything.

A challenge then, one they happily pursued in their relentlessly misguided service to Ben.

That was, naturally, in the background, unnoticed by everyone. Frankie himself immediately emerged from Ben’s Utility Pocket and began taking wobbly, plodding steps around Anna’s mansion, as if to say ‘This place is mine now.’ He vanished, and moments later, a squeal of delight could be heard in a different part of the house.

“Oh look, we found Anna,” Ben said, rolling his eyes with a fond smile on his face. Red scowled, a flash of jealousy on her face, which quickly vanished.

“Oh! Anna, that’s right, she’ll share Frankie with me. Excuse me, my Prince,” she said, then excused herself. “Anna!” Red yelled, her voice getting a bit higher, a bit more ‘girl on girl’ in tone, “don’t be greedy!”

“I just don’t get it,” Short Bus said, a look of real mystification on his face. Before Ben had a chance to continue that particular line of thought, a familiar and somewhat missed voice called out.

“Ben!” Vivi, in all his slug-ass, white like a sacred prehistoric dog turd glory-

“Don’t be mean,” Short Bus said, smacking Ben, his face reproachful.

“Vivi!” Ben said, beholding his friend in all his majestic Aeon Slug, white like something from a church glory. Vivi was casually disregarding the bi-pedal layout of the house and was slugging his way down a wall near one of the staircases leading to the second floor.

“Are you bigger?” Short Bus said, frowning and examining Vivi.

“Holy dog shit, you’re bigger!” Ben said, his eyebrows raised.

“Well, I’m still digesting my. . . catalytic materials,” Vivi said his eyes as shifty as eyes can get, looking this way and that.

“Seriously?” Ben said, “I thought you said they were going to cut you open and-”

“They obviously don’t know what’s still inside me,” Vivi said, “and as a Citadel conquering hero, as well as someone who helped uncover a plot to destroy Solas with a Hell Gate-”

“See, that’s just crazy to me,” Short Bus said, “Ben, I think we should have a vote later to never let Red and Vivi be together unsupervised.”

“Agreed,” Ben said, his face grim, “I think it’s a matter of life and death- Oh, good job BTW,” Ben said, pronouncing the acronym one letter at a time, “about the whole hell gate thing.” Vivi finished his unconventional way down and righted himself on the floor. He was definitely bigger, probably about a half a foot in every direction.

Vivi looked like he was about to start complaining, which was pretty much his natural state of being. Ben and Short Bus, exchanging a brief, unspoken conversation, both walked over to Vivi.

“What are you-” What they were doing was trying to find a way to give an Aeon Slug a hug, or really any other kind of meaningful physical contact to show they were happy to see him. You really couldn’t come at him from the front, because that was where his face was; his sides were sloped and there really wasn’t a good place to wrap around; his back end was out for obvious reasons. Ben settled for facing the same direction as Vivi and then leaning into him, sort of like how dogs gave hugs. Short Bus ended up doing the same thing.

“Glad you’re ok,” Ben said, patting Vivi on the side, looking up at the now much larger than he was Aeon Slug, “I haven’t had a chance to say this properly, but thank you. You saved all our lives out there, more than once.”

Short Bus nodded, giving Vivi a gentle slap on the back.

“Oh,” Vivi said, totally at a loss as to what to do or say. He leaned into Ben for a moment, then Short Bus, then slugged his way out of a warm and emotional situation. “I wasn’t about to let any of you die, you’re-” it was obvious he was about to say something like, ‘You’re my friends’ or ‘You’re my family’ or ‘people I care about for entirely unselfish reasons’, but then he got uncomfortable and actually said this, “well, you’re bound to me with The Quest. If any of you die, I die as well. We all die, actually.”

There was a moment of silence like a dropped wine glass, the drop space, before it shattered on the ground and spilled everywhere. Ben looked at Short Bus, who shrugged and looked at Ben, clearly just as confused as he was.

“That’s a funny joke,” Ben said, smiling for a second, until he saw the look on Vivi’s face, “Wait, you’re serious?”

“Ha-ha, very funny,” Vivi said, smiling for a second until he saw the look on Ben’s face, “Wait, you’re serious? Ben, I very clearly explained all of this when I issued The Quest.”

“Wait, if one of us dies, we all die?” Ben asked again, a growing sense of panic welling up in him as he remembered pretty much all the fucked up stuff that happened in the Overcavern Forest, only now he was focusing on all the times someone else almost died.

“Yes!” Vivi said, “I told you that!”

“No you didn’t-” Ben said, then immediately changed directions, because Vivi probably had, “There was a lot of shit going on back there! We were having a Lord of the Rings moment, and then fucking Red shows up out of nowhere- how was I supposed to remember every little legal twist and provision! You were throwing a lot of stuff out there anyways!” Ben was getting defensive.

“It’s The Quest!” Vivi said, also getting defensive, even though he was totally in the right on this one, “everybody knows The Quest! It’s why Signatory Races don’t just run around willy nilly forcing people to do things all the time! There are serious costs, and one of them is an effectively shared health and mana pool!”

“You should have said that then!” Ben said, “You were back there reading fucking poetry, all ‘for the good of the universe’ and shit, and meanwhile I’m still mourning poor Betsy-”

“Poor Betsy,” Short Bus said, immediately sagging and looking at the spot where she’d bumped into him with sadness in his eyes. Vivi, meanwhile, gave Ben a death glare and spoke very quietly, and also very forcefully.

“Don’t mention the void blasted purebeast!”

“A shared health pool,” Ben said, instantly moving on and away from the dangerous topic.

“An effectively shared health pool,” Vivi corrected.

“Don’t correct me with weird technical shit,” Ben snapped back, “Ok, ok. Where is everyone, we need a group huddle, immediately.”

“They’re probably just ahead,” Vivi said, “Did you know this house was designed in the style of the famed Sunlet [Architect]-”

“Oi! Ghost Ears!” Ben yelled, walking forward, “Did you know about us having a shared health pool?”

“What!” Ghost Ears, from a different part of the large house, yelled.

“Yeah, like if one of us dies, we all die!” Ben counter shouted.

“From The Quest?” Ghost Ears counter-counter shouted.

“Yeah! From The Quest!” Ben was just yelling for fun now. Short Bus hung back and listened to Vivi explain about the architectural history of the mansion they were in, nodding his head politely.

“Fairy shit!” Ghost Ears swore loudly, impressively loudly for an [Extremely Tiny] fairy, “Why didn’t anyone tell us!”

“I told everyone I was extremely upfront about everything-” Vivi was getting in on the ‘have the loudest conversation possible game in Anna’s house’ game, but was interrupted.

“Would you all stop screaming at one another!” It was Anna this time, who immediately went back to making loud cooing noises at Frankie, who was presumably getting loved on by her and Red.

“Good idea,” Ben said in a normal voice, then looked behind him at Short Bus and Vivi. He did that head thing where you nod from back to front in a ‘come on’ motion, and the two of them followed, continuing their conversation.

“So he got this design from a deep ocean dungeon?” Short Bus asked rhetorically, “Wow. It seems really homey for a dungeon.”

“It was inspired by the dungeon, more specifically, by the boss monster’s chamber. The design stabilizes and generates mana; it’s really rather ingenious,” Vivi said.

“Wow,” Short Bus said again, looking around at the building with a renewed appreciation.

The mansion was big, but not so big someone could have a full conversation going from the entryway to the living room. Ben breathed a sigh of relief, a literal sigh of relief, when his entire party was back together. Anna and Red were playing with Frankie, who was playing back just as hard and making the two of them giggle as he wobbled around and did tricks for attention. Thirty-One and Ghost Ears were playing either some alien variant of chess or actual chess, Ben couldn’t tell. Short Bus and Vivi were having a mostly one sided conversation about architecture, with Short Bus getting a word in edgewise about what the deep ocean was like.

There were couches, and even though their design was sort of alien, there was only so much of a spin someone could put on a fucking couch. Ben picked an empty one let gravity slam his ass into it, suddenly feeling exhausted. He’d been propped up by stress and immediate crisis, and without those crucial load bearing problems in his mind, his mind collapsed into mush.

“Uuuuuuuuuhhhhhh,” Ben said(?), feeling happy for his child sized Leap-rechaun body for the first time, because it meant the couch was ultrasized to his perspective. He leaned back as far as he could go and let his eyes roll back into his head. “I’m so fucking done,” he said(?) again, speaking in the same way he’d moaned just a moment previously.

Everybody noticed, obviously. But his team then did the single greatest kindness they’d ever done for him, and ignored him. They gave him a moment to just. . . melt into a puddle of useless muck, to forget about all his problems, to be problemless and thus purposeless. It wasn’t a good or bad feeling, but it was what Ben needed.

The world fell away.

[System Notification]

[You have advanced to Level ^^^@(*&$??]

[You have gained the skill &#*@&&??]

[Your immediate health is in jeopardy due to a dangerous level of experience buildup. Seek a Sage immediately, or Very Bad Things are going happen to you and those around you.]

Ben opened his eyes and immediately noticed that the room had taken on a technicolor, rainbow hue. It was like the rainbow sheen of an oil slick, or beautiful oxidation on bismuth. Then, he noticed that the rainbow glow was coming from him.

“Uh,” Ben said, feeling a little giddy, a little ill. Anna was looking at him with wide, horrified eyes. Thirty-One was beeping in a frantic, terrified way. Vivi had the same look as Anna, with a dash of ‘I understand what’s happening here better than everyone else’ and a dollop of ‘I think we’re all about to die here.’

“Miss Annabright,” Vivi said, so, so very extremely politely, so out of character, “I understand you called for the Royal Sage of Solas, correct?”

“Yes I did, Mr. Vivi’and-dalana,” Anna said, using Vivi’s full name.

“When, exactly, was he supposed to arrive?”

“Oh, sometime in the next few days,” she said, the polite conversation the only thing keeping her from screaming and running from the room.

“Right,” Vivi said, chuckling, “right right right. Say, I know they’re expensive, but do you have any scrolls of Greater Teleportation sitting around? For emergencies?”

“Why yes I do,” Anna said, “why yes, yes I do.”

“I’d strongly suggest you go get it, and then use it to bring the [Royal Sage] directly here. Oh, and don’t. . . don’t make any sudden movements. I’d hate for Ben to explode,” he said, whispering the last word, but not quietly enough to keep everyone from hearing it.

“Ben’s gonna explode?” Short Bus said, the idea going from ‘heard’ to ‘believed’ in cycle that lasted about two seconds. Pretty fast.

“Not if we all just sit here quietly and he doesn’t move around too much,” Vivi said, forcing a smile on his face.

“It’s really convenient,” Ben said, feeling pretty good, but also feeling a little loopy, “that this is happening here, rather than in the Overcavern Forest. Did you say I was going to explode?” Ben said, frowning a little, feeling his mental state become momentarily disturbed. The light emitted from his body flashed in an ominous, explody kind of way.

“Explode? No, nonononono,” Vivi said rapidly, gesturing expressively with his eye-stalks, then he hissed at Anna, “get the damn scroll and get the damn sage!” then he went back to acting super happy and friendly. Anna very calmly power-walked from the room, presumably to go to wherever the scroll of Greater Teleportation was stashed away.

“Oh, that’s good,” Ben said, “I really don’t want to explode.” Outside, in space, an ominous rumbling could be heard, like distant thunder. If one were to be looking out a window, they would be greatly disturbed to see what looked like clouds of rainbow mana forming over the mansion. If the disturbed person looking out the window were from the American midwest, they’d recognize the start of a tornado when they saw one.

Ben’s body rippled in time with the distant thunder, his little green outfit smouldering and catching fire in places.

“I feel really hot,” Ben said, a frown on his face. Frankie appeared in front of him, the Raiment of Power hovering around his body. The little guy looked extremely concerned, impressive for a mostly featureless blob-creature. The pink ribbon extended out from Frankie to Ben, and immediately arc’s of molten color, bolts of mana, started electrocuting the elemental. Frankie let out a scream, but kept the flow coming into himself, reducing the burden on Ben’s body.

One might hope that the bolts of power were being absorbed by Frankie, that he was being empowered by them. No, they were hurting him, doing nothing but harm. Short Bus rushed over and grabbed onto Frankie, letting out a yell of pain as he took some of the burden, some of the agony.

“Are you guys ok?” Ben asked, “I feel weird, like really really hot,” he said, clearly no longer all there mentally.

Red came over next, also grabbing onto Frankie, taking her share of the pain. Vivi and Ghost Ears were next, and between the five of them, they were able to handle the dangerous outpouring of energy. To slow it’s destructive work.

One might hope that the rampaging experience and mana in Ben’s body was destroying and reforming him over and over again, forging him into something stronger. No, it did not. It loomed over him like a hundred thousand gallon crucible of boiling molten gold, ready to tip over and burn him out of existence.

From a distant part of the house, a new voice could be heard, over the screaming and the booming of thunder and the howl of the descending mana tornado. The new voice, which was male, and older, was yelling at Anna.

“What is the meaning of this- By the stars and the fires, where have you brought me.”

“Please hurry!” Anna screamed, “he’s gonna die!”

“Not just him you fool! We’re all going to die!” the man snapped, running into the room. He was dressed in a bright orange robe, a Sunlet with a body of deep sapphire blue, holding a simple wooden staff with what looked like a replica of the Capital Crystal floating atop it.

“Away!” he yelled at everyone currently getting electrocuted by Ben, “Away damn you all!” Everybody moved away from Ben, except Frankie, who protectively hopped onto Ben’s chest. “Fine, you can stay,” the man muttered, then pointed his staff directly at Ben. Immediately, a veritable sea of status windows appeared, most of them flashing red.

Vivi was watching the man work with extreme interest.

“Oh, he thought it would be a good idea to just start messing around with the level system,” the man, who could only be assumed to be the Royal Sage of Solas, muttered from clenched teeth. “Chained God’s Favor- Holy Energy! What kind of- Damn!” Ben’s body pulsed again. “Oh, he’s a Questor as well, of course, why not make it the most complicated kind of problem! Why is every human I work with always about to explode? Why! A Citadel? A-” the man spluttered, “who takes out a Citadel with a broken level system? Oh, of course he landed the killing blow and took out the core personally. Sorry! Your friend is just going to explode!” the man yelled while frantically doing his best to keep it from happening.

“You’ve got to save him, please!” Anna screamed, everything from her tone to her body language suggesting an honest concern for Ben’s health and saftey. The fact that she was livestreaming the event with her Smartest Phone was a, ah, fly in the ointment to say the least.

“His system isn’t just broken, it’s totalled,” the sage said, “I could have possibly fixed it before, but he’s accumulated too much experience, too many achievements, and too many- Fuck!” the man shouted, a bolt of destructive mana blasting out from Ben, narrowly missing the sage, “I’m going to need to completely replace it. Further, due to the extreme load it’s going to be under, I’ve only got a few options. If he’s insensible, I’m going to need his questing group to choose for him! Prince Ben, are you able to understand me, or make major life decisions?”

In response, Ben coughed and mumbled something like ‘I feel really really funny’, then groaned in discomfort.

“That’s a no then! Questors, come forward,” Vivi, Red, Ghost Ears and Short Bus all came forward, “Good news, his class is in good shape. Bad news, his level system is broken beyond repair. I need to replace it with an alternative system that can handle the experience and. . . all the other energies this little fucking godling has crashing around his body. That was a joke, by the way,” he said without a hint of humor, with the look of a battlefield surgeon at work.

“What are the options,” Ghost Ears asked.

“One, we void him. It’ll allow him to handle the stress of repairing his level system, but on the downside, he’ll be what you all call a Void Soul-”

“Ben wouldn’t want that,” Short Bus said, and his word was final.

“Not many would. The next option is the cultivation system. Through meditation and the use of various rare materials, he’ll be able to process his experience through various tiers of advancement. Advantages? If you’re a genius at it, you’ll become very powerful, very fast. Downside? Most people aren’t geniuses, and it’s very slow, very expensive, and very painful. Also weirdly popular among certain kinds of humans.”

“I’ve studied the cultivation path,” Vivi said, “Ben doesn’t have the patience or the pain tolerance for it. Or the bank account. Or the arrogance.”

“Fine,” the sage said, “Next up is- hang on, one of my skills is activating.” The sage frowned, looking at a suddenly blinking window floating above ben. The window turned gold, and then a golden ring appeared on it. “Ok, so he just proc’d my [System Intervention], [System Engineering], [System Innovation] and my [Royal Sage’s Blessing] all at once. Wow, what are the odds of that,” he said, his eyes wide, then his eyes squinted as he read the new window, “So this one is called [Untitled.Ben] and it will require me to allocate his instance of [Chained God’s Blessing], as well as. . . oh, nevermind.”

“What does it need?” Red asked, then she noticed Anna livestreaming the entire event and ran over to tackle her. She succeeded, and the livestream cut out.

“It requires a drop of heartblood from a purebeast-” the Royal Sage said, prepared to laugh and explain why that was impossible. Then, without missing a beat, Frankie produced a brilliantly red, brightly glowing, crystalized drop of blood. “Which you apparently have on hand!”

“We uh, we found that out in the woods, but nothing else,” Ghost Ears lied, “the Purebeast was attacked by some horrible monster, I’m sure.”

“Whatever you say,” the Royal Sage said, looking at the glowing blood crystal with wide, disbelieving eyes, “Ok, OK! [Chained God’s Favor], A drop of Heartblood Crystal from a Purebeast, Holy Energy- [Untitled.Ben] is a beyond Legendary grade experience processing system designed by The System and other unnamed parties, one of whom is obviously the Solas Capital Crystal, specifically for the individual human known as Ben. It is both [Freeform] and [Unchained], allowing for great creativity and freedom in the use of the various powers he is endowed with.

“Additionally [Untitled.Ben] is specifically designed to handle the robust nature of [Holy Energy], granting the tools needed to utilize it properly. This level system has the [Beyond Legendary] modifier, granting significantly larger than standard rewards upon leveling up, and requiring significantly larger than standard amounts of experience to level up. It also has the [Royal] modifier, which basically means his level system is specialized towards royal classes, and won’t function properly unless he has a royal class. Oh,” he said, then looked at Ben’s group.

“What! Stop wasting time and spit it out!” Short Bus yelled, looking at Ben’s rapidly deteriorating condition.

“It says everyone attached to him via Quest Bond will gain the [Elite] modifier, which is like the [Beyond Legendary] modifier but a few tiers down. You’ll all lose levels, but you will get stronger.”

“Anything else?” Short Bus demanded, looking at Ben with near panic in his eyes.

“His [Evolution] ability will have a different trigger mechanism, but it doesn’t say what, just that it’s different. It will be the same for all of you. There’s a bunch of other changes, but nothing I have time to explain. Honestly, this is your best shot- every other option I’ve seen for him has a better chance of him dying than success.”

“Do it,” Short Bus said.

“Do it,” Ghost Ears said.

“Do it,” Red said.

“Now, is there a way to further enhance the power of everyone attached via Quest Bond,” Vivi asked, and then under the combined glare of everyone in the room, gulped and said, “Do it.”

Frankie nodded for good measure.

Anna, who had recovered from being tackled by Red, was once again covertly filming the entire event silently.

The sage raised his staff with one hand, and pressed on the glowing golden window with the other. The noise stopped, the light shining from Ben went out, and suddenly, the world was still.

“Is that it-” Vivi asked, but was interrupted by an eerie music that seemed to emanate from everywhere at once. It was a simple kind of music, like background music playing in the only good church in the heart of the Void. A smell like incense filled the room, a sound like creaking wood, beads falling on the ground, bubbles burbling softly, and then they were there.

As to what the fuck they actually were, they were like how angels were described in the Old Testament, the kind who had to say ‘Fear Not’ at the start of every conversation otherwise people would Fear Greatly. They were small, asymmetrical, their bodies having no real physical analoges. They were roughly disc shaped, full of weird geometries, creatures who toed the line of impossibility.

“We have come,” the two of them said, extending appendages(?) out to touch Ben, painting his body with simple designs, the paint being a simple white powder, “to honor the Son of Sacrifice.”

Nobody moved. Anna’s camera fritzed out. Everybody was terrified out of their fucking minds, and they well should have been.

“We have only come for this,” they said, all rotating parts and eyes of terrible lucidity and beauty, “only this.”

Then, with a final fond touch, one touching Ben, and the other touching a shock-still Frankie, the angels visibly and brutally died. There was no blood, no screaming, but the sight of it was like watching a soul get put through an industrial shredder or grinder, like reality itself was wiping them out of existence. Like watching gemstones go through a crusher, or seeing a priceless work of art get sprayed with paint remover, the colors running down a stained and ruined canvass.

Ben’s body lengthened. His arms and legs and torso and neck, everything grew. His muscles thickened back to pre-fairy levels, and then a bit further. He was a bit taller than he’d been, but only a bit. Ben’s eyes opened, and he immediately yawned and stretched his body, looking like he’d just woken up from an amazing sleep.

“Christ almighty,” Ben said, yawning again and stretching luxuriously, “I needed that nap.” He looked around and saw the ruined, smoking room. He saw all the assembled people staring at him in abject terror, or at least, staring at him in the wake of abject terror. The Royal Sage was the first one to break the spell.

“Well, that was new,” he said, standing up, “I need a fucking drink.”

Everybody liked that idea.