---

3 days ago

---

I sat in the darkened garage with the books spread out in front of me, along with Haley, Delmutt, Skylar and the Dog. “It’s time to metagame like we’ve never metagamed before.”

The Dog harumphed. “That should be easy, I’ve never metagamed in my life.” Delmutt also looked a bit puzzled.

I sat back. “Okay, from the top. You all know that Haley runs on Pathfinder rules. In Pathfinder, there are lots of systems for how strong you can be, how many hits you can take. But the most broken portions of the game are the systems that govern magic.”

Haley, in human form and cross legged before me, nodded. “That makes sense, it’s the system that isn’t really representational of any real world idea. It has less to bind it, and it’s supposed to be fantastic.”

I pointed at her in approval. “Yes. Pathfinder is somewhat less broken than previous versions of the system, but it still has some unbelievable exploits available, and we inherited the Rules-As-Written version of the system. So, what we are going to do is craft an infinite wish engine.”

Delmutt held up a claw, “Forgive me, I haven’t played this game, but that sounds impossibly powerful. Why would the game allow that?”

Haley turned to her. “Well, that’s the problem with these games in general, there are so many rules and systems that over time loopholes become available. Normally the person running the game wouldn’t allow this, but there’s nobody in charge of me. I think. So,” she turned back to me, “I guess you want to go with the Candle of Invocation trick? Summon a genie, and wish for more wishes? But where do we get the candle? I can’t make it, I need to wait at least another age category before I can take the Crafting feats.”

I held up my hand- “Ah, but that’s where we are going to steal a march on everyone. Normally, yes, we’d need to wait several more days before you qualified. But you have two feats available. The first one you should take is ‘Master Craftsman.’ I held the book out to her and she read the indicated lines.

“I see, I can use any mundane Craft skill as my caster level for the purposes of the feat, and the crafting check. So I put 12 points into Craft- Books or something…”

I clapped my hands in excitement, “and you get 2 more for the craftsman feat, 3 more for it being a trained class skill, and 4 more due to your intelligence, and suddenly you’re crafting like a 21st level caster. Take ten on the crafting checks, and get a plus 2 from someone else pitching in, and you can make anything up to a difficulty of 33 trivially. That’s more than enough for the Candle, which was always priced too low. All we need then is, uh, about four hundred thousand dollars worth of gold and jewels, which I believe we have covered-” I indicated the back of the truck where the spoils of our burglary spree were laying- “and you should be able to make a candle in about two and a half days. We can hold out for that long.”

Haley grinned and I could see the idea taking hold in her mind. “It costs an extra feat slot, and those are valuable but I assume that when we have access to infinite wishes I can adjust that. Okay. I can get the first ‘Day’ of crafting in tonight, if I move. Is everybody on board with this?” There was a general round of nods from the group, even Skylar, who was listening over their shoulders. I got the impression that they were all a little lost, but that was okay- in a couple days they’d be able to wish understanding right into their brains, if they wanted. Haley closed her eyes and got to work.

---

Present Day

---

On our third day at the bunker, our fifth overall since the night of the Swap, Haley emerged from the basement. She found the rest of us sitting outside the garage, staring to the North-East. The distant sounds of bombs and artillery fire were coming to us over the horizon, muffled whumps and longer, rumbling explosions, punctuated occasionally by a flash like lightning from the low-hanging clouds.

“How far do you think?” asked Delmutt, sitting beside me on the grass.

“Miles and miles,” I answered, though truth be told I had no real idea. “Those noises would be deafening up close, so twenty to thirty miles at least.” I longed for a news report, or just a radio out here. Binoculars would be no good with these trees, not unless I asked Skylar or Haley to take me up in the air, and I wasn’t about to do that with the number of combat aircraft we’d seen streaking by, in both directions. I didn’t know how a dragon would register on radar, but I wasn’t keen to find out.

“What’s going on?” Asked Haley, perhaps sensing the mood, and up-shifting to her dragon form. She had swelled, in three more days of her ludicrous growth rate. Easily 17 feet long and multiple tons, she towered over the rest of us. She was Skylar’s equal in stature now. I believed she was well within the “Juvenile” category at this point. Her horns and fins were getting quite impressive- more akin to an elephant’s tusks-and-fans- though with different orientations of course- than the tiny nubs they had been, just a week ago. The sheer presence of her was radiant, and she captured the group’s attention without even noticing. As we all watched her she peered along the treeline, but didn’t seem to perceive any more of the violence than the rest of us had.

“It’s war,” said the Dog. “War for the heart and soul of the world. You’ll have to fight, too.”

She bobbed her enormous head. “Well, that was always the plan. And now we have an ace in our back pocket.”

I sat up- “So you have it then? Crafting check succeeded?” She held out one massive paw. In it, tiny against her bulk, was a tapered candle. Simple and undecorated white, it would not have been out of place at any church or dinner table in the country. But there was a weight to it that had nothing to do with its appearance. This is an item that can change the world. The power to reshape reality.

“If I hadn’t watched four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of gold melt seamlessly into this thing, I’d think I was full of crap,” she said. For all that, there was a respectful silence among the group.

Eventually Delmutt broke it. “Should we wait to light it, do you think? Is there some auspicious time?” I understood her hesitation. It was a real threshold we were about to cross.

Trying to ignore the urgency of the situation presented by the muffled explosions, I gave it some thought. “I don’t think we can rely on unspoken plan guarantees, here. It’s not that kind of narrative. We all know she has it, it’s to our advantage to make sure it works, get the biggest power-up we can out of it, and give the rest of us access to it as well. But before we summon the thing, let’s give Haley every advantage she can get. You just went up another age category, right dear?” She nodded. “Okay, let’s get you kitted out.”

---

2 days ago

---

“Hey, I’m here to uh, ‘Aid Another’ with you. Lemme tell you how to write books real good, somehow that’s gonna help your craft check to make a candle, I guess,” I rambled, coming down the ladder into the basement where she was slaving away. We didn’t really know how to craft a Wondrous Item using the power of being a really good author, the craft skill Haley had chosen. The rules said it was fine, but we didn’t have a clue what it actually entailed. Haley had a large vellum notebook out and was simply writing the most detailed forty-thousand word description of a magic candle that anybody had ever penned. It seemed to be working- the gold pile on the desk was gradually thinning, and it was possible that something was taking shape underneath it.

She sat back at the human-sized desk and blew out hard through her lips. “This is all just so surreal. The world may be ending out there, and I’m in a fallout shelter basement writing a fifty page essay on wax. And if I write good enough, ta-da! I get to become God.”

I walked over and gave her the good shoulder rubs, the kind I only broke out for special occasions. “Well, I have to say I prefer it over the kind of apotheosis that requires you be nailed to a tree.”

She chuckled nervously at that. “Well, let’s not jump the gun yet.”

I picked up that she wasn’t entirely joking. “Uh-oh, what’s going on in that incomprehensibly brilliant mind of yours?” She really had been getting smarter, with all the age-based stat bonuses recently- it was the most subtle effect of all, but I could see it in her, a deepening a focus, a quickening of insight. She was beginning to make connections that I couldn’t follow.

She sighed. “The Dog said, before we got here, that Luke gets a lightsaber and Darth Vader gets a death star. Aslan wants to cast me in the role of villain, for the purposes of his story, whatever that means. The villain’s going to get the bigger power up, and the big vulnerability. What do you call this plan, if not an immense power up?”

A valid point, but: “Think of the alternative- going against him without anything at our back. This doesn’t come with any particular vulnerability, that I can see.”

She shook her head and got out of the chair to pace. “I’ll have near-absolute power if it works, but the vulnerability is inherent- he wants to die, his resurrection is when we lose. If I choose this-” she indicated the candle. “This path, play the antagonist to him, I’ll win at first and then I’ll die. That’s the story of the White Witch.”

I didn’t like that train of thought. I stopped her pacing, put both hands on her shoulders. “You have already defied death more times than I can count, in the last week alone. Never forget that what you’re trying to do is help everyone. No twisted vision of the End Times, no murder and mayhem. He can declare you a villain all he wants. But he doesn’t have the monopoly on moral authority, in this universe. Don’t play his game. Keep the Death Star in your back pocket. We’ll find another way to beat him.”

She leaned into me then, and kissed me, and for a while we made very little progress at all.

---

Present Day

---

We stood in the field outside the bunker, in a loose circle. The sun was hidden behind the clouds, giving the whole scene a shadowless grey light that made the sounds of all-out war that much more ominous. It was not, I reflected, the best environment in which to embark on a path to godhood, but we made do with what we had. I put my hand on Haley’s trunk-like forearm as she crouched down, staring at the candle which we had embedded upright in the loose soil.

“Okay,” she breathed, and with a flick of Mage Hand, struck a match and held it to the wick. It caught. Nothing really happened at first. We stood there for a moment, watching the candle begin to burn. “It, uh, doesn’t really come with instructions, does it.” she said nervously.

I agreed, it would have been nice if crafting it had given her some insight into how it worked. “Maybe just tell it what you want? It’s probably extremely literal.”

“I, uh, I’d like to summon and bind one Efreeti. Efreet. Using the gate function of the candle. Please?” she ended.

The Dog chuckled, “Very polite of you dear, I’m sure the candle is extremely impressed.”

Maybe it was, at that. The whole thing flared, consumed in an instant. We all stepped back a pace. As it burned, the light of the day changed, and something was illuminated that we could not previously see. It looked like a great wall, or a barrier, seen through the world. Its distance, its height, were impossible to judge. It might have been on the other side of the planet or the other end of the universe. It was as if everything except it was completely transparent to this new form of light. “I am really glad I don’t have a geiger counter on me right now,” I quipped nervously.

The barrier, whatever it was, began to shift. It shuddered, and we could feel the world vibrating out, pulses in reality timed with whatever was happening at that great wall. Blocks the size of galaxies shifted. A hole was forming. Something came through.

The light faded, but the thing remained. There in front of us, standing 12 feet high, was a giant woman. She had red skin, bull’s horns on her brow, and armor made of a coppery metal with inscriptions on it that made my eyes hurt. Her skin smoked, in the cool afternoon air, thick black plumes pouring off her, and on her back was a sword that looked like it was made of fire. She did not look happy to see us.

It was interesting, some part of me reflected as I stumbled back, how often I had read something like “He towered 12 feet high” in a fantasy novel without really thinking about the scales involved. 12 feet didn’t seem like all that much in the context of a giant. Yet a seven foot tall human was absolutely overwhelming, in person. Five more feet beyond that did not put her firmly in the incomprehensible category, did not reduce her to a living piece of scenery in the way that a redwood tree might be. But that made her all the more terrifying to me- she was simply too big. Too big to be real, but here she was.

“Lady Jada, of the Brass City” she intoned, as if announcing herself to a ballroom, or an arena. “You have summoned me.” She pulled, then, almost experimentally, in a dimension that shouldn’t have existed. Something in the air where the candle had been flexed under the strain, and- snapped. She smiled, maliciously. All of us were stepping back now, save Haley. “But you have not bound me. I speak for the worldline of Scheherazade, little mortals. What are you, before She of a thousand and one tales?” She unslung the sword on her back, and peered around. “Your story requires the use of us. How unfortunate for you. We do not submit, without challenge!”

With a roar and a spring she leapt at Haley, throwing up a huge gout of earth from her starting point. Haley stood stock still, not one muscle moving. That enormous sword hissed as it cut through the air, and straight through Haley’s neck. I gave a shout, tried to move forward- my hands moving to the pistols on my hip- but realized even as I was doing so that something was wrong with the picture in front of me. “NOOOOwhat.” Haley rippled, the sword passing cleanly through her, then vanished. An illusion! As that great golden form vanished, Haley was revealed- shrunk to human form, and holding the vorpal sword.

“Rule one,” she said, impossibly sharp sword flashing out and catching the astonished genie’s own weapon on the backswing- “Never give the enemy time to cast. Rule two,” the sword of fire simply came apart with the stroke of the impossible blade, “try not to use flaming weapons on people who breath fire.” Delmutt and I both had our guns out now, and began planting shots into the armored back of the red giant. They weren’t doing much but stinging, for her size and toughness, but still- they were distractions. Skylar had her paws over her head and was cowering away from the melee- poor kid.

Haley shouted at the rest of us, “Cease fire! Subdued, not dead!” and we obeyed, though it was hard to watch. Even disarmed that thing was a menace. It swung at Haley with fists the size of boulders, but she was still armed, and despite the size difference she had the strength advantage. She deflected with the weirdly non-euclidean flat of her sword, while the Dog attempted to hamstring the thing and half-corporeal animal creatures began manifesting all over it, searching for areas to hammer or kick or bite.

Suddenly, the creature vanished. I gave a start and looked around, my heart sinking. “Plane shift? Did it run? Are we screwed?” I really should have known better than to open my mouth.

Before Haley could shout a warning, I saw it- the heavy swaying of the grass as something huge, and invisible, pelted towards me. “Oh shi-” was all I got out, before a ring of violet fire sprang up around me, almost perfectly circling me. The edges of my arm-hairs just avoided passing into it, and I stood perfectly still, unable to even widen my stance to help with balance. I couldn’t feel any heat, but I knew this form of the Wall of Fire spell. She’d set it to radiate outwards. The grass outside the ring was already on fire, and the heat out there was so intense it was making the air waver. A prison, then- one slip from me and I’d pass into the portion that emitted heat. Sherriff spoke up- Well, sometimes it’s bullets, I provided helpfully.

The Efreet stepped through the wall of fire, behind me. Still invisible, the flames parted around her form and I could feel her towering over me. She laughed in my head, telepathically. I assumed she was speaking to the others as well by the way I saw them all jerk to a halt. “Hold, stay your blades or I kill this one. You fight with cunning, scaled one. But I have nothing to lose, and this one,” I felt her lean down and place an enormous hand on my head- it practically smashed my spine and did stagger me nearly face-first into the fire, “appears to be precious to you. You will bind your story to ours, for no less than one year, or he will die here and now.”

I felt the fear, then. That same fear I’d been holding onto since the police on that rain-swept road had aimed their rifles at me. The fear that had recurred, stronger and stronger, every time I’d faced death in the last week. The fear that made me turn my face away from Delmutt in shame, the day before. I did not want to die. I did not think I was a coward. But my mind wasn’t equipped for this. I was paralyzed, unable to move or think. Sherriff spoke soothing words in my mind: “”

Haley stood, stock still. Considering. Eventually she spoke. “Rule three.”

---

1 hour ago

---

“So you just aged up again and you have one feat slot open, and you can cast spells!” I said to Haley, still watching the light show on the horizon. She nodded absentmindedly. “I want to introduce you to the most broken feat in Pathfinder.” She made a ‘Go on’ gesture at me, without speaking. I continued, delighted by my own cleverness. “It’s called Sacred Geometry and, get this- it lets you apply any two metamagic feats you don’t know to any spell, for free, and all you have to do is solve a simple math problem in your head, here’s what I’m thinking…”

---

Present Day

---

Haley closed her eyes, did the math required by the feat. It really was ludicrously easy. The hard part was going to be keeping me alive. “Rule three. You do not threaten my husband.”

A gigantic wave of frozen energy erupted from her, and radiated outwards. It was a wall, a tsunami of ice, a blizzard and an explosion of cold all at once. The grass between her and our fire wall cracked and shattered in the temperature difference. The monster behind me quailed, falling back a step before the torrent. It would be even worse for her than the rest of us- her kind had a vulnerability to the cold.

I knew what Haley was doing and I was still having trouble seeing through it. It was a persistent, heightened Silent Illusion, the most versatile spell currently in her repertoire- in this case, an illusion of some ultimate frost attack, but strengthened to such a ludicrous degree that it was almost impossible to escape. The efreet backed up with a cry as the wave swept over it, then paused, unharmed but stunned- “Wait, what?” she shouted, as she realized she’d just been taken in by a second illusion in as many minutes.

That was all it had time for before two tons of angry dragon wife body slammed it into the ground with a crash like the world ending and a heave of the earth as the two titans made contact. Haley paused, jaws around efreet’s throat, and mouthed out. “You forgot Rule One, Lady. Submit, or lose something precious to you.”

The Efreet struggled, weakly, and then relented. The fire around me died down. Hey Sherriff, I didn’t even get burned that time, we’re improving! My joke landed flat, in my own skull- I was still deeply shaken. I’ve got to do something about this or I’ll never be of any use.

Eventually she nodded resignedly. “I… acknowledge your victory. Our story is bound to yours, and I am bound by your power to perform a service. What do you desire of me?”

We all stood for a moment, transfixed. Eventually Delmutt broke the silence, muttering to herself- “Why does everyone else get better vessels than me?”

Haley shook herself, released her hold on the genie, and stood back. “Uh- Jada, we are honored by your service.” Still banking on politeness. Can’t hurt, I mused, rubbing the top of my head where the demon had nearly caved my skull in. “I would like to make use of your three wishes.” Jada, still prone, nodded without speaking. Haley continued. “I wish for two Candles of Invocation, identical in form and function to the one I summoned you with, before I used it.”

That seemed reasonably airtight, I thought. The Efreet considered, nodded, and two candles appeared. Well, that’s godhood then. Seems anticlimactic. I supposed the only challenge left was to find the time to claim it. But Haley had some designs on that front. “For my final wish, I’d like a complete understanding of the wish spell, as an Efreet would conceive it, so long as that understanding does not drive me mad or otherwise incapacitate me.” Jada rolled her eyes at the legalistic framing, but nodded again. “My business is concluded. Should you summon others of my race, the bindings will hold.” She paused, getting up off the ground, and eyed all of us. “Try not to break your universe. We will not lend you ours.” With a pop of air rushing into a vacuum, she vanished from our reality. A golden light shone around Haley’s head for a moment, and then her eyes snapped wide. “Oh. Oh.” She grinned delightedly. “I have a lot of Death Star to build.”