Brightfire says "Oh."

Brightfire doesn't say anything else, but her face turns a little red which I find odd. I finally give up enjoying the view and get to my feet, that is when I notice I am no longer shapeshifted. That probably means that shapeshift won't hold if I am unconscious.

My body feels a little stiff, but it doesn't hurt anywhere which is surprising. What is more disturbing is that when I check I find ten Origin Energy missing. Maybe it is the reason I survived, it might have been used automatically to heal me.

Since I feel weird carrying the energy I go ahead and use it to heal my soul. Once I am done my body no longer feels stiff, maybe it was from carrying the energy for too long. I never really kept any of the energy for long before, I always spent it fairly quickly.

Carrying the energy around as a mortal might not be a good idea, something to remember later. As long as I stay away from the maker, going back to the island shouldn't be too dangerous. Of course, before I do that I plan to take some precautions, I am not an idiot.

The first thing is I need to figure out how to teleport, I am not having another gate taken over. Then again, since I will be building the ship when I get back, I may not get a chance. It will depend on how things go once we get back, but I want to try at some point.

For now I go back to our camp with Brightfire and Nala, luckily it is still there. It is a good thing I didn't gate too close to camp or it would have been vaporized. When I go back to take a look at the gate site, it isn't there anymore, it is now a cove.

Honestly, I am surprised that I survived, I am kind of curious about what state I was in when Brightfire found me. However, I decide not to ask her, it might be something I don't want to know. If I did come really close to death I don't want to know, and I don't want anyone else to either.

If I had known that the maker was capable of hijacking my gate I would have done things differently. I really should have left before she broke free, but I was curious as usual. At some point, if I get strong enough I am totally going to go back and beat the hell out of her.

However, it will probably take a long time for me to become that strong. Who knows what might happen by then, so I will put it on my list and only worry about it if I become strong enough. For now, since I am hungry, I start pulling out food for the three of us.

After I am done eating I settle down and enter into my meditation room. To my surprise, there is already a door to my soulscape in the meditation room. I am positive that I ended the last soulscape, so why is there a door here?

Curious as usual, I walk through the door and instead of a soulscape I find myself at the beginning of a hallway. About ten feet ahead of me there are a couple of doors and there are more past them. Behind me is an open archway which leads back to my meditation room.

The doors all look the same, with no indications as to where they go, and they look like normal doors. In fact, the entire hallway reminds me of the hallway of a hotel, just without the cheap decorations. I am guessing that these doors lead to the other planes that the dragon told me about.

If that is the case, then what about if I want to create a soulscape of my own? Just as I think about it a new door appears on my right, halfway between the entrance and the first door. It is different from the other doors, it is bigger and more ornate, like a front door.

When I push it open there is nothing but a white space, which I find I can control completely. To test it out I create a simple room with comfy chairs and when I step in I get the option for time dilation. So it seems that when I am in the hallway time flows normally, but what about the other doors?

I guess I will just have to go through one in a bit and see what happens. For now, I invite Core and wait for her to show up, while I wait I test a few things. It seems that once I am inside the soulscape everything is exactly the same as it was before.

Core says "Hello Ash! Did you need something?"

"Welcome, Core. Yes, I want to talk to you about the elves for a bit, if you have time."

Core says "Of course! It isn't like I am all that busy!"

"You will be once I make it back. You will be the ruler of the elves!"

Core says "What? Why me? Don't they already have a ruler?"

"They have a few elders, but that's it. They will need someone who knows the peninsula and the situation. Besides, it will give you something to do. Especially since they will need to live with the beasts in the city."

Core says "Can't you do it? You are technically already the Elven King!"

"I will be their king in name, if that is what they want, but you know I won't be an actual king. You know how much trouble I have staying in one place."

Core says "I guess I can't argue with that."

"So, as the future leader of the elves, what is your opinion on the goddesses?"

Core says "What do you mean?"

"I mean how would you feel about the elves worshiping the goddesses?"

Core says "I would not have a problem with it. I like the goddesses. Why?"

"Because, due to some unusual circumstances, soon followers of the goddesses will be able to gain levels."

Core says "That's great! Wait, unusual circumstances? Ash, what did you do?"

"Why do you assume I did something?!"

Core says "Are you kidding? You are always behind any chaos that happens!"

"It's a bit of a long story, so I only want to tell it once. Give me a minute to summon Myria and then I will tell you."

When I invite Myria she appears instantly, as if she was waiting for the invitation. Before she can start yelling at me I begin telling the both of them the story. I try to leave out how the undead were released, but they catch on and pull it out of me.

Since they both already believe it is something I did it is really hard to convince them otherwise. In the end, I give up and just continue with the story about the Origin Energy. Then I explain about the goddesses, leaving out the kissing, and the power they gained.

Myria says "Why do I feel like there is something you aren't telling us?"

"There are some secrets of the goddesses that I am not allowed to speak of."

Core says "So, this ability to grant levels, is it just for the humans and elves?"

"No, Seronia will grant levels regardless of race. It is limited to followers, but that is probably to prevent enemies from growing stronger."