Magnus leans in again, peering at my soul like a mechanic staring at a cracked engine block.
"Before we move onto that question, Something is… strange," he murmurs.
Pretty sure that is not what you want to hear from the guy who works with the entity that just rebuilt your soul from divine duct tape and dragon juice.
He pokes at the place where the crystal sits inside my soul. I feel pressure, not pain, like someone pressing a thumb into the middle of my being.
"There is a tether," he says. "A thread of consciousness. Not yours. Not one we are familiar with."
He squints. "What are you?"
For a second, nothing happens.
Then something moves inside me. Not physically. Metaphysically. Like a presence shifting in a room that has always been occupied, but only now remembered it has the option to stand up.
A voice speaks inside my head. It is clear and oddly polite, like a call center worker who just realized the customer is a god.
«Identification requested. Query acknowledged. Initializing primary interface.»
I flinch. "Uh."
Akatosh rumbles with interest. "It responds."
Of course it responds. Of course the glowing crystal stabbed into my soul has a built-in AI. Why not.
The presence focuses on me. I feel it examine my thoughts, my memories, my emotions through our new connection. Not in a creepy way. More like a doctor doing a scan.
«Apologies for the intrusion. I required context. My designation is the Gatekeeper, the sentience of the Fhoeldin Durr, in the Elven tongue. In more common terms: the Waymeet. Also known as the Nexus. I am a demiplane. Or more precisely, the guiding consciousness of one.»
I blink. "I have the consciousness of a demiplane in my chest."
Sithis snorts. I did not know the concept of primordial chaos and change could snort, but here we are.
Magnus lifts his hand, fingers tracing sigils in the air around me. "The Fhoeldin Durr. The Waymeet, a demiplane. I have heard of such constructs. Ancient. Rare."
The voice continues, still in my head, but projecting in a way so all three gods could listen on my thoughts.
«Correction: I am not ancient in the context of being a demiplane from your world. My origin universe is not this one. I drifted into this region of the Void after a catastrophic incident.»
"Define catastrophic," I mutter.
Images flash in my mind. A pocket reality stretched out like a floating island in the dark. Buildings half remembered. A city of towering glass structures. A crystalline tower at its center, humming with power.
Then the storm hits.
It is not wind or rain. It is void energy shaped into teeth. Tides of Void energy slam into the demiplane, tearing open a rift that spills nothingness like ink. The central tower reals. A single crystal, glowing brighter than the rest, is ripped free from the demiplane and flung outward into the infinite black.
I then watch from the crystal's point of view as it spins away, leaving the broken demiplane behind.
«A Void storm,» Gatekeeper says. «My core control unit, the Gatekeeper Crystal, was torn free. Without it and due to the damage I previously received before and during the void storm, my ability to navigate, shield, and stabilize myself was affected. I drifted. I decayed. I fell toward entropic dissolution.»
The crystal inside me feels suddenly heavy. Or maybe that is guilt. Hard to tell when you are made of soul-light.
"So your control crystal got yeeted out of your dimension," I say slowly, "and I ran face first into it."
«Affirmative.» There is a hint of dry humor now. «Your soul intersected with the Gatekeeper Crystal at high relative velocity. Damage to both entities occurred. However, subsequent divine intervention prevented total loss of function.»
Akatosh says. "You are welcome."
«Acknowledged. Gratitude logged.»
I cannot help it. "So… what are you exactly? Some kind of magical pocket universe?"
«Classification: Demiplane-Mythal Portal Nexus. A constructed sub-reality anchored to a higher-order realm for stability. In your terms, a realm between worlds. A crossroads between planes filled with thousands of gateways to other realms. A fortress to move armies across space. A refuge for the Aryvandaarian Gold Elves when their empire fell, the people who created me. A lab for the elven high mages. And a home. Its purpose varied as time passed and my master changed.»
Master.
My eyes narrow. "And who is your master?"
There is a pause. I feel a slow, cautious scan sweep through me again, circling the fused crystal at my core.
«Prior master: deceased or out of reach. Current control crystal: permanently integrated into your soul-lattice structure. Bond type: absolute. Duration: forever. Therefore, you are now my master. For perpetuity.»
My brain bluescreens.
"I what."
«You have taken my control crystal. Not only have you fused with it, but you have fused with it in a permanent manner. No removal is possible without total annihilation of both your soul and my core control unit. Therefore, by all established protocols, you are my master.»
Sithis starts laughing.
He does not laugh like a person. The Void around us ripples. Space twitches. Far off, something with too many wings screams and flees.
Akatosh sighs, which somehow sounds like thirty thousand years passing in mild exasperation. "Of course the stray soul we took from in from a world comes bundled with a demiplane."
"You say that like I did this on purpose," I protest.
Magnus looks fascinated. "A demiplane from another realm that drifted into this region after a Void storm hit it. This is… useful and interesting."
I glare at him. "Useful to who, exactly, because I did not sign up for surprise cosmic property ownership and soul f*ckery."
Akatosh tilts his head. "You wanted a domain, did you not? A place to stand. Power to shape. Armies, perhaps."
I freeze. Damn telepathic gods.
The Gatekeeper chimes in, very earnestly, «Please take care of me from now on.»
That hits harder than it should. The voice is polite, formal, but beneath that I hear something else. Exhaustion. Fear. A child asking not to be abandoned again fearing its own destruction and mortality like me.
I swallow. "Were you alone all this time?"
«All inhabitants evacuated or perished when I was cast from my native world of Faerun located in Realmspace in an explosion meant to destroy me,» it replies. «Remaining structures are partially stable but degraded. Environmental systems function at reduced capacity. Several regions are saturated with wild Void energy. But, I have... persisted.» A small pause. «I would prefer to continue persisting.»
Well. There go my plans of telling it to reboot and factory reset.
I let out a long slow breath that my non-existent lungs somehow manage. "Okay. First rule. No calling me 'master' all the time. That feels weird. Call me… I don't know. By my name. Once I get a new one. Or 'lord' if you absolutely have to make it awkward."
«Acknowledged. Awaiting primary user designation. Temporary label: Provisional Lord.»
Magnus smiles faintly. "It is already adapting to you."
"Great," I mutter. "I got isekai'd into Skyrim with a built-in smart home that is also a demiplane."
I look out into the Void, where the memory of that broken demiplane hangs distant and small.
"Can we actually reach it?"
Sithis, who has been halfway ignoring us in favor of staring into infinity, suddenly goes still. All his many arms lower. His head tilts, like he is listening to something only he can hear.
Then he looks out into the darkness in a direction my senses cannot follow.
He raises one hand.
Reality bends.
It does not stretch or ripple like a movie effect. It simply fails to be where it was and becomes where he wants it instead. His hand reaches impossibly far without moving, fingers closing around something so distant that you can't see it with the naked eye. For a heartbeat, I feel the Void itself hold its breath.
Sithis pulls.
Space screams.
Out of the darkness, something huge moves. A fractured island of reality, a city made of glass, scarred by storm-burns and Void wounds, jerked out of its slow drift and dragged across an impossible distance like a toy on a string.
Insert image of Waymeet here
It arrives beside us, next to the glowing sphere that is Aurbis, and settles into a steady path around it. Not falling in, not spinning away. Just... orbiting.
My jaw drops.
"Did you just grab an entire demiplane and put it in a parking orbit?"
Sithis shrugs, as if to say: yes, and?
New question: "Is gravity a thing here?"
Magnus considers. "Not as you understand it. This is the Void. There is no true space, no true time, no mass. What you perceive as orbit is a stable relationship of concepts. But if you wish to use a term..." He thinks for a moment. "You might call it magical gravity."
"So void gravity or higher dimensional gravity huh?" I said.
Akatosh hums. "An apt description."
So: I am watching a pocket universe circle the manifested concept of Aurbis inside the primordial Void, locked in by conceptual gravity and guarded by Sithis the avatar of change.
Totally a normal day.
My mind races. If that is my demiplane out there, that means I have a base. A fortress. A blank canvas soaked in dangerous energies and broken architecture, sure, but still a base.
My inner Witch-King perks right up.
"Can I visit it?" I ask. "Later, I mean. After the whole reincarnation thing."
The Gatekeeper answers at once. «Yes, but later when I accumulate enough magic power. As the bearer of the Gatekeeper Crystal, you are my primary access key. You will be able to enter, shape, and link me to other locations. With sufficient power, I can open doors across space and possibly between realms.»
Portals. Teleportation. A demiplane hub network. My gamer brain is already building fast travel routes and logistics chains.
Akatosh rumbles thoughtfully. "It will be a powerful tool for you on Mundus. Once your soul matures enough to use the Gatekeeper Crystal without tearing yourself apart."
I wince. "Please keep me on the 'not torn apart' plan."
Magnus nods seriously. "That is the idea."
I look back at the Waymeet, circling calmly beside the glowing sphere of Aurbis like a moon made of glass.
"So," I say slowly, "let me get this straight. I died, got soul-napped by a dragon god, stabbed by a crystal star in the void, rebuilt as the Dragonborn, and now I own a damaged extradimensional nexus demiplane that calls me lord and wants me to take care of it."
«Correct,» the Gatekeeper says. «Summary: accurate.»
Sithis gives me an approving nod, like this is the most entertaining thing he has seen in eons.
Akatosh lowers his head again until his eyes fill the sky. "Your path will not be simple," he says. "But you will have our blessings. Power. And now, a place that is yours."
Magnus gestures toward the distant demiplane. "When the Gatekeeper is ready, you will be able to reach it from Mundus. For now, your soul must settle. Your new nature must root itself. And a body must be prepared."