The first sign that someone had broken into his house was
the busted doorframe; he hadn’t noticed it until he was nearly on his porch.
The second sign was the door swinging open, and a stocky man in black with a
stuffed duffle bag almost running him over.
Don didn’t need a third sign to clue him in on what to do.
The man’s eyes widened as he yelled, “Shit!” and his hand went to his hip,
where a pistol was holstered. Before he could reach it, Don’s fist shot out and
socked him square in the jaw, hard enough he heard a tooth crack.
The man hollered and fell back onto the porch. He scrambled
for his gun, but the duffle bag had landed over it with a hard thunk, and the
distinct sound of breaking porcelain. Don winced, knowing that had likely been
the fancy ceramic flask his ex-wife had left him. He didn’t give the man
another second to get his wits, reaching down and socking him again, this time
breaking the man’s nose.
The man hollered again, both hands reaching up to his face,
while Don quickly shoved the duffle bag up and grabbed for the thief’s gun. His
fingers grazed the handle right as something hard clocked him on the head. He
went stumbling back off the porch and onto the walkway. Despite the strength of
the blow, Don managed to shake it off, fight through the pain, and roll onto
his feet. As he rose, though, he saw a second man, leaner but taller than the
first, level a shotgun at him.
Don froze in place. For a brief second, he almost tried to
throw up a defensive barrier, before remembering that he was on Earth; the
Magic he learned on his divine lover’s fantasy worlds didn’t work here. Her
blessing of perfect health still maintained, but that wasn’t going to save him
from a point-blank round of buckshot.
“Y’okay, Tom?” said the lean man.
“No’m not fuggin’ okay! He b’oke my nobe!” Tom stumbled to
his feet, clutching his face. The two men were wearing balaclavas, but the
blood pouring from his nose forced Tom to yank his off and use it as a rag to
try and staunch the flow. Angrily, he yanked the dufflebag’s strap off as he
rose, letting it crash back down on the porch, breaking a few more things. He
pulled his gun and leveled it at Don.
Don felt his heart thudding, but he forced himself to stay
calm with steady breathing. Part of him wanted to prove he was enough of a man
to handle this situation on his own. The lean guy hadn’t just shot him, so it
was unlikely a couple of burglars wanted murder on their rap sheet. But he
wasn’t stupid enough to antagonize either of them into taking that risk.
“Where do you want it, huh?” hollered Tom.
“Come on, man, let’s just go,” said his partner, still
training his shotgun on Don. Actually, now that he got a better look at it, Don
realized it was his shot gun. They
must have found the hidden hatch for it. Maybe those anti-gun lobbyists did
have a point about guns being more dangerous for the owner in the event of a
break-in. This wasn’t quite the scenario he imagined they’d been thinking of,
though.
“Fuck you, Louie! He broke my nose, he ain’t getting away
with just a scratch!” He waved his gun at Don. “I ain’t gunna kill him, I’m
just gunna put a fuckin’ hole in him!”
Don spoke in a calm voice. “I don’t suppose you stealing all
my stuff is enough compensation?”
“SHUT UP!” yelled Tom. He was absolutely livid, but Don
could see the panic. Even Louie was looking at his partner with concern. He
wasn’t sure if the stocky man was on something, or just so pumped with
adrenalin he wasn’t thinking straight. “Where do you want it, huh?! Pick a limb!”
“Goddamn it, Tom!” Louie tried to step around, as if going
to bolt to the side, but the porch had a short railing around it, and Tom was
blocking the opening. It was only two steps up from the walkway, but it was
high enough Louie wasn’t going to be able to properly hold the shotgun if he
tried to vault off the side. “Let’s just go!”
Tom kept his gun on Don while he turned to Louie. “Fuck you!
I’m tired of this shit! He didn’t have hardly shit worth stealing anyway!”
“Hey, I can get some good bank for some of this!” He jerked a
thumb behind him, and Don saw he had a backpack bulging with stuff.
“Good for you, fuck face!” He turned fully to Don, who might
have taken that moment of distraction to sprint and duck behind his truck, if
there hadn’t been two of them, and one with a shotgun. Tom steadied his aim.
“Pick a limb, shit head!”
Don scowled. “Maybe cool off and listen to your buddy,
there. You want to leave, I’m in no position to stop you right now. You shoot
me, things are going to get ugly.”
“And how’s that?”
“You really don’t want to know. So, please, just leave.” He
raised his hands and backed up a few feet, slowly. “I’ll stand right here, just
go.”
Louie motioned with the end of the shotgun. “On your knees,
hands behind your head.”
“Nah. Not doing all that. Just go. I won’t chase you.”
There was an ugly gleam in Tom’s eye, and he gave Don an
ugly grimace from behind the wadded up mask. “Not before I get mine.” He
started motioning the gun a bit up and down back and forth.
“Eenie-meanie-miney-moe…”
“For fuck’s sake, Tom!”
“Shut up! Catch a tiger by its—” Just to be more of a dick,
he tried to catch Don with a fake out as to where he was aiming and when he’d
shoot. Before he finished the sentence, he jerked the gun down and pulled the
trigger, aiming at Don’s right leg.
Don, however, had already resigned to the situation, and
pulled his ace. Before Tom had started the rhyme, Don sent a prayer to his
all-powerful lover.
The gun didn’t go off. Tom looked at it with confusion, then
aimed again and pulled the trigger repeatedly, resulting in several empty
clicks. Neither men saw the white-haired woman with golden eyes who had
suddenly appeared behind them, until she touched them each on the shoulder. They
jerked back, giving out a shout, eyes widening, as Cyl gave them each a hard
look. Then they vanished, leaving behind their bags and guns.
Don let out a breath, dropping his arms. “Thanks,” he said.
“Don’t mention it.”
Don took a moment to appreciate the Omnynmphotent’s angelic
beauty, before walking up to the porch to collect his things. Before he bent
down, Cyl reached out and cupped his chin, kissing him on the forehead. The
blow he’d taken from Louie had still been sore, though not as much as it
probably should have been, if he hadn’t already had Cyl’s blessing of health.
With her kiss, the pain faded completely, and the bruise never formed.
Don picked up the bags, wincing as the shards of broken
mementos rattled in the one Tom had dropped. Cyl had kept Louie’s bag hovering,
so as not to break anything inside. Don grabbed it out of the air, then bent
down and grabbed the guns, then went inside as Cyl held open the door. She
could have just teleported everything back into place, and themselves inside,
but moreso than most Omnys, Cyl was willing to at least try doing the simple
things the human way, to put her mortal lovers more at ease.
“I can put everything back, if you like,” she offered.
“I’d like to see what they got their hands on first.”
Don went to his living room, setting the bags on his coffee
table, and sitting heavily on the couch. He took a breath to settle his nerves.
For as many fantastical things as he’d experienced as Cyl’s lover, the harsh
reality of having a gun in his face, in a world where none of that fantasy
could openly exist, had driven a spike of somber self-consciousness at his own
mortality. He couldn’t help but look to Cyl and, for as much as he appreciated
who and what she was, and as much as he could intellectually understand why she
did things the way she did, he still couldn’t help but feel a tinge of
resentment. Resentment he quickly banished from his mind, but he knew Cyl had
caught it in his thoughts.
She offered him a small smile. Neither of them wanted to
have that conversation again.
He opened the bags, pulling things out one at a time.
Louie’s backpack held his stash of emergency cash, some old medicines he hadn’t
needed since Cyl had come into his life, but that he hadn’t gotten around to
throwing out. Some of his electronics, like his two tablets and his old PSP, and
a couple external hard drives. He’d also taken his grandfather’s old leather
bound bible. Louie had at least thought to steal some of his clothes to pad the
more fragile stuff with.
Tom had not been so considerate, and his duffle bag had one
towel thrown in to ineffectively pad the items inside. He had indeed taken the
exotically painted porcelain flask his ex-wife had left him, now in pieces.
There was also the small gilded candelabra his grandmother had left, snapped in
three parts. His mother’s jewelry, some of which now had the gems dislodged, and
some silver coins in a glass case, the case now shattered and coins scratched
up.
Don glanced up to Cyl, who blinked, and everything broken
was fixed. Don set everything out, mulling over how much he almost lost. Ultimately,
it was all just stuff, and not particularly valuable monetarily. The
electronics, of course, could be easily replaced. Losing the money would suck,
but he had plenty in the bank; the stash had been for emergencies and he could
withdraw more cash to make another. The gifts and inheritances, though, that
stung to think about losing. His eyes lingered over the family relics, and he
once again was faced with the stark reality of his mortality. Even with the
flask, his ex was still alive, and they were on amiable terms, but the
relationship had been too fleeting.
Cyl slid onto the seat next to him, putting an arm around
his shoulder. “It’s some nice stuff,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“You upset?”
“Yeah.”
“I told you, you could live in any of my worlds, and just
visit Earth. You wouldn’t have to worry about break-ins there.”
Don sighed, putting an arm around her as well. “Your worlds
are fun to visit, but this is my home.” He looked around. “Well, not that I’m
attached to this house so much. But I’d like to live on my own planet.”
“I know. Still have to ask.”
She was keeping her arousing essence tamped down fully.
Holding her was pleasant, soothing. She didn’t let her erotic nature dictate
everything about their relationship anymore. So they just sat together,
enjoying being close.
“What did you do to them?” he asked, after a minute of
silence.
“Sent them home, cleaned them up, healed their bodies, made
them forget this whole incident.”
“You didn’t punish them?”
“They didn’t turn to theft for thrills.”
“What’s going to stop them from doing something like this
again?”
“Tom was addicted to meth. I purged the addiction from his
system. Louie was an alcoholic. I purged that, too.” She paused, then said. “I
also arranged for their eviction notices to be stalled another two months. With
their heads clear, they have a better chance of getting back on their feet.”
“Will they? Get back on their feet?”
Cyl took a moments to answer. “That’s not up to me.”
“So, likely, they end up coasting until the rents due again,
then try to steal from someone else, or they turn right back to drugs when they
can’t turn things around fast enough, or because it’s just what they know.”
“You want to see them in jail?”
“Part of me would not be sad to see that. They did try to
steal my shit, and almost put a bullet in me. But, I also acknowledge locking
them up wouldn’t actually solve anything, either. If anything, it’d make things
worse for them.” He smirked. “Maybe some time in one of Shady’s Worlds?”
Cyl let out a small laugh. “Wouldn’t want to punish them
with a good time. But the fact is, they got that way because life treated them
like shit. Yes, they are responsible for their decisions, but given their
circumstances, they don’t have many good choices to make. But at the same time,
you can’t just hand people solutions to their life’s problems on a silver
platter.”
Don let out a long breath. “I know you don’t like this
conversation.”
She pulled away from him and gazed into his eyes. “Don. You
want Earth to stay as Earth? To be the world you know? You have to take the bad
with the good.”
She sighed and leaned back, staring towards the ceiling,
letting herself see beyond it into the heavens. “I keep telling myself that,
but some days, I’m not very convincing. I told you we tried to fix things for
humanity before, and we fucked it all up. We tried to make a paradise, but
didn’t consider all the ramifications. We tried to make a world where choosing
between good and evil was simpler, with more obvious consequences, but the
nuances of the human condition couldn’t just be swept away. But for all that,
part of me still thinks there has to be something.
Some way we could make it work, so people like Tom and Louie don’t have to
break into people’s houses to keep a roof over their head, and keep themselves
numbed to the world with drugs.”
She shook her head. “But, of course, there’s other Omnys
that like the way things are, because they just don’t care that most mortals
suffer, or they just like Earth to be how they remember it because it lets them
revel in their power all the more. And then there’s the Omnys who would happily
grind the world under their heel, and only don’t because the rest of us won’t
let them.”
Don frowned. “Part of me forgets that sometimes, that you do
a lot of good for us just keeping the monsters at bay.”
Cyl shrugged. “It’s hard to recognize the threats you never
see. If there is one thing I think we genuinely improved on, it’s that we all
finally were able to come to an effective armistice and understanding. I guess
that’s what stops me as much as anything. Domina doesn’t step out of line,
because I don’t either.”
“That’s not nothing.” Don glanced back over his things.
“Still. It’s hard to get over sometimes. I don’t like best-of-a-bad-situation solutions.”
“No one does. But I legitimately don’t know what else to do
about it.” She hesitated, opened her mouth to speak, then closed it.
Don cocked an eyebrow at her. “What?”
“Don, I… the thing is…” She chewed her lip almost nervously.
“I… told you I’ve been handling… other projects... outside the universe.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, in doing so, I’ve gotten stronger. Much stronger. Strong enough, I could
probably force the other Omnys to do what I wanted, if I really tried.”
Don stared at her for a moment. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that before, part of what held me back was the
fact that most of the other Omnys weren’t going to let me change the world any
more than we were going to let Domina. Even though some of them would agree
with me that things should be better, no one wants to rock that boat, and I
couldn’t just force my way onto any of them. Not that I ever wished to do that.
But now, I’m in a position where, if I really wanted to, I could impose a
change to the Etiquette, for the sake of humanity.”
She frowned deeply. “Our past screw ups held me back, too,
but I’ve had time and gotten new perspective to think things over more. We
agreed to keep Earth a neutral ground, as much to keep the universe stable, and
for humanity’s own sake as a species. I told you before, I don’t want to be the
tyrant goddess that people constantly pray to for the solution to all their
problems. I don’t want to repeat our old mistakes. I don’t want to inflict my
ideas of good on humanity as a whole; I know what I want isn’t what everyone
wants. But I also just don’t see why we have to let mortals suffer so much in
their day to day lives, just because we feel like we just have to let things be.”
Don nodded. “You’ve said one reason you keep Earth the way
it is, is it helps as a sort of anchor. Reminds you of what you once were, so
you don’t get too far above yourselves. And that you need mortals for sex,
because mortal intimacy soothes your sex drives in way you can’t reach with
each other.”
“Yes. That’s true. But is there any real reason we can’t give humans more of an opportunity? Paradise may never be truly achievable, but we could make
things a lot less miserable for everybody, if we just gave everyone better
options.” She sighed again. “Sorry, Don, I didn’t mean to dump this on you. I
need to give this some more thought.”
“Guess you’ve got all the time in the world to figure it
out. Have you spoken with the others about this?”
“I’ve been hesitating on that, because I know it’s going to
disrupt things.”
“How badly?”
She gave him a soft smile. “Nothing that’ll hurt the world.
I’m just not looking forward to the argument.”
Don nodded, and watched her sip her tea thoughtfully. “Well.
Before you go have that talk, maybe I can help you ease your anxieties a bit?”
Cyl’s smile broadened. “I would like that very much.”
They finished their tea, and Don led Cyl to his bedroom.
They undressed each other, Cyl keeping her powers suppressed and reveling in
the delicious tension of mortal foreplay. She didn’t have much to take off,
wearing her usual red bikini. Still, Don drew it out, kissing down her neck as
he removed her top. He massaged and suckled her breasts for a minute, causing
her to shiver and gasp, before he trailed kisses down her stomach, as he eased
off her bikini bottom. He guided her to his bed, and kneeled down as he gently
pushed her to sit. She spread her legs, hooking one over his shoulders as he
trailed more kisses up her inner thighs, and before fixating his lips on her
clit. She mewed and squirmed as he licked her just how she liked, running her
fingers through his hair as she pressed him firmly against her. He alternated
between driving his tongue deep, and then focusing on her clit with long,
steady, drawing out licks and sucks.
Even holding back, she couldn’t fully suppress her energies
as her pleasure and arousal rose. He dutifully kept to his task, however, even
as the feedback of erotic essence made his own body flush with heat, and his
cock throb intensely, tingling with pleasure without even being touched! He
kept going, however, until Cyl came, writhing against him and blissfully
moaning his name.
Then they switched, with Cyl taking her time removing his
clothes, trailing her lips and fingertips over his sensitive mortal flesh,
making him jump and twitch as even her simple caress made his whole body light
up with pleasure. His cock was absolutely straining before she reached it, and
when she touched his belt, she simply dissolved the rest of his clothes off his
body, reforming them on the floor, off to the side. His cock throbbed in aching
need of her, and she gazed at it almost entranced, sensing the raw sexual heat
coming off him. She kneeled, and closed her mouth around his organ, and Don
cried out, clutching at her, as the energy swelled. He lasted six whole seconds
before he exploded, firing his seed down her throat intensely. She swallowed
every drop, but didn’t let him go soft when he was done.
Her mouth left his cock with a soft pop and she smiled
lovingly up at him. Even without her power, that look alone would have kept him
rock hard, and with passionate strength, he lifted her off her feet and all but
threw her onto his bed. He pounced atop her, and she opened herself wide to
take him in. The world froze around them as Cyl let him take her in every
position imaginable for nearly three days straight.
***
Cyl had to wait a few days for Megan to get done bullying
him, but once he was free, she decided to pop over to see Salamando. She found
the Avatar of their Author chilling out on the cozy beach of a small lake that
she was pretty sure hadn’t been in his personal dimension the last time she’d
been here. A glance showed her he’d renovated things a bit. Sal didn’t have
reality-warping powers of his own, not even in the custom dimension that served
as his abode, but the last time Kat had been over, she’d helped him make some
new adjustments.
He lay naked on a towel under the warm sun, relaxing after
Megan had put him through the wringer. A quick glance through his memory told
her she’d been pretty tough on him this time, hurting him in sensual ways no
mortal man should have been able to survive. The bitter brunette didn’t visit
him often, but still occasionally liked to use him as a chew toy when she got
in a mood.
On the one hand, it was exactly the sort of thing Sal
fantasized about when he was feeling especially masochistic. On the other hand,
to actually experience such sensual pain at the hands of a goddess who had no
sense of mercy when she got in one of her moods, well, that turned out to be a
lot less fun than in his head.
Still, this was the fate he was consigned to, living in the
Omnyverse with all his Creations. Due to his unique position as the Avatar of
their Creator, no single Omny could claim him as theirs. Cyl supposed she had
the leverage now, to keep him safe from the more wicked Omnys, but even her
enhanced power was no excuse to throw away the tenets of the Etiquette.
At least Megan had let him cum when she was done this time,
letting him finally experience total relief after forcing him to ride the
painful edge for days. She healed him and soothed him, enough so he wasn’t a
shivering, mewing, lust-mad wreck when she dumped him back in his world, for
one of the nicer Omnys to fix up afterwards.
Cyl sat down next to him, noting he had dozed off, and
hadn’t noticed her presence yet. She could have instantly refreshed him and
woken him up right there, but it was better to let mortals have a real rest.
Instead, she lay down and waited, letting soothing energy gently radiate from
her body, bathing him in soft healing magic, to accelerate his recovery. Then
she slipped forward in time, to the moment he’d wake up.
He napped for about three hours, finally blinking awake into
the clear blue sky. There was, thankfully, no risk of sunburn on this world, even
for someone with his fair complexion. He sat up and rubbed his eyes with a
small groan, then turned to get to his feet. As his eyes focused, he jerked
back as he saw her, thinking for a moment that Megan wasn’t quite done with
him.
He blinked a few times, his heart thudding, until his brain
registered that it wasn’t the mean brunette, but the white-haired woman who was
one of the nicer ones. He let out a sigh of relief.
“Hey, Cyl,” he said, voice a bit hoarse.
“Hey, Sal.”
“What’s up?”
“If you’re up for it, I’d like to talk to you about the
Omnyverse.”
“As long as it’s just talk. Please.”
Cyl gave him a reassuring smile. “It is. I can tell you need
a break.”
“Can you tell the others to back off for a while?”
“I can arrange that. Does that include Kat?”
He hesitated. “No, she’s fine. And you’re fine. Just…
please. I need a break from the others. I’ve just been through, like, a session
a week for like six weeks in a row. I think. Feels like six months.”
“It’s tough being a boy with sex appeal, huh?”
Sal rolled his eyes. “If I wasn’t your author, none of you
would even acknowledge I exist. You practically said as much yourself, before.”
Cyl frowned a bit, then reached over and patted his hand.
She kept her erotic energies completely suppressed, so her touch wouldn’t get
his motor revving again. “If you were just a normal mortal, I’m sure one of us
would have found you and taken you eventually.”
“Lucky me,” said Sal bitterly. “My luck, it would have been
Domina, and then I’d just be in hell twenty-four seven.”
Cyl pursed her lips. “I can come back another time, if you
want. Make sure you get a nice stretch of alone time.”
Sal sighed and waved her off. “No, no, it’s not… you want to
talk, I’m willing to talk. I’d just like to keep my dick dry this time. I don’t
even want to think about sex for like a month right now.”
“Fair enough.”
“So, what did you want to talk about?” Before she could
answer, he put a hand up, glancing around. “Wait, let’s take this somewhere a
bit less sandy.”
“My place or yours?”
“Up to you.”
“Mine then.”
A moment later, the two were standing in a marble courtyard
overlooking another small lake, this one set into a floating island ringed with
tropical trees. Roman pillars formed the supports of a stone gazebo, under
which several padded benches that could double as small beds formed a half-ring
facing the lake. The island was one of thousands floating in the seemingly
endless sky of Cyl’s own Home World.
Sal, now dressed in his usual blue clothes and cloak, leaned
back on one bench, while Cyl, now dressed in her black bodysuit, sat
cross-legged on the other end, facing him. The black suit, which made her body
look like a living silhouette, was sort of her unofficial “formal” outfit, so
Sal knew this was a somewhat business-focused conversation.
“Alright. What’s going on? Is something threatening us from
outside?”
“No, not at all. We’re about as secure as possible from
that, actually.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“It’s about… well…” She pursed her lips as she parsed her
words. “I’d like to bounce some ideas off you on how to handle Earth.”
Sal cocked an eyebrow at her. “Okay. In what sense?”
“Mortals suffer. I understand the idea that humans need a
little hardship to make the good times worthwhile, and modern life for many
humans on Earth is a lot easier in some ways than it used to be. And yet, for
all the advancements in medicine and technology, lots of people remain
miserable. Many starve. Many are needlessly brutalized. Wars still happen. Some
who seem to have it all still end up suicidally depressed. I know we intended
Earth to stay as it was, and the Paradise plan
didn’t work out, but we can do something
to make things better, surely?”
Sal frowned. “The human tendency towards discontent scales
with the human experience. Doesn’t matter how much you have, a person is going
to find some way to be unhappy.” He pointed to himself. “Look at me. Perfect
health, immortal, I live in a fantasy world of my own making, the hottest women
in the multiverse want to play with me exactly how I used to fantasize about
and I can beg favors off them if I play my cards right, I don’t need money, I
have all the time in the world to write or go on exotic adventures, etc. And
yet, I’m still not in a constant state of bliss, am I?”
“Well. You’re in complicated circumstances.”
“Yes, I am. For one thing, I don’t feel like I deserve any
of the good things I’ve gotten here; I’m here on a cosmic fluke. I still worry
the real Salamando is mentally unhinged, indulging in having me here. Despite
being your Author’s Avatar, you all still have total control over my situation,
so I’m only able to live comfortably at your mercy, and you can take that away
at any moment. And some of you do. Yes, the sex is unreal, and I do want it,
but not all the time, and not in every situation, and frankly, it’s exhausting
dealing with all of you, whiplashing
me between your different desires.”
He gestured back and forth as he ticked off the different
scenarios. “Kat and I spend a week in consensual, but intense BDSM. It’s amazing,
but it’s also awkward when things cool off, because it’s Kat, you know? Then a
week later, Shady kidnaps me and throws me in her Flesh Caves
Cyl frowned. “I’m sorry for that.”
He shifted uncomfortably. Even as he complained, his cock
still got stiff recounting all the salacious encounters. “It is what it is, and
it’s not always that frequent, and not all of them come after me regularly. But
my point is, you’d think this would be the greatest life imaginable for someone
like me, but it’s got its problems. You can’t just wish everyone’s dreams to
come true and poof!, instant
happiness forever.”
“I know. I just said the Paradise
plan didn’t work out.”
“So, maybe you can do something that’s not quite as intense
as the Paradise plan, but still doesn’t just
give everyone a perfect solution.” Sal waved to himself. “You could extend your
divine health to everyone. That would be a decent baseline, I think.”
“And then what happens to the medical industry? The food
industry? The beauty industry? What happens if, god forbid, something does go wrong, something causes that
blessing to go away, and its a hundred years later, and no one remembers how to
be a doctor anymore?”
“Then I guess in that hypothetical future, everyone’s
fucked. But up until that point, people get to not worry about whether the next
round of flu is going to kill them, or if they’re going to end up with cancer.”
Sal leaned back and gave a half-shrug. “Of course, to your other point about
industry, you’re assuming people have
to have jobs in order to be happy. You could simply give everyone infinite
resources. Provide infinite land, or give everyone their own pocket dimension
where they can make anything they need or want, instead of forcing them to
grind away for money.”
Cyl sighed. “Most people might not like jobs, as such, but
most people do like to do some kind of work. Or, really, they like to have a
purpose, and work is a way to fulfill that, even if it’s just working at a
hobby or passion, or living off the land so they don’t have to rely so much on
an unstable market. But I see what you’re saying. The economic disparity across
the world is atrocious.”
Sal nodded. “A lot of people might be happier if money and
lack of resources wasn’t an issue. But then you end up with people becoming
listless and disillusioned with life if there’s nothing for them to actually do
to accomplish anything. Hence the suicidal kids of millionaires.”
Cyl shrugged as well. “Which just brings us to the point of,
how much of human misery is just because of chemically wired instincts in the
brain? We could eliminate the hedonism tolerance spiral, and people could be
perfectly happy doing a handful of simple tasks everyday without having to ruin
themselves struggling to make ends meet.”
Sal held up a finger. “But once you start fucking with the
brain that way, are people even human anymore? But how much does that matter in
the face of eliminating suffering? Is being human even worth it, or do we just
think that way because as humans, we relate most to being human? But without
humanity, does this whole suffering/pleasure dichotomy even mean anything
anymore?”
Cyl stared at him pensively. Sal smirked, pointed a finger
to the side of his head, and twirled it. “You see? Spirals, all the way down.
Worldbuilding can be fun, but it can also be this endless pit of frustration as
you try to sort everything out, and every answer opens up a dozen more questions.
And, ironically, in a world where literally anything is possible, because it’s
controlled by omnipotent women who can make anything happen anyway they want,
it just makes it that much more frustrating, because every scenario you posit
comes back to ‘but why do it this
way, when you could just do it that
way instead?’”
Sal dropped his hand and shook his head. “I’m going to level
with you Cyl, I’m not very smart when it comes to this stuff. You’ve been to my
other worlds, you see what else I’ve made. I’ve been going back over my old
ideas, all those superhero and fantasy and sci-fi adventures, and outside of a
small handful, I’m really just kind of taken aback by how shallow it all was.
Lots of surface details, not a whole lot of really digging deep to see how such
a world could realistically function. It was all just cartoon logic. Things are
the way they are, because that’s just how they are. Even the Omnyverse, all the
iterations I tried, it all came down to a lot of flashy bells and whistles, all
Rule of Cool, or Rule of Horny, and it didn’t really go any deeper than that.
“Why did I, and hence you all, want to keep a mundane Earth?
Because it was easier to just have a normal Earth, and because I honestly just
preferred the aesthetic of the juxtaposition. It made the fantastical elements
seem that much more fantastic when contrasted against the mundane. That’s what
makes superhero stories so fun, that’s what I liked most about the Sex Mage
World. And it also makes it a lot easier for readers to connect to such a
world, to have some element of relatable existence in the story that can anchor
their experience. Horny housewife gets omnipotent sex powers and has kinky
magic times with her husband? That draws a shitload more interest than horny
housewife gets omnipotent sex powers, then spends three hundred pages having
philosophical debates and eventually altering the planet into some heavenly
fantasy reality where humans aren’t even recognizable as people anymore,
because they’ve become self-sufficient immortal organisms that never need to do
anything.”
He gave her a sympathetic smile. “And that’s why the Paradise plan didn’t work. That’s why the Simple Good
Versus Evil plan didn’t work. That’s why detaching you all from Earth entirely
and having you only frolic in your weirdo Omny World simulations didn’t really
appeal.”
Cyl pursed her lips. “So, it all comes down to narrative
conceit.”
“Pretty much. I mean, just look at you and the other Omnys.
When you reset the Omnyverse, did you pop yourselves in as-is and go about your
business? No, you gave yourselves mortal lives to experience first, and those
lives had hardships, which made your Ascensions that much more special.
Salamando didn’t bother writing your
past lives as full stories, but it’s in your character profiles, and it’s
canon.”
“Yeah. I suppose that’s true. We didn’t even give ourselves a perfect start.”
Sal shrugged again. “I don’t know what to tell you.
Salamando Flames isn’t a good enough author to make utopia compelling. I wish
he could be.”
Cyl frowned, but nodded. “No. I get it. Superheroes need
supervillains, and supervillains need victims for the superheroes to save.
Otherwise, there’s no story.” She sighed again. “Still. This is a story. There’s other works of
fiction that can have conflict without being so miserable for the common
person, isn’t there?”
Sal nodded. “There are, sure. But a lot of them assume
things based on the author’s bias, and imposes that on everyone in the world.
There’s some people who think everyone would be happier if we all went back to
living in small rural communities where everyone in town knows each other. But
some people actually in those situations finds it absolutely suffocating,
especially when they are too different from most people in their town.
“Some people think we would be better off confining everyone
into self-sufficient super cities, where there’s enough people and enough
territory you can get lost in the crowd if you want, and outside of farming
plots, most of the planet could remain as a nature preserve. But cities have a
ton of problems of there own, with so many crowded in one region, space
constrictions, much more complex infrastructure to maintain, etc. No one world
solution works for everybody.”
Cyl propped her elbow on her knee and rested her cheek in
her palm. “Hmm… and once again, we’re back to why not give everyone their own
little omni-bubble-dimension, with infinite resources and nothing to do.”
Sal ruminated for a moment. “I mean, ultimately, humans are
a social species. It’s why you Omnys still hang out with us, despite everything
else you could do or become.” He paused, then said, “I don’t like the idea of
wholesale ripping off other authors, but this one story Salamando read did have
a pretty compelling rendition of Heaven. Without stealing it completely
wholesale, you could try doing something like it.”
Cyl nodded. “I mean, there’s no such thing as an original
idea anymore, right? And let’s face it, us Omnys were originally a joke rip-off
of the whole Super Goddess genre, right?”
Sal scowled. “Iterating on a whole genre, even a niche one,
isn’t quite the same. But anyway, to give you the gist: the idea was that every
mortal was given the power to be immortal shapeshifters, and could magically
manifest any item they wanted at any time, and everyone lived in these different
layers of Heaven, which were infinitely large, so there was never a lack of
space for people to travel to. They could also teleport wherever they wanted, though,
so distance wasn’t a hindrance. Basically, everyone was just a god in their own
right, though no one was more powerful than anyone else. Well, aside from the
entities that created the Heaven, which, it’s a long story, I won’t go into it.
“Anyway, people could live together in whatever size
community they wished, or they could isolate themselves. There were even worlds
that had only one real person, or there were only a handful of real people, and
everyone else in that world was a pantomime person, a completely realistic
simulation that could fulfill the roles needed for the real person or people to
experience the world the way they wished, without other real people having to
suffer from it.”
Cyl blinked. “Huh. That last part sounds a lot like your own
ideas for the Fae Realm. Or even our Omny Worlds. The Fae Lords create their
own realities with Pantomimes fulfilling the background roles, and Lesser Fae
and mortals piling in to fill the, for lack of a better term, story roles.”
Sal smiled. “Yeah. I mean, we were probably drawing from
similar inspirations, but yeah, obviously, I’ve had my own ideas on simulated
realities and dream worlds and whatever for years.”
“See, you aren’t just ripping off other authors wholesale
every time.”
He waved her off. “I know, I know. Old hang ups. The point
is, though, my old ideas about Fae Lords and Omny Worlds, they were all based
on, like, creating genre-based realities for action adventures and erotic
scenarios and such. You know, worlds still rife with their own conflicts for
characters to work through. This other author did a more elaborate set up for
creating his Heavens scenario as a happy ending for his story. It’s a lot more
philosophical and thoroughly considered than my stupid Sex Mage Simulators or
Video Game Roleplay stuff.”
“Alright, alright. Let’s not go down that comparison road
again.”
“Right. Anyway, this guy’s Heaven idea. Immortal
shapeshifters, pocket dimensions, yadda yadda. Thing is, there were two big
aspects that made it all work: no one could do anything to anyone else without
consent, and everyone had a divinely appointed magical helper to handle tasks
for them, both for helping them transition into living in Heaven, or helping
them deal with overwhelming situations. So, like, let’s say someone’s super
popular and gets tons of requests for visits; that person could ask their
assistant to screen the calls of people they already know they don’t want to
deal with, and relay requests for a visit from those people they might want to
see.”
He paused, then shook his head. “Well, there was a lot more to
it, but you get the gist. But I think that’s probably the best rendition of a
customized Heaven I’ve yet seen. It wasn’t precisely constant bliss all the
time, it was just, everyone got to live their optimal existance. People
couldn’t directly harm one another or mess with their property. They could
still hurt each other socially and emotionally, and sometimes did so without
meaning to just because of clashing desires, but even that had its limits. For
people who wanted conflict and a real sense of danger, they had their own
version of Realplays, temporary memory wipes as they lived out simulated
mundane or dangerous existences, which they’d pull out of when the scenario
ended.”
Cyl mulled it over, looking to the floor in thought. “It all
sounds very nice.”
Sal glanced her over, frowning a bit. “If you could convince
the others, I think you could come to a similar arrangement. If you don’t want
to give mortals god-like powers, you could still give everyone great health,
give them a Created partner so they’ll always have someone to lean on, and
invite them all to custom worlds where they’d have a lot more choice about what
they can do with their lives, without worrying when their next meal or rent
check is going to come from.”
“And yet… Shady, Megan, Domina, they’re still going to want
to be able to take people and torment them. Devi and Lettie will still just
impose themselves. Even Whitney can be pushy sometimes. Let’s not forget, us
Omnys are also based in your whole fetish for women using and abusing men at
their leisure, the men’s own needs and feelings be damned. It’s why we almost
never Empower men, excepting certain circumstances.” She looked back up at him
again. “Salamando still enjoys that.”
Sal nodded. “At some point, you Omnys were supposed to only
go after people who were into it, too, even if you took them well past their
limits. But I think that eventually just went out the window for some of them.
I don’t know anymore. Shady mainly bullies people who like being bullied, but
at some point, why wouldn’t she also
try to get her thrills tormenting people who didn’t want it? And she can only
justify it by going after people who supposedly deserve it.”
“Except, of course, most criminals get that way because
circumstances pushed them.” Cyl shook her head. “Not all of them, of course,
but I don’t know, dismissing it as ‘it’s okay, they were bad guys’ is exactly
that black and white thinking that fucked up our whole Good vs Evil timeline.”
“Domina manages to mostly get by with Created victims.”
“Even she steals people from Earth and Thrae at times. None
of us can be content with purely Created lovers. But is that actually true, or
is that just something we inherited from Sal, because he doesn’t care for every
story just being an in-universe roleplay with zero actual stakes? That’s why he
never went full in on Dellissa’s Fae Realm version of the Sex Mage World, and
did so much more with Sex Magic on Earth, because the conflict it brought
actually meant something, story-wise and character-wise.”
Sal sighed again, throwing up his hands. “And once again,
we’re back to the shackles of narrative conceit.”
Cyl sighed back, rubbing her face with her hands. “Being an
author must suck.”
Sal gave a laugh. “Being an incompetent author who can’t
untangle his stupid worldbuilding ideas to just tell a straight forward,
compelling story sucks. For what its worth, though, that Heaven scenario I
talked about was the ending for that
other guy’s incredibly long fantasy epic. It was a rough ride getting there,
and the characters went through a ton of crap to earn that happy ending.”
Cyl cocked an eyebrow at him. “So you’re saying if we tried
that whole Heavens thing, it would probably be the end of our own project?”
Sal frowned in thought. “I’m going to level with you, Cyl, I
don’t know how much longer we have left. Salamando likes you all, and the
Omnyverse project post-reset has helped him process things. But at the same
time, he struggles to come up with much to say. Even with the conflicts he has
introduced into the Omnyverse, the fact is, you’re all immortal, and you’ve all
reached that peaceful armistice between the good, bad, and neutral Omnys.
There’s a few more things to maybe
touch on, but frankly, there’s only so much more to go over. In a way, this is
already a Heaven scenario in as much as it’s the closest you all have managed
to making a stable existence for yourselves.
“And if we really want to be blunt here, that mundane world
you’re so worried about the mortals in? It’s no more real than you. In a way, Earth
of the Omnyverse is already just a simulation filled with NPCs whose suffering
doesn’t really matter, because the only people who mean anything in this whole
reality are the Omnys themselves, and the mortals they deign to play with, and
the Created they deign to keep around. Callous as it is to say it, the unnamed
masses are just that; a mass of background details that don’t really exist as
anything other than ambient noise, until one of you decides to turn your
attention to them.”
Cyl frowned deeply at that, staring at him for a long,
silent moment. Then she lowered her gaze, until her hair hung over her head.
Sal tensed as, through the strands of hair, he saw the glow from her left eye
shift from gold to red.
“Cyl?”
She looked back up at him, the Mark of Temael now visible on
her face. She normally liked to hide it from others, but Sal, of course, knew
all about it. She let out a long breath, and smiled. “You know, sometimes I get
so caught up in it all, that even when I’m talking about how we’re in a story,
I forget what it actually means that we’re in
a story. I’m thinking of the narrative like some obstacle to overcome, but
it really is just a tool that does what we make of it.” She looked up to the
sky, staring past the layers of the Omnyverse, past the meta, past the words
that made up the fundamental essence of her reality. “I’m starting to think
you’re a bit of a sadist yourself, Salamando, saddling me with all this
existential muck.”
“Sorry,” said Sal. “I guess you got pinged as one of my ‘work
through my issues’ characters.”
Cyl made a little hmph,
and looked to Sal again. “I don’t suppose you’d consent to me taking my frustrations
out on you for a bit?”
He swallowed nervously. “I would very much appreciate you
giving me that month off first.”
She chuckled and winked. “I’m kidding. Mostly.” Sal gave her
a pensive look, and she chuckled again. “I’ll see how I feel in a month.”
“Good. Thanks. So what are you going to do? Whether Sal
writes much more about this place, the Omnyverse is your project now, technically speaking. You all really don’t have to abide by his old ideas. You can
just do or be something else; even if means retiring out of the limelight
sooner than later, you’ll get to carry on, on your own terms.”
She sighed again, and unfurled herself into a reclining
position, leaning back against the benches armrest and stretching her legs
along the length, just enough so she wasn’t quite touching his hip. “I don’t
know. Don had his house broken into and almost got shot today. Even accepting
the concept that most of the citizens of Earth are just more Created filling
out that role, and the Playthings are the only ‘real’ mortals, they’re all
still experiencing the conditions of a dangerous world. I see no reason we
can’t still do something to elevate the baseline.”
Sal nodded, touching his chin in thought. “Salamando also
read another guy’s story, about a world where people one day just magically
became immortal at the prime of their lives, with no explanation. They weren’t
able to have kids anymore, but they would never die of illness or disease. So
people just kept on living their lives. They advanced technology as far as they
could, but a mundane Earth can only get them so much. It still resulted in
things like nano-machine construction and force fields, so people could
minimize the chance of anyone getting killed by accidents or violence, which
was still a possibility.
“They figured out how to balance their resources just right
so they weren’t precisely post-scarcity, but they could maintain a sort of
perpetual ‘breaking even’ resource management, with reserves for emergencies. Nobody
went hungry, people worked jobs and did hobbies to pass the time, because like
you said, people need something to do. But ultimately, the whole human race
sort of lived a life of sensible work-leisure balance that kept them contented.
“I guess the weird thing about it was life still largely
resembled the 21st century, just with some higher tech, because the
author hand waved it as ‘people like what’s familiar’, and civilization sort of
just got stuck at the last new generation’s aesthetics or something. So, they
had nano-tech medicine and such, but people still lived in houses that looked
like 21st century houses. Better materials, but nostalgic look. So
that’s a case where the one-style world solution did get kind of hand waved,
but it was also a very interesting interpretation of immortal humanity. You
could try something like that.”
Cyl thought it over, musing out loud. “Yeah. Maybe that
would be more fitting for us. Tweak things a bit, introduce some new
technologies and medicines, so maybe post-scarcity really can be achievable for
the human race, but only up to a point. Remaking the world into an infinite
plane or opening the whole multiverse up is probably too fantastical, but maybe
make space travel possible and more planets habitable. Make it so they still
have to work for things, but money is no longer an issue, so if people fall, they
won’t fall too low if things don’t work out. Maybe most people don’t get their
dream job, but nobody has to starve to death.”
“Well now you’re just ripping off Star Trek.”
They chuckled together. “There’s worse realities,” she said.
She gave him a smile. “Thanks for spitballing with me.”
“Sure. Are we done, then?”
“Yeah, get out of here. I’ll make sure you get some time.”
“While you’re at it, if you could maybe not keep including
me in too many more of these stories, that’d be swell. I don’t think people are
reading these stories to see the author literally jacking off over his ideas.”
“You’re the one who keeps setting these situations up, you
pervert.”
“Whatever. I’m leaving before we fall down another
meta-hole.”
“Do it then.”
“I will!”
“Good!”
“See you later!”
And with that, Sal vanished, teleporting back to his Home
World.
Cyl sighed, shaking her head, and deciding she was getting
really sick of her own whinging about her whole moral dilemma of being the
stymied good girl. It was time to just make a decision and move on with her
eternal life. She would call for an all-Omny meeting, hash out some terms, and
see what the others thought about violating the Etiquette in regards to Earth,
if the exception proved agreeable to them all.
With no time like the present, she cast out an invitation,
and one by one, the Omnymphotents arrived to decide the fate of the Omnyverse
once again.
END
“My place or yours?”
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