“Come in!” The voice was muffled, but not unfriendly.

  Jack opened the door and gestured for me to go ahead. His smile was sympathetic. It helped.

  I took a deep breath, nodded, and stepped through the doorway.

  I couldn’t tell whether the room beyond was cozy with dark walls, or a vast space that faded off into shadows; the light was only strong enough for any crity near the door. Part of the light came from overhead, although it wasn’t all that strong; part of it from the several computer monitors resting on a cluttered L-shaped desk and on arms extending down from the ceiling. On one monitor I could see a wire-frame image of some kind of four-footed creature, turning slowly in pce; on a monitor above it, turning the same way, I saw a hairy beast that made me think of the extinct ground sloths I’d once watched a documentary about.

  The impressively-ergonomic chair spun around, and the inhabitant gestured to a chair at the end of one arm of the L. “Come on in, Nathan, have a seat. Just looking over some work by one of my development teams.”

  I’d been halfway expecting a Biblical patriarch, or maybe the executive-type that would fit with the office setting.

  The boss was, instead, a nky human figure. In the indifferent lighting, they could have been mid-twenties or mid-fifties, for all I could tell. Shoulder-length untamed hair was vividly green, framing an androgynous face. The blue jeans and oversized bck T-shirt, bearing what was recognizably a stylized map of the world, offered no hints.

  “I, um... I take it you’re the creator.”

  They tilted their head a few degrees to one side, shrugged, and nodded. “Of one world, the one you’re now in, yes. Creating and maintaining worlds is a lot of work, but it’s one a lot of my people find interesting and rewarding. Of course, everyone has different tastes, different ideas about what the intention should be and how the rules should work. There are blueprints anyone can access and use as-is or modify as a way to get started. It’s remarkable, how the same fundamental building blocks can lead to very different results that go in completely different directions.”

  “What you created is genuinely beautiful.”

  “Thank you. I like how it turned out. There’s an expression where you’re from, that necessity is the mother of invention, right? But I’ve checked on a lot of worlds, with permission, and I’ve noticed that creativity and innovation can also be badly limited by the struggle to survive and to access the resources and skills needed. I really enjoy watching how creative my world’s people can be, so I made sure they’d have the freedom for that. All kinds of creativity.” They frowned. “Well, not creative ways to oppress or kill others and take away their ability to live to their full potential. That’s not acceptable. But I didn’t give them most of the social structures they’ve evolved, for example. They did that on their own. I just went along with it and made the tweaks that were necessary to give wardens and clerks and council-members their authority. I love seeing that kind of thing.”

  “All I’ve seen, everywhere, since I got here, is people just overflowing with the drive to make even ordinary things special, just for the sake of doing it, and the confidence to do it. I know... I know the really bad things that have happened where I come from have inspired a lot of creativity, too, but that’s a way to express pain and anger and horror and try to cope with it. That’s obviously not essential and people still want to express themselves about other things.”

  They nodded. “And find ways to support each other, and help each other learn and stay healthy and all those things. I admit, it’s easier for people to be kind to each other when they aren’t competing for limited resources, but then, I never understood why anyone would create a world with limited resources and not include a system to make sure that the popution stays at a level that doesn’t strain them. That creates no-holds-barred competition and sets a whole cascade of us-and-them social problems in motion. Put two animals in a cage with food for one and of course they’ll fight. Give one sharper teeth and defective social altruism, and next thing you know, it’s chewing on the other one. And it’s unforgivably irresponsible to create a world like that and then abandon it without shutting it down.”

  “My world... the one I came from... is abandoned?” That sort of expined some things. A lot of things.

  “As near as I can tell. Nobody answers contact requests. I’ve notified the folks higher than me who actually have the power to do something about it. I’m still unsure whether that’s a factor in my little glitch that gives me adult newcomers from that one world. It took me a while to figure out the pattern. By then, fixing it had become problematic. In simple terms, and using an analogy that I think you can probably understand, I would have to do some repairs to the code and then reboot the system.”

  “Uh... what would that do to the world?”

  “That’s why it’s problematic. I actually don’t know and the information I can find is inconsistent. Some people have done reboots with no damage at all. Some have lost their entire poputions and had to start over. Some lost parts of their popution, or they came back... well, call it a case of file corruption. Several cases, actually. So maybe you can see why I would really prefer not to have to take that step.”

  “I... yeah. I’d really hate to see that. That’s an awful risk.” Wiping out everyone, all to fix the problems caused by a few individuals... but those few individuals could cause disproportionately rge problems.

  “And I’d probably have to spend ages tracking down new bugs, because every fix always seems to spawn those, and that’s boring and monotonous compared to creating new things. I’ve only had rare moments of wondering whether it would be necessary after all. For the most part, you’re welcome here, all of you who want to stay. You bring little bits of new ideas that sometimes become seeds that send creative minds in new directions, and I like watching that. I might have been overly generous when I was calibrating the Quincunx’s process of scanning and processing and transting abilities, but if I try turning it down now, it will probably break the skills all current newcomers have and none of you deserve that except, y’know, one in particur. The ones who don’t like my world are welcome to leave, that’s their choice. Think of it as... there are many servers, and each one allows you to interact with its own environment, but you have to sign up for an account on it. You can only have one account at a time, so moving to a different server means deleting your previous account and creating a new one. Every world has some method of deleting your account so you can go elsewhere, but it might not have clear instructions. Where you came from, dying deletes your account irrevocably with all data erased. That’s why you can’t go back and still be you. It would be possible to create a new account there, but it wouldn’t be the same.”

  Oh. That was more specific than just ‘you can’t, you died.’ “That’s... that makes sense, now. Thank you.”

  They nodded. “Honestly, my own people have no idea how the people who inhabit our worlds choose which ones to go to, and as near as we can tell, you only remember how when you aren’t alive, which is not a time when we can actually talk to you and ask, so it’s a bit of a mystery. We create worlds and people start showing up to live in them. Some are open and let unlimited people in, but most have restrictions. Mine has a popution limit, and someone new can’t come in unless someone else leaves and makes an opening. I’m working on increasing the limit—it’s still a young world and I’m still working on a lot of different things. You might have heard people refer to the other continent but they’ve never met anyone who has been there. That’s effectively my... what would you call it? Sandbox? Pytest environment? A pce my teams can try things out before we add them for real. Sometimes things based on standard blueprints but modified a bit, sometimes completely new inventions. I’m building another continent past the Shallows that will be freely accessible, one with some other kinds of biomes, and once that’s ready I can increase the popution limit since there will be more space and more resources. I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens with that. But I’m not creating it to be inhabited entirely by mosslings.”

  “Oh! That’s what Logan meant! That’s why he pointed out to her, multiple times, that there’d be no creativity and no novelty if she succeeded and she wouldn’t be allowed to! And she honestly thought that she was going to succeed because you can’t stop her!”

  “Unfortunately, she’s partly right. Deleting single accounts is tricky at best, and the way adult newcomers fit into the system, especially after you’ve been here, makes it virtually impossible. And it’s much easier for someone to gain abilities than to specifically and selectively lose them. The team Jack is part of is looking for solutions for me. Your status-swap ability pushes hard against the boundaries and I had to do some actual recoding to make sure that it could work against other newcomers with no restrictions. Please don’t make me regret listening to Jack and doing that.”

  “I’ll do my absolute best. Working with Logan to keep Carol contained isn’t going to make you regret that, I hope?”

  “No, that’s what it was meant for. I don’t mind if you find other constructive uses. Given your general profile, I would expect you to use anything avaible if someone is in distress. Just use it lightly. As for stopping Carol, my options were limited. A massive natural catastrophe would remove her, along with multiple settlements, and interrupt her pn, but only temporarily. I refuse to have my assistants start actively directing people towards violence, and it would probably not be effective anyway. Confining her for long would be uncertain, since she’d have to have food and she’s very good at maniputing pnts in unexpected ways, or she could refuse to eat or find some other way to die.” Feet pnted on the floor, they made the chair pivot back and forth in short arcs, slowly. ”She presents a different set of difficulties than the occasional previous disruptive newcomer. I came very close to resigning myself to the necessity of that reboot this time. I have some concerns that my people are so peaceful that they’re unable to defend themselves effectively.”

  “They have a different kind of defence,” I said. “Two or three centuries of mosslings as a real threat weren’t enough to make them live in fear and hide behind walls and distrust strangers. They just rearranged things to try to prevent it as best they could, and made sure victims had support, and worked on finding a solution, and otherwise kept right on having festivals celebrating life and creativity. It was emotionally destructive to some individuals, but they healed and recovered and got on with their lives.” I thought of Meridel, still travelling with her husband’s band, and Serru, who still walked alone in the wilderness instead of letting fear drive her into a miserable existence staying in one pce. “That kind of resilience is strength too. And the instant they had the formu for the Purification potion, a way to fight back that doesn’t viote who they are, they threw everything into it. Even wardens, who put themselves in danger to help others, trying to figure out how they could test it. They aren’t violent. But they’re brave, and clever, and tougher than they look.”

  They looked at me measuringly. “Not unlike the emphatic defences that I’ve heard from Jack, who personally saw a terrible war in the world you came from before he became a teacher, and from others.”

  “This was an external threat. They were up against someone thinking in ways completely alien to them. They just needed a little help from a couple of people who have different experiences.”

  “Hm.” They smiled. “I think I agree, at least for the moment. Recent events do support what you and Jack and the others have said. I don’t actually want to make major changes, I would rather keep creating new things and watching what my world’s people do on their own. I think we can all agree that rebooting is a st resort. You’re going to be active in my world, with your current identity and memories, for potentially a long time. That’s why I’m making sure you understand what my goals are and what the basic rules are. Come and tell me when you decide that you’re ready for something different. Until then, at a bare minimum, don’t get so carried away that I have to send messengers to set limits on what you’re doing, because that forced me to bend my own non-intervention policy and I don’t want to do it again. Don’t do anything that makes me reconsider whether a reboot is worth it to keep newcomers from breaking my world. Other than that, you’re free to do whatever you want, just like anyone else.” They gestured towards the door, and I took that as a dismissal and stood up.

  I paused two steps away, though. “Two, no, three more questions?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is there any way to invite people to come here after they die in the world I came from?”

  “Not on my part. I’ve heard suggestions that strong emotional ties linger. Um, something like what your previous world calls quantum entanglement? No, that didn’t make sense to you, did it? Sorry. Essentially, people that you have been genuinely close to have a higher chance of being drawn towards you if you’re stable somewhere and they’re in motion. Does that answer your question at all?”

  “Probably as good as it’s going to get, thanks.”

  “Second question?”

  “Where did your staff out there come from? And what do they do?”

  “Oh, that’s just one team. I have a lot of assistants. Like I said, creating and maintaining a world is hard work. They’re all people who have lived in my world and had skills I needed. They live on my sandbox continent when they aren’t working. They do whatever I need, which is mostly what the world needs, but I encourage them all to be creative, of course. They can have personal projects. There’s a small cross-team group that love designing new birds, for one thing, and the ornithians came out of someone’s side project. Everything will keep improving, fauna, flora, natural phenomena, you name it. I don’t take job applications, but I keep my eyes open for anyone who might be valuable and so do my current staff. Third question?” They stood up. I hadn’t actually realized how tall they were, jotun-tall, looming over me.

  “Why didn’t you just make everyone immune to the moss infection? And maybe zombification? Or could you now?”

  They smiled. “If I had removed that entirely, instead of putting limits on it, how could we have proof that my world’s people are able to deal with a threat? How would they know that they can do it? If that one was too much, then I would have had very little choice except a reboot with some other key changes. And you’ve said yourself that they have it under control now. If you want people immune to what’s left, go create a way to do that. Good-bye, Nathan. Jack!”

  Jack immediately opened the door from the outside.

  Clearly, this conversation was over. I went with Jack, back to the outer office.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, as we walked back towards the waiting area.

  I didn’t answer right away. Talking to the creator of a world was a bit overwhelming, and I was sure my emotions had just shut down during it. I had answers, but processing them was going to take longer. “Yeah. I think I am.”

  “Good. I’m not going to be dropping by for dinner, or spying on your personal life. That would be rude and besides, I do have a lot to do. I don’t expect you to need any more behind-the-scenes help. But I’ll be keeping an eye out, because the only prediction that’s always true is that unpredictable things happen. And we’ll find a way, sooner or ter, to make sure Carol can’t hurt anyone else. I’m not holding out much hope that keeping her out of py for a decade or two and then releasing her back into a world no longer afraid of her would be sufficiently effective. And I owe you a reward.”

  “So... don’t say good-bye, just see you ter?”

  What I had thought were photographs, I noticed as we passed, were moving, the surface of the water rippling, trees waving in the wind.

  He ughed. “I suppose so. What are you going to do now? Other than that reunion with your friends, that is.”

  “Find a quiet pce to set up my house. Rest. Recover. Grieve. Get my head around everything that’s happened and what the future now looks like. There’s a lot that I’m really looking forward to but also something important that I’ve lost. And then? Ask Terenei about the nearest music or art festival, order books on alchemy and healing so I know what the hell I’m doing for real instead of just using a fancy heads-up dispy, maybe adopt a cat or a dog or both, go shopping for any clothes I like without having to think about whether they’ll be read as masculine or feminine, learn to do makeup for myself instead of asking Terenei, visit Reese and try his food and get to know the other newcomers, check out the beautiful off-the-road experiences in this world with Serru, and always keep watch for anyone who needs a paramedic.”

  “Doesn’t sound so bad as a future.” We paused in front of the door out. “Grief takes time. Don’t rush it, and if there are some good days and some bad days for a while, that’s normal. Keep using Lulbye Drops for a couple of months yet, until everything feels more stable, and keep them and a couple of full-on Lulbyes handy for stressful days that kick up memories.”

  “Thanks. I have a good support net already. I was headed for a bad case of burnout at work. Seeing the horrible things that can happen to people and seeing them die despite everything and being attacked physically and verbally by people you’re trying to help can do that, even without feeling like there are parts of you that you can’t express. It’s not being in a war, but...”

  “Not so different, in some ways.”

  “I’m not saying grief is easier, but the future definitely has a lot going for it, and that’ll help. If I could live through that, I can get through the rough bit of this.”

  “I haven’t the slightest doubt that you can.” He grinned. “Go be fabulous.”

  I ughed. “I intend to try.”

  Outside, under a sky bright with stars and three moons, I paused to take a deep breath, then another.

  Well. I was in another world, I had some abilities and knowledge not locally common that were useful and had helped me sort-of save that world, I currently had mass gratitude for it, and I had... at least a potential harem. Maybe my life really had turned into an isekai story of sorts.

  This one st time, coming out of a Quincunx site, I needed to get back to Serru. Not with a new form and new abilities and a new identity crisis, just some answers I couldn’t share and maybe that sense of closure she’d hoped I’d find.

  Like Jack said, what mattered most was now.

  It was going to be a bit of a hike in human form, and I couldn’t change to dragon until I was past the pilrs and at the shelter, no matter how much I wanted to. Better get going or I’d be te for breakfast.