Systems are fun. They give structure where there was none before. Though that can be dangerous. You need a balance. Especially since going too far in one direction speeds up entropy and the death of a universe. Yes, even [Order].
In fact, a realm of pure Order sometimes ends up there faster than one of Chaos. So, in a way, systems can actually lead to an early death for the universe they are placed in. I’ve seen way too many realms die young because an early race decides “there can only be one” and that they need to “save” the universe’s power for themselves.
They’ll go around, wiping others and trapping matter and energy in black holes or what have you. Only for their cold, dead universe to fall apart many magnitudes of time sooner. Generally after their civilization is reduced down to at most a handful of Intra-universe immortals. Either through mental merging or fratricide.
Now let me tell you, and yes, I can tell someone is watching this avatar of mine, my systems don’t fall into that trap! It would be so easy for me to reduce everything to math. To take all that every being within a universe is, and “math it out”. About the only thing out of reach would be what souls from dimensions conceptually further away might bring.
I’d have to babysit the system to correct for that or block the universe off from the greater flow of souls. Which is one of the few things that will cause a universe to die even earlier than reducing it to pure Chaos or Order. Even us True Immortals aren’t really sure what’s up with souls. They come from somewhere and go somewhere, but that’s outside of the known Omniverse. Most True Immortals won’t have even noticed that there is a flow to souls since even for us who are unbound by time, the timescales involved are simply too big.
Which worries me. Or rather, this avatar. My main existence isn’t worried, but this is my customer service face and even other True Immortals get freaked out by my true self. But yeah, we can’t die. Even other True Immortals ganging up on another, it tends to result in being sealed. Yet there aren’t enough of us. Because even if the Omniverse is infinite, that just means infinite chances for other True Immortals to appear.
Oh, wait, is this what you were watching me for? I just got directed to check in on a dimension using one of my Path systems. Which I consider some of my best work, even if they’re oddly rare? People don’t seem to like using them.
I mean, sure, there is more inherent chaos to the system, but that’s the point! The paths allow a soul to manifest parts for themselves in a way that you normally need to meditate for way too long on. Way too many people want the boring class with levels and skills sort of system. Though I guess it is partly because those systems allow the admin to screw around.
You can’t give a new path to someone. There is no way to force power onto someone in a controlled manner. Which seems to really piss off most other True Immortals and Deities. They want to be able to spawn in a “demon lord” and then ordain a group of heroes to fight it. They take a saying from your dimension’s Earth way too literally.
“All the world’s a stage” taken to the extreme!
Anyway, it looks like I have an automated alarm to go and check on the system now that it has had time to settle. Hmm, I should probably identify this dimension for you? Let’s see what details might have meaning for you.
...
Okay! I got it. Looks like the True Immortal who purchased my Path system did so because they stepped into this universe despite it not having any magic naturally. Yeah, cascading false vacuum decay is a nightmare to try and handle yourself if you’re not familiar with how magicless universes function. Introducing magic to such a universe is one of the few acts that turning back time can’t fix.
Now, what other details can I share? Oh, looks like one of the local seasonal courts of the Fae is actually a transplant. They, of course, only showed up after another Me visited. Fae Royalty capable of hitching a ride to a new universe aren’t going to choose a place where a True Immortal can wipe you out by accident simply by changing the time to before you arrive.
You don’t magically pop back into existence when the time goes forward again. After all, you aren’t there to enter the universe anymore. Only beings native to the Void can get around this, being another thing you can’t fix with a little time manipulation.
Now then, where is the dimension? Ah! Over there, that explains it. You can’t really define spatial relationships between dimensions in the Void, space doesn’t exist there, after all. However, dimensions cluster based on conceptual relationships, and that right there? That’s a cluster of humanity-focused dimensions.
Not that humanity doesn’t thrive in magical dimensions. However, of the common enlightened races, they’re the only ones who can thrive in a magicless world. Which is a survival trait and so humanity-focused clusters will tend to have magicless dimensions at the center. Which, in this case, “center” means those dimensions with the most connections and thus in a diagram would be placed towards the center. But that’s just me being distracted.
As an avatar, I must admit I’m not as down to jive with the higher dimensions you need to touch upon to really get around in the Void. Sure, there isn’t space and so three or four-dimensional thinking shouldn’t matter, but it doesn’t work that way. Everything in the Void is based on metaphysical connections and the ability to think in more dimensions helps that because you can inherently fit more connections. Or something of the sort.
Once again, I’m just an avatar, so even though I technically have all this information in my memory? That doesn’t mean I can actually think it. Hmm, what’s a good example you might understand? Ah! If memories were text files, then I’m just a basic notepad that can only open txt files, while some of these memories are stuff like rtf files. They’re there! Lot of good that does me, though. Thankfully, I can still use the information to some degree so that analogy is already leaky, but it does mean we’re almost there. Kind of surprised you kept up with me.
Now, do I need to enter the dimension or are we meeting outside?
Hmm. Looks like it’s inside.
Do I fully enter? No. I didn’t do that to place the system, and doing so now would just disrupt things. Just a wisp.
Watch as I reach out, a single hair, a thread among thousands of others. Yet if you stare too hard? My single hair on this lesser avatar dwarfs this dimension. Though it is growing in metaphorical weight, what with magic slowly spreading through the thing.
Split, split, split, and split some more! My strand of hair divides into smaller and smaller threads. I picked this trick up from a Dungeon Core a few Grand Kalpa ago. Which is kind of impressive, you know? They do this naturally and can cover more of the Void than a True Immortal despite being quite dimensionally limited.
Anyway, I think this should be small enough? Now I just have to poke it into the dimension at a weak point.
Oh, you want to know why I don’t just enter? Mostly I’m lazy. Entering a dimension fully takes more effort than you would think. You have to weave a shell around yourself that matches the dimension or you get stuff like what happened here with the introduction of magic. And also, I don’t trust the guy who bought my system to have everything properly calibrated for others to enter without causing even more waves. For beings with limitless life and ever-expanding minds, some of us bring our mortal foibles along for the ride.
Now, who am I meeting with? Oh! There’s a Dungeon Core over there that seems to have been placed in charge of the distribution of tutorial resources. They should at least know who I need to talk to.
[Hello Caverns of Endless Mirrors! I’m ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓, but you can call me Z. Don’t worry about not getting it, I’m making a reference for someone else.]
The dungeon core freezes, not even gently bobbing up and down as cores usually do. ‘Hello?’
[Yes, yes, you’re freaked out about me showing up in your core room. Especially since I think I didn’t manage a proper mortal body? Can you actually see a floating squid or is it just a blur in your vision?]
The core lowers towards the floor, ‘Uh, a blur? Though I don’t know what a squid is? But I do now? And I suddenly have a pattern for it?’
[Yeah, yeah, that’ll happen. Anyway, I’m the True Immortal the local system was bought from. I could have just chatted directly with the system, but I’ve found it more polite to make myself known. So yeah, I got an alert to check up on the system and make sure everything is running like it should.]
The core freezes again, ‘But, you’re a True Immortal? Shouldn’t the system be perfect if you made it?’
[Hah! And shouldn’t the guy who stepped into this dimension have been perfectly able to do so without causing this mess? Nah, we can make mistakes. Maybe if there was only one of us, our abilities would verge on perfection, but that sounds boring.]
Meh, this is getting boring. Time to crank up my perception of time so this code doesn’t annoy me too much more. It isn’t freezing time, but from their perspective, it might as well be.
Now, what’s gone wrong? Not that something has to have gone wrong! Though magic has a slight tendency towards schadenfreude and irony, so stating nothing should have gone wrong is a good way to make sure something did or is actively going wrong.
I also expect something to have gone wrong, anyway. It is practically meant to! My systems are designed to be brittle in very specific ways. That way they break in a predictable fashion, which points towards the actual problem.
Oh! And would you look at that? The tutorial intake is backed up. Must be a bad day when the gates to hell are back up, eh? Not that it leads to any sort of afterlife, but getting stuck in a data buffer, waiting to be reconstituted? Kind of close.
Hmm, when that breaks, the problem is in the most troublesome area. Truly an unfixable segment of the entire process!
Eugh, it’s with the people involved!
Jokes aside, yeah, it seems this is simple enough. The humans of this dimension seem more resistant to the normal tutorial process. I’ll need to bring in more guides and maybe a new dungeon?
I have to be careful, though. Now that I know there is a problem with the standard tutorial? Better make a few changes and get in people better suited for the task. Guess I should decide how many new people are needed.
I’m thinking a few hundred planetary floors. That way each floor can handle a million or so tutorials with room to expand. That’ll mean oh, let’s just ground up to fifty billion guides. It will need more given time. I’ll just set up a general order to keep growing the number of tutorials being run as time passes.
Now to re-sync with the dungeon’s timeframe.
The core begins to bob in the air again. ‘Boring? The system isn’t working properly because that would be Boring?!’
[No, being perfect would be boring. At that point, you aren’t really a person anymore, but rather a concept. Anyway, I checked and the problem is that the tutorials aren’t able to process things quickly enough. I’m going to bring in another extra-dimensional dungeon and a bunch of guides to handle things.]
The core rolls back, ‘Already? You've just arrived. How could you already know what’s wrong? Did you even have to show up?’
Heh, it’s fun seeing what people assume we’re capable of. [Sadly, the void restricts even us. Anyway, do you have any convict cores you’d rather not work with? Though remember, you’ll be in charge.]
The core glows brighter, ‘Well, there is this one annoying dungeon. They stuck around my original dimension for a while and were a pain! Can’t rightly remember their name as I forgot it on purpose. No need for them to live rent free in my mind like that. Though I do remember they had a dungeon Fae named Zela. She was nice enough.’
Hmm, let’s see, convict dungeon core with a Fae called Zela? I think I know who that is already, which makes this easier. [No problem! I’ll bring in the Realm of the Floating Isles and get them set up to help run the tutorial.]
And with that, I think our time together is coming to an end as well!