Leaving Fillory.

Horror. Madness. Pain. Death.

I awoke with a start, soaked in sweat and wiped my face clean.

It was the same dream. Again. And much worse this time.

The curse was continuous. It wasn't just a one time deal.

It had been plagueing me ever since that day. The first day. Every time I slept it came back worse than before.

The corruption in my code was growing too, steadily, day after day. It was going to consume me, slowly, terribly, painfully.

And there was nothing I could do about it.

I had tried my best to keep awake, drugs, serums, magic. All of it. But that only made the curse spread faster.

It was creeping in now, into the edges of my vision. Manifesting nigh-real hallucinations, nightmares in my waking reality. I could see the phantoms from the corner of my eyes.

Just faintly, ever present. Worsened my paranoia too.

Fuck.

If I wasn't immortal, I have no doubts I'd have been driven mad or consumed already.

I gulped heavily, my throat felt parched. With my divine power I conjured up a bottle of water and downed it, quenching my thirst when Yue woke up.

No doubt feeling the panic in my heart, the quickening of my pulse.

She was attuned to it, being a vampire and all.

She could hear my blood pumping.

"Jay?" She had a look of concern on her face and I felt a pang of pain lying to her.

"I'm okay."

"..... Lying is not good." She climbed into my lap, cupping my face.

"It's fine, really. I'll deal with it soon." I assured her.

"Un~" She nodded, and kissed my forehead as my worried melted away in her embrace.

"I'm here for you. So tell me if it becomes too much, okay?"

She knew.

And she gave in.

It nagged at me.

Dammit.

Why am I like this?

Why can't I open up to the ones I love at least?

I mentally punched myself.

"Don't be angry at yourself. It's okay." Yue caressed my head, as if reading my mind.

She had an uncanny ability to know what I was thinking.

"I know it's hard for you. Do it when you feel you're ready."

".... I will." I whispered, cherishing the moment.

Though I couldn't help but miss Offee's hugs.

They had a bit more... Fullness to them, if you know what I mean.

"... Rude." Yue chastised and I kissed her modest chest and made my way down her body between her milky thighs as she quivered with delight.

"Yue is perfect too."

"Uhn~" She moaned, wrapping her legs around me.

"A little quieter. Don't want the whole castle to hear us do we?" I smirked.

We had come to the castle yesterday afternoon and gotten Eliot installed as the high king.

The rest of the day went just like it did in the show.

There was council meeting, introductions were in order, the castle armory was found empty, and so was the treasury.

I even broke the curse Martin placed on the thrones by just outright burning them and ordering new ones built.

And after providing them with a basic guide to running the kingdom better, I retired early in the evening to satisfy my little bunny and her insatiable lust.

Yue pouted.

"There's a soundproof ward and a forcefield around the room." She huffed cutely, pushing my head into her parts, "Now put that tongue to use somewhere more productive."

And so we continued the grand tradition of tender morning sex.

It's great that Offee and Yue are nymphomaniacs.

Wanda and Paige had more....reasonable libidos.

They weren't low by any means, but they didn't have me in bed half the day pounding away.

Both of them were rather mild and cuddly except when it came to using their powers for pleasure.

I guess it had something to do with their mind control powers.

Of course that's only relative to Yue and Offee.

Those two are never satisfied.

Not that I'm complaining.

.

As we finished up for the morning and got ready to go back to Earth, I checked the glasses again and went over the email my other clones had sent me.

We were communicating via an elaborate series of memetic filters, ciphers and translators across worlds just to make sure that whatever this curse is, it doesn't pass onto them.

Doing everything the analog way too.

It was a pain in the ass, given that I'm used to just thinking entire programs into existence. Now going back to actually typing it all out with my fingers is making me feel bad for not cherishing the good times when I had the freedom to use my technokinesis for it.

I haven't lost it, of course. Just that using technokinesis, the chance of me unwittingly passing on the curse is significantly higher, so we're erring on the side of caution here.

But, there was good news. The curse was curable. Fairly easily too. The curse purger and a modified disintegration beam that worked on spiritual particles could do the job.

Purge the curse and before it can regenerate along with the my code, disassemble my whole existence down to the very spiritrons of my soul and transfer my soul into a new copy of my body.

Okay, so maybe not that easy. But still, it was a solution.

One I would have gladly used.

Until I met Offee.

With her here, my plans changed slightly.

Not only because I made a promise to her, a promise I wanted to keep because she saved me in the new timeline, but also because I loved her and the kids. Even if they weren't mine.

I wanted the best for them.

Another reason was her walk between worlds, and the subsequent cursing of my code.

Something that meant the old gods knew I was here.

And since they knew about me and were likely trying to lure my true body in, I came up with a new plan.

I found a better use for the curse than just removing it.

Giving them a taste of their own medicine.

Of course, with how fast the curse was progressing, it was going to be a race against time.

So things needed to be sped up. Hence the outright murder of Persephone and Reynard.

I wanted to speedrun this shit. And given how I had changed things, I'd need something else to bring the important parts of the plot back on track.

And that starts with an incursion into the underworld.

For that, I need some guniea pigs.

I walked into the throne room and found a couple sitting by the dinner table to the side.

Hmmm... Convenient.

"You guys ready to go back?"

"Already?" Quentin whined.

My life is in danger and he's whining like a toddler leaving Disneyland.

Yeah. I've decided. He'll be the first guinea pig.

Funny thing about him, since Fillory has to have two kings and two queens, one of us had to take the second queenly title.

And guess who took it.

Yeah.

"Yes, my queen. We must leave posthaste!" I said with a cheeky grin much to his annoyance as Margo and Julia snickered.

"Ugh." He groaned, "It's just a title. It doesn't mean much and.. and! I am a feminist, s-so I think it's empowering."

"So usually being a queen is demeaning? Is that what you're saying?" Margo teased.

"N-no. That's not-! I mean, you know what I mean!" He pouted and we chuckled at his misery.

"You said you weren't going to be mean to me." Quentin sulked.

"I don't remember saying anything like that." Margo played innocent and focused on her egg sandwich, biting into it with a disgusted face.

"We definitely need to update the cuisine." She looked at the servers annoyed, "You, yes you. Have you heard of this miraculous thing called salt?"

"We are out of salt, your highness." The man bowed his head.

"First the armory, now even the pantry is out of spices?"

Eliot nodded, munching down on a piece of ham.

"At least they have honey." He sighed,

"Jay, here's a job for you. Be a tart and do a grocery run, will you? Get some Wine. Vegetables. Spices and seeds too. If I am to live here the rest of my life, I am not subsisting off of boiled chicken."

"Sorry, but I need to get on that Reynard business. People's lives depend on it. But.... " I took out my emergency cooking set and put down the spice rack on the table.

"You can use these for now. Get Penny to do the grocery run."

"Wait. I want in on the Reynard shit. If Kady is involved, I want to be there." Penny insisted.

I had told them about the Reynard stuff after I returned yesterday.

Of course, I left out the part about me killing him to keep their cooperation.

Most importantly, Julia's connections in the underworld.

After my attempt to remove her memories failed, she insisted on getting in on the action. She wanted to take revenge on Reynard personally.

And I wasn't about to refuse a willing pawn. Well except Penny.

He was a pain to deal with.

"Penny, don't take this the wrong way, but the best way for you to help, is by being here and maintaining a base for me to retreat to. I'm trying to banish a god here. It's not going to be like .... This. Reynard is far more dangerous.

Besides, since Margo has decided to stay back, she'll need someone to keep in contact with us."

"Yeah. I don't want to get stuck here." Margo added.

"I'm right here." Eliot gave her a deadpan look.

"I know, El. That's why I am staying back, remember. I won't leave you to the wolves." Margo assured him.

"Alright. It's decided then. Shall we?"

"Yeah, j-just one more thing." Quentin took off his crown and extended it to Alice.

"While I am gone, I-i-i want- I mean, I-i hope, you can rule in my stead. If you want to- I'm not trying to force-"

Before Alice could reply, I cut in.

"Actually, Alice is coming with us."

She raised an eyebrow.

"I am?"

"Yeah, one of the ingredients of the god banishing spell is found only in the Underworld. And I thought, while we're at it, might as well get Charlie's shade back."

This was why.

This was the reason I had to map out the underworld now, before magic is shut off.

Because afterwards, I'd need a convincing reason for how I have enough magic to merge someone with their shade. Or remove someone's shade for that matter, to create a pocket in their soul to smuggle out a shade in the first place.

And once that got out, because let's be real, it will get out, it will paint a target on me.

And having every last magician on Earth and beyond, up my ass about the 'secret magic battery' I had is not in my agenda.

So I had to get it done now. While magic is still working.

"Oh." Alice realized.

"Wait, you forgot about that didn't you?"

".... No."

I chuckled.

She was very bad at lying.

It was cute.

"Alright. You guys get ready to leave. Gather your stuff and meet me at the castle gates in ten." I clapped, and grabbed me an egg sandwich too, spicing it up a bit, when I saw the look Eliot was giving me.

Well shit. This is going to be awkward.

.

"Sooo....." We sat in the empty armory as Eliot fidgeted nervously.

"All packed." He picked up a book from one of the shelves, a recipe book for talking insects, flipping through it to hide his nervousness. "You're leaving."

"Not for long. Just a little quest work. Then I'll be back here. Two weeks, tops. Besides Margo will be here."

"This week. But then, even she and Penny will.... " He trailed off, swallowing his words.

Yeah. Let's just cut this conversation short and skedaddle

"El, look, I'm grateful-"

"For what? For taking one for the team for the rest of my life."

"It's not that bad. And it's.... " I sighed.

"No, I get it." He waved me off, "I'm.. uh.. trying to see this ruling thing as an adventure. Apparently we have enemies to the north and the south. Plus broken infrastructure and whatever magic issues that wellspring disaster is going to cause. As if his wellspring addiction hadn't done enough.

And do you know that they don't know what champagne is here?"

"They eat boiled chicken, unseasoned, so I'm not surprised."

"Well, I plan on inventing it. I'd like to be known as the Champagne King."

"It has a ring to it." I sat down beside him.

"Right? I'm really looking forward to drinking socially. Like the french."

"Horrible choice." I chuckled and he smiled, punching my shoulder playfully.

"So, uh, in the books, time doesn't run at the same speed in Earth as in Fillory right?"

"Sometimes. Yeah. But it's going to be okay." I patted his back.

"Yeah." He nodded, "Yeah. Or I'll just live out my days waiting for my friends to return and... die alone." He said with a mild panic.

"Jesus that's grim." I muttered, as an uncomfortable silence lingered between us for a moment before he broke it.

"You know... it's considered very disrespectful to touch a king without permission....but, um... I think you should probably hug me. Right now."

I pulled him into a hug and rubbed his back.

"It'll also be okay if you give my ass a little squeeze..."

I snorted out laughing, and separated from him.

"I'll miss you." He said.

"I know." I replied with a cheeky grin, "I'll be back soon. In fact..." I handed him my crown, "I want you to hold this for me. I'll come to pick it up. You know I'm too greedy to give up on a whole kingdom's worth of magical stuff."

He twirled the crown in his hands, thoughtfully.

"You are, aren't you?"

"Yup. So keep the kingdom safe for me. Don't get Les Miserable'd." I said.

"Yeah. I'll go easy on the cake." He smiled.

"No boat hairstyles either." I chuckled.

"Never been much of a boat guy." He agreed.

But his eyes, they still betrayed such loneliness....

Fuck it.

Fine.

"And while I'm there, I'll look into a way to bring you back."

"You will?"

"Yup. I already have an idea where to start. So hold tight. I'll be back." I gave him a thumbs up.

"Laaaame~" He teased.

"Yeah? Says the guy who's been reading the recipe for bug cake upside down." I shot back.

He looked down and flushed, flipping the book over.

"Goodbye." He waved.

I waved back. And teleported away.

_____________

Alright. The emotional bits are done for now.

Time to speedrun this arc!

Next time, The underworld trip and the return of Wanda.

Till then, thanks for reading.

Donate your powerstones.

Bye~