"Come again?" Dei asked, believing he perhaps misunderstood.

"With the tools at your disposal, I recommend crushing the dimension with your Void affinity, as it is the only ability you have that can interact with the fabric. It's a simple process if there are none to oppose you, but even a single lifeform has enough weight to halt the process. When you begin, all matter unclaimed by a soul will compress down into a single point, bringing every soul in existence to your feet. Every elf will appear before you as the distance between them shrinks into nothing, and it is here where you will be able to rescue their souls."

"I… can't believe it'll be that easy. If anyone could crush a dimension, even partially, I feel like that would happen more often."

"Correct, it isn't. You've already deduced there is something within the sun, and I am at liberties to say it is… somewhat important to the continuation of the Physical Realm. While you cannot approach it from outside, I will access it from this dimension and remove several safeguards."

"Can't you just tell me what it is?" he begged, "The curiosity is killing me! Can you remove the safeguards so I can go see it myself?"

"No and no. There are worse things one can do with full access to the sun than destroy a dimension."

Dei groaned, that sentence only making his suspicions worse, but ultimately sighed and dropped it "Okay, I'm going to be allowed to crush it, but how do I do that?"

"I will admit, this next part will not be easy, and will likely take months. I know, however, that you are on a time crunch, so I will activate another safeguard on my end that accelerates time within this dimension a hundred fold. One day out here will be over three months within the broken dimension."

"You can do that?!" Dei exclaimed, "That would've been so helpful! I've been in an insane time crunch! A break would've been nice! Could you do it for Earth?"

"No, doing so destroys the world in question at a rapid pace, siphoning energy from every star and singularity to feed the process. I only do so now because there will be no casualties. At most, you will have six months before everything breaks apart, and all the souls inside die. This is also sub-optimal long term, as it will leave a gaping wound within the fabric, and I will be the one to repair it, so do not fail."

"Okay… no pressure I guess, six months to crush a universe? Sure. How do I even go about doing this?"

"I cannot provide detailed assistance, but I can give you the starting line: the world seam, where you can peel it back to enter the raw fabric; spatially, it is not a true seam as would be in clothing, and can be pushed together just as easily as it can be pulled apart. It is also… a hinge of sorts. Right now, it sits flat at a one-hundred-and-eighty degree angle. With every action bent bringing it closer to zero-degrees, the fabric shrinks further."

"Okay, that sounds like an amazing way to visualize it, but I'll have to wait until I'm there to see for myself. When should I do this? Are there preparations that need to be made?"

"Yes, however they will take only minutes. Whenever you are ready, say the word and I will activate the dilation. Be warned though, once it begins, you should not leave the universe," the champion said ominously.

"Why?"

"Because it would waste the precious time you have?" he answered flatly.

"Oh I thought… I thought it'd be something mysterious or dangerous. Okay, never mind then. I have to take care of a few things, then I'll be ready."

"Forget about teaching Victoria, I will grant her the knowledge required, and it will likely be better than whatever process you'd intended to."

"Harsh, but fair. That wasn't all I was talking about though, it shouldn't take more than the rest of the day."

"I will not withhold you then. Tell one of my priests when you are ready, I will be watching through their eyes."

* * *

He felt bad for leaving Victoria behind, but there were other things to worry about. Quickly checking in with Jacob, he got a subtle thumbs-up as the man chatted happily with Tharia at one of the round tables, the woman looking much better in the brief time he'd been gone.

Everything else in order, it was time to continue the process he started before the entire Jacob fiasco: choosing Void users. It'd been perhaps six hours since he left Earth and found Jacob, but he still wanted to get it over with so he wouldn't worry about it during his time in Menerali.

Victoria and her obsession with roleplay had given him an idea- one he couldn't get out of his head. He needed people who had two sides, both either good or neutral, and both distinct enough to form their own identity.

If he wanted someone with two identities that wanted to be good, what better place to check than cosplay conventions?

* * *

'Wow, I was closer to wrong than not,' Dei thought with amusement, looking over the crowd from his invisible vantage point.

He did a brief scan of many minds, finding that the majority of people here either had something wrong with them, had too little dedication to be a super hero, or would 100% turn corrupt the moment they got their hands on any kind of power.

Still, mostly wrong didn't mean completely wrong. He was lucky there'd been a semi-major event going on right now, with a few hundred people here. He knew there was a world-wide event once a year, but that was not happening right now, so it was irrelevant.

Of the few hundred, he found perhaps eleven that fit his bill of "Wouldn't go crazy with power" if they suddenly became their actual character. Of those, two were evil characters, so he ruled them out as well. Even if they weren't crazy, they'd play being evil.

The last nine weren't awful at all. They'd all chosen one single character to play, and visited conventions regularly. They even knew each other because they all came to these things as the same characters each time.

Of them, only one caught his eye, for being comedically perfect for the role of hero, and especially one that was on Earth. After all, who better to serve as a mini-protector, kind of like The Champion, than a soldier of the sun?

* * *

Walking through the crowds, Perumah frowned, speaking into his mind.

"They will not realize I am not human?"

"Not if you stay the way you are right now."

He'd asked her to turn her roots green, make them slightly thicker, and activate a disguise feature on her cloak that would change its color to a dull brown. His idea was to make her seem kind of like Huntress Princess from Adventure Time.

While he knew Huntress Princess had smooth skin, Perumah still hadn't gotten that part down, so he was leaning the other way and saying something like "We think she would be made of plants because of her hair" or something like that. Better to tell people it's just an animatronic mask.

"What of you?" she asked, "You've made almost no changes to your body?"

After all the times he'd asked stupid questions, he took joy in his turn to look at her like she was an idiot. "Permah, I look like a human normally because I was born human. All I had to do is extend my ears a bit, shrink down, and change one eye color. Now I'm a Snow Elf from Skyrim."

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"Elves are lithe. You are bulky," she pointed out.

"Elves aren't real here. It's just a costume, it doesn't have to be perfect. It's better if they're not perfect, cause we might get pulled into some kind of costume competition if they are."

Her frown hadn't gone away, but she dropped the issue. His words were reinforced when, as they moved through the crowd, Perumah received many compliments on not only her outfit but performance, even if that was just her aloof nature showing.

Eventually, they came upon a man looking over some little dragon dragon rings at one of the vendors, and Dei was just as impressed with its accuracy as he'd been watching from above.

He was dressed as Solaire of Astora, the Warrior of Sunlight. Solaire was a character from Dark Souls One who had a storyline that spanned most of the game, and he was obsessed with the sun, even worshipping it.

In the game, Solaire had two "Endings" to his storyline. Either he would find a mind parasite that emitted light and allow it to take him over, killing him, or the player character could find the parasite first and slay it before Solaire did. Dei always went for the second ending when he played, of course, and he considered it his canon ending because Solaire could join you at the final boss if you did so. He chose to never look into what the actual canon ending was, because it was so sad to even think that the jolly-good Solaire would die in such a horrific way.

The man was named Levi, and he was the perfect candidate for multiple reasons. Solaire was a good, friendly character; he really liked Solaire, and would never break character, meaning a strong connection to Void. Even in his own mind, he was not Levi right now, he was Solaire; and finally, he was an anonymous writer with a large passive income. He made a ton of money off books he'd written a while ago, and had more than enough free time to kill. He'd jump at the chance to act as Solaire in the world and do some good, while also being safe from people discovering his real identity and messing up the border between them. None of his fans really knew who he was, and he had no job to get back to that may blow his cover.

"...Now where did you acquire a Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring?" Levi asked the vendor, clearly trying to start some sort of funny interaction with his cosplay. That was an item in the game that looked like a little dragon ring, so it was easy to see the parallel between the two.

The vendor, on the other hand, was having none of it. She looked rather annoyed, and seemed tired of people trying to buy things in their cosplay. 'Why would you come to a COSPLAY event if you don't like COSPLAY?'

"Are you going to buy something or not?" she asked sharply, and Dei saw the change in Levi's body language from "Friendly" to "Distant." He likely had intended to buy the ring, but now decided against it.

"My sincerest apologies, kind merchant! I will be on my way," he said, and turned to leave.

"Solaire!" Dei called out, getting his attention, and Levi was right back to being excited when he spotted Dei.

"Oh! Hello there!" he said, and continued to move slowly away from the vendor, wanting to put some distance between them; Dei followed along. "You don't look hollow, who might you be?"

"Ah, I'm supposed to be a snow elf from Skyrim, before the whole drow thing. This is my friend, Huntress Princess from Adventure Time. We thought she'd be made of plant stuff since her hair is leaves in the show, so we went with a whole mask. Your…" he was going to say 'cosplay looks incredible' but decided against it, as it would only irritate the man, instead saying "...Gear looks well maintained!"

Levi was fully hooked on their friendliness, having an absolute ball of a time getting into character. "Yours as well! You seem to want something, my friend, what can this warrior of sunlight do for you?"

Dei smiled at the roundabout way of asking him what he wanted, but didn't mention it. "I'd like to summon you for some jolly co-operation! This is my first time at one of these events, and my friend here is getting a bit too in character and being all distant. You seem friendly, and a friend is what I need right now. How about it?"

Levi laughed heartily, "Certainly! I'd love to help you out on this lonely journey!"

Dei would get acquainted with him for an hour or two, and tell him the deal after that. He felt like Levi would accept help a lot more than Boris had if he at least knew Dei on a surface level.

* * *

Levi walked them around, even introducing him to some of the other people who regularly attended these events. Dei thought it was fun to question him and see if he could get the man to break character even a single time, but he never did.

The time came for him to propose the deal, and he decided to put some weight into it. To make it as terrifying as possible, in order to ensure that Levi would not back out. If he bent the knee at some fear, he would not be the perfect Void user that Dei imagined.

He used a feature of his mind spell he hadn't in a while, simulating a mental world and matching it with the convention around them. It was much easier with how powerful he'd become, going off without a hitch.

All that was left was the presentation.

* * *

POV: Solaire of Astora (Levi Williams)

He was having a blast with these two. Though Perumah wasn't much of a talker, Dei was, and he went along with Solaire well, never trying to get him to be anything outside of himself. Dei was also clearly a fan of Dark Souls One, and it was hard to find people willing to replay it with him. Maybe Dei would?

Pulling out a 3D-printed white sign soapstone, he handed it to Dei. "I say, it has been quite pleasant! Should you ever have need for me again, use this to cross the gaps between worlds, and engage in jolly co-operation!"

Dei took it and studied it, turning it over to find what Solaire meant. He'd changed the model to have his phone number on the other side, so that if he met someone he wanted to be friends with, he could hand that to them and they'd be able to contact him again, if they wanted.

Dei's face lit up when he saw that, and Solaire was quite proud. He considered it a clever solution, and it seemed Dei did as well.

When he looked back at Solaire, something passed through his face though, and Solaire wavered a moment, the world blurring for hardly a blink. His heart skipped, and he felt "Solaire" nearly drop, but managed to keep himself in the moment.

Still, he took a step back, reaching for the sword at his hip- a replica he'd forged and sharpened himself out of real steel.

He paused when he looked around though, seeing everything frozen. The world was silent, and the only other thing moving was Dei.

"Solaire," he said with gravitas despite a slight smile still marring his face, "If you could manifest everything about yourself in reality, would you? Would you be willing to turn yourself hollow, to follow the sun, and to help people with your abilities? You haven't broken character, you haven't become Levi even a single time since we've known each other. You've changed your character to perfectly fit the modern world too, going as far as to draw the link between soapstones and phone numbers. You're malleable enough to change the character and fit reality, while staying true to your original intent.

"So I want you to take it the next step. Truly become Solaire, and fight for what you believe is right."

Dei held out his hand, "Take my hand, and you will become Solaire in the flesh, with no room for doubt. Levi will still exist as your identity, and you will be him half the time, but Solaire will be just as real to everyone else as he is to you."

He'd wavered before, but the costume broke now. 'How does he know my name is Levi?

'No, that's the least of my worries.'

"... Are you a God? Like that Dragon?"

Dei laughed, "No, just an emissary of something similar. I come on behalf of Void, who wishes to grant power to those of two lives."

"I won't do anything terrible for power," he said with finality. Even when he was Levi, he still wanted to be a good person.

"You don't have to. It may seem strange, but Void likes it when people use its power, especially for good, because that means you spread its message."

"What is its message?" he asked cautiously.

"Void is the state between existences, a state of potential. It is Schrödinger's cat, something that can be one or the other until observed. You are both Levi and Solaire, until you say which. This will make both states equally as real."

Levi's brow scrunched, "And Void is a… God?"

Dei shook his head, "No, it's a law of nature. I know you've started worshipping The Champion since he appeared, and you can still do that. Void is like making a deal with gravity to gain gravity powers."

He looked down at Dei's hand, and really considered it.

"This won't… make me evil? Just Solaire? I'm not going to become some catastrophe?"

Dei smiled, "Not unless you try to, but I chose you because I knew you wouldn't. If you do… The Champion is gonna kill me," he said with a grimace, "So please don't."

Now that he understood more about it, he relaxed, letting himself fall back into his self as Solaire. "I do not believe you are a hollow, what are you truly?"

Dei had matched his vibe the entire time, and did so now as well. "Me and Perumah aren't actually humans. I'm a half-spirit like Danny Phantom, and she's… well, that isn't a costume, I just told people it was."

The only thought racing through Solaire's head now was 'Real magic. Real magic! I'm going to get real magic!'

Hesitating a beat, he reached out and took Dei's hand.

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