Lessons with Betokat weren't going well.

He was prone to going off on tangents or just breaking down and giggling for minutes at a time, and while it seemed like he did have some skill at teaching in theory, in practice he was too crazy to remember to start with the basics. Over and over, he would jump to advanced concepts without giving me a leg to stand on - I not only couldn't understand what he was telling me, I didn't even know why it was relevant. If I could figure out the right questions to ask he would back up and I'd finally learn something, but then he'd be off on another rant about some long-dead king or rival demigod for the next ten minutes and when that was over it was virtually impossible to get him to go back to where he left off.

Over the next four hours I learned probably twenty minutes' worth of material, although I did think it was likely that I'd be able to replay parts with divination later to get more out of them. Katrin looked very annoyed that he was ignoring her, and at one point tried to get me to ask him a question which got her absolutely screamed at until she left the room. Errod wasn't amused by that, but he also knew Katrin wouldn't want him to lose the chance to ask his second question so he settled for scowling.

One question I was avoiding asking was about the tube he was in. Was he a prisoner, or what? Most of the things he talked about were either conversations he'd had here in Brinkmar, or things that happened two thousand years ago - but then he'd mention some drama or political maneuvering between demigods like it was current, and I couldn't tell if that was because he was aware of what they were up to or if he was just confident that nothing had changed since his imprisonment. Still, if I asked directly there was a chance he'd ask me to let him out or say he wouldn't help me more until he was free, and I didn't want that. Dude was dangerously unstable.

His physical appearance also baffled me. His right arm being a crab claw thing was strange but still understandable, and likewise the three legs that were satyr-like until you got to the flippers could conceivably make sense in some fantastical environments. But half of his face being just this strange polyp-y growth seemed unnecessary, and the nipple eyes were absolutely just there to freak people out. More than anything though, it was the extra arms. Surely this guy could control what he looked like, so why have a bunch of arms that were half-formed or otherwise clearly useless? I finally gave up and asked, and after a long giggle session he did actually answer.

"I could change my appearance, yes! But I hold within me a myriad of spirits, and I show them respect by keeping features from them on display. Respect, and... for some, for a few special parts, they act as keys or banners. No monster in Emildagie that sees this claw will attack me. These legs mark me as a member of one of the great families of Enimondoa, because I ripped them directly from the princess before consuming the rest of her. A neat little loophole, that. I later exterminated the rest of the family, so that I am the only one allowed in their domain or to use their gateway to Zirkolo.

"The Clockmaker wanted what I had so badly, but he was unwilling. Wanted to keep his human form, and for what? He tried other ways, courted the remaining families and attempted to buy his way into them, to threaten his way in, to marry his way in possibly. He had at least one here, I could smell it, but I don't believe they ever reached an agreement."

"Why did he want to be part of the twelve families of spirits?"

"Their empire was the first, before humans figured anything out. Humans worshipped them, and in return were allowed access to the other planes. It is, most likely, the source of the other races - colonies left on various planes and forgotten when the families devolved into bickering and humans learned their own kind of magic. The Clockmaker wanted a domain in Enimondoa, for its own benefits and because his nemesis had one. One of the queens of the Sahrger, she succeeded where he could not and usurped a family. He was... unamused."

I thought about what I knew of the queen of the Sahrger - one of two, technically, but the other was virtually powerless in comparison. "Does she count as a demigod? Because she was at war with the Clockmaker, and she messes with stuff on the prime plane by swapping children, and... I feel like she should count, but also doesn't she break the rules?"

"Ah! People always misunderstand. The rules are there primarily to protect the freedom of people on the prime plane to learn and grow - precisely why the Clockmaker shouldn't have been allowed, by the way - but the rules do not prevent individual members from ruling on other planes, so long as they rule from a domain they control. Hirora has one of the three domains in Xeyul locked down, so she can sit there and rule."

"Hirora?"

Betokat sneered. "Hirora'tetik Lahanangoe, though she wouldn't like you knowing her name. Call that a little bonus, because I like your questions and I dislike her smug face. She could get in trouble with the Hunter, if she stole the child of anyone too important, but mostly she keeps some plausible deniability; she plays politics, and makes vague social rules, and if that happens to result in people doing things on the prime plane? Well, that wasn't her fault, was it? She's good at it, but even so she's had a talking-to. It's why she keeps the other queens around, they were in charge of things like waging war against the Clockmaker. Though I heard it got one of them killed, and I don't believe she's been replaced. They used to have many more layers of nobility, counts and dukes and whatnot, but some caused trouble a while back and she managed to off them all."

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised she can circumvent the rules, if Sentortzi can be an information broker on the prime plane."

He pressed against the glass of his tube and looked at me intently. "He's a new one, we haven't technically met. Does he advertise what he is?"

"No, but I met him."

"Ah. Well, if I recall he's in the clear, then. Information is his calling. You look confused. Your calling, the area where you have leeway on the rules! If you are to be a demigod - and I still think that is your eventual end - you should give thought to it. Sentortzi was a librarian, and bartered information to get by in the days after the Clockmaker's empire fell. He gained enough power and knowledge to transform himself, but could not bear to let go of his passion - and so he chose it as his calling, and continued with only minor restrictions. Talas, one of the lesser-known demigods, is a farmer. Every hundred years he uproots and moves somewhere new, picks a new name. He's free to interact with people as he chooses on the prime plane, so long as it's in his role as a farmer."

"And people have no idea they're buying vegetables from an immortal with... presumably... some crazy powers?"

"Vegetables, flowers, eggs, meat, wool - he changes every time. And he's not that powerful, just impossible to kill or mind control. You could probably wrestle him into a box and sink him to the bottom of Emildagie if you really wanted to defeat him, but he's too agreeable for anyone to bother. There's also Iretzae, used to be a queen and now runs a bar for other demigods on Agiodyne. Makes amazing drugs, you can't imagine, and she always has the best musicians in the world. Regular mortal musicians though, and that's the thing - she's allowed to hire them out from under royalty if she wants, and that doesn't count as tampering because it's all for her calling.

"But if your calling was to, for example, conquer empires? Well, the council wouldn't allow that one. And if you tried to say your calling was to be a hired sword as a way to get around it, that wouldn't fly either. Talas could be a hired sword, because he can't fight for shit anyway. But if the Hunter said that was his calling, well, he'd be required to be deliberately bad at it unless there were special circumstances. Maybe if someone coincidentally hired him to avenge his descendant's death or something, I don't know, in that case he could probably put some extra effort in and nobody would fault him."

After that I tried to get him back onto the topic of customizing oydirme, but he kept jumping to specific properties of other planes which was interesting in theory but beyond my understanding - he talked about them in terms of what purpose the gods intended a plane for, but also didn't seem to know the answer himself. "I've only spoken to a god once, and they did the equivalent of saying 'oh, it's you' and then patted me on the head - metaphorically - and dropped the connection. It happens that way a lot for important people, you find out you're notable enough for a god to know who you are but they don't have anything in particular they feel a need to discuss with you. So no, I have to intuit the goals of the divine from their works like everyone else."

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He pressed against the glass again, staring at me. "For example, take Lenderatze - the plane actively destroys things we would consider trash or waste, and creates plants and animals. What does that tell you about the gods?"

"Uh. It tells me they like nature? I guess?"

"Wrong! It tells you that they couldn't make nature properly self-sustaining without cheating! It's complicated, and easy to disrupt, so they inscribed some rules into the plane and let its influence keep things in line. Some other planes, like Xeyul or Brinkmar, would be barren without forced influence from Lenderatze - the Sahrger are masters of it, applying it quite artfully, though it was originally done long before by the gods only know who. Here, it was done by whichever wizard was in charge - they overthrew each other every hundred years or so - but not properly calibrated until the Clockmaker claimed the throne. I'll give him credit for that, at least, he knew how to create a stable biome."

"I feel like we've gotten off track. You were talking about what I can assume about the planes based on... no, what I can assume about the gods based on the planes, but I still don't know why since I don't need to know about the gods - just the properties of the planes, right?"

"Not the properties! No! That's just a list! The feel, the intent, the deeper purpose!"

And then he got cranky and went into a fifteen minute lecture about not trusting observable facts, why nobody understands things as well as he does, and why it mattered that Hudai - a plane that was just an endless expanse of fluffy pink and purple clouds lit by drifting balls of light, where there was no gravity and no ground - was totally useless and pointless as far as anyone could tell. By the time he wound down, I still didn't understand any of it and was starting to get annoyed. I wanted a break from him, but I didn't want to totally abandon him because he was an important resource that I might never have access to again.

At some point I realized I was sitting in a laboratory in Brinkmar, the place I'd dreamed of going long before I knew it was real, talking to a demigod about how to gain mastery over monsters made out of magic, by manipulating the fabric of other planes of existence. And I was bored and annoyed about that? Me from half a year ago would have bitch slapped me for complaining. Well, for this part. Probably not when it came to the body-stealing monster that was taking over, or the fact that the world was maybe going to end.

We got back to it, but after only twenty minutes more Katrin came running in, and I knew right away what she was going to say.

"They're coming - there was a window, the view was cut off by the roof below but I saw at least four of them. Probably more, already inside by now."

Errod started grabbing our bags. "I'd like to avoid them, if possible. They may not know we're here, and also if there's any chance of freeing them rather than killing them we should do that. If we have to fight I won't hold back, but..."

"Yeah," I said, "I get it. I wouldn't want anyone killing Hugh. If we do have to kill them, someone try to keep the last one alive so we can try cutting their Dumine out, see if that brings them back. Betokat, are there other exits?"

He giggled and spun in a circle. "I'm not supposed to know, but I suppose nobody cares any longer. I send little spirits out to do things for me and report back... I can assign one to help you, if you'd like? It can even continue our training."

"Yeah, that would be great - but first we need an exit."

He pointed at a doorway and we all headed through and down the long hallway. I wasn't sure when or how Betokat was going to follow through on his offer to help us find our way and was preparing to just start trying random doors when he tapped my mind on the shoulder. Inside my memory palace. I spun and punched him in the face on reflex, but it hit the strange wavy fungus-looking side and just sank in, making him giggle again.

"Fuck! How did you get in here? I thought I had protection from uninvited guests."

"But wasn't I invited? Didn't you say I could come help?" He pulled my fist free - it had been stuck - and then drifted upside down and made a face like he'd smelled something bad. "And your security is lacking, it just tried to put me in a little room - that might work for some, but I'm far too clever. I could help you improve it, maybe, if you ask nicely."

"Uh. Later. Fuck, I was not planning on letting you in here." I was in my divination room, so he was looking at a view of us hurrying in the hallway - I'd sped up time in my memory palace, so from my mind's point of view 'hurrying' was more like 'slowly wading through molasses'.

"This is very nice, you're full of surprises. Excellent, excellent. This divination method... centered on yourself, an interesting choice. Your lutore, presumably, based on the border I can sense, but it's quite large for your age. Odd. And what's the medium? Hmm... planar boundaries interact well with the lutore, perhaps... yes... very clever! Not a normal method, which means countermeasures are less common, plus the connection being your own lutore makes it very strong - if less versatile. Clever clever!"

The fact that he'd clocked it so quickly was intimidating since he was in my fucking memory palace and I wasn't sure what else he would figure out about me, but it wasn't shocking - he was an ancient demigod, he was bound to be knowledgeable. I just wasn't sure I wanted him finding out about Earth, or digging through my memories. I couldn't think of an easy way of stopping him, though, and regardless I couldn't afford to worry about it just yet.

I let time speed up some, mostly to avoid Betokat getting bored and poking around, and he guided us through a maze of hallways and rooms that I desperately wanted to stay and explore. It was totally unfair. Eventually we reached a window that Errod was able to force open, and with a little difficulty and removal of our backpacks we squeezed through onto a low roof. From there I did a little parkour, realized the others couldn't follow me, and instead ferried our backpacks along the ledges and over the gaps and then came back to basically carry Katrin while Errod inched along painfully slowly. But we made it, and in a way that would be hard for anyone else to guess we'd gone.

The building we ended up in was a mess, with holes in the walls and crushed furniture. From the upper floors we could see patrols moving around the city, though I wasn't sure what had set them off. It did mean we'd have to lay low for a bit and hope they calmed down, and now that we were truly out of food I was a little worried about that timeline. It was probably fine, almost certainly, but I expected Katrin and Errod would be feeling it soon.

Betokat wasted no time once we were safe, and started moving around my memory palace into places I didn't want him to go. "Ah, such strange architecture, such strange devices... where are you from? Somewhere I have no knowledge of from my past, nor somewhere my little emissaries have brought back memories of."

"Yeah, what's with that? I thought you were stuck in the tube," I said, deliberately not answering the question.

"Oh, but I am! The magnificent construct you see before you is naught but a customized oydirme, crafted and sent forth to assist you. And to hold you to our bargain."

Oh, goody. "This is news to me, Betokat. What was this bargain you think we made?"

"I said I would guide you and sponsor you with the other demigods, and in return you would vote with me when the council met. Surely you remember, it was not so long ago."

Was this asshole serious? "I remember you saying that, and then I told you I wasn't interested."

His little giggles stopped, and his face became deadly serious. "And then you said 'fine, sure' and requested my assistance."

That... was clearly not how it had happened. Out of view of Betokat I replayed the moment he was referring to, and it was clearly me acknowledging that I might be heading towards being a demigod - not agreeing to some shitty deal. But... would it hold up if he claimed it to the other demigods? Or if there was some sort of magical judge of shit like this? I wasn't sure. Most things relied on intent, and my intent absolutely hadn't been to agree to his bargain. "I think there's been a misunderstanding, and I can swear that I had no idea you thought that was me agreeing to your terms." He looked mad, so I did my best to add on a sort of apology - I could do a full apology, but I was worried about what admitting fault would entail. "If I had known you interpreted it that way, I would have immediately corrected you to avoid any issues between us. I wasn't trying to take advantage of you."

He scowled. "I cannot abide spoiled children. Even the young prince kept his word to me. You're no better than that smug professor."

"Ugh, Ulren, right? Dude, don't lump me in with that prick. He's the fucking worst."

A giggle escaped him before he forced the scowl back. "Fine. Fine. Yes. I will take the memories back, then. I can re-train you once you agree to my bargain."

To hell with that. I wasn't going to let anyone take my memories again. Time to murder a fucking demigod - or, no, just a shadow of one. He turned as my ghost approached, and giggled again - but it was darker this time, like he was anticipating the violence. Fine. I wasn't backing down. "Sorry Betokat, my memories aren't on offer. You weren't invited here, and we didn't make a deal. You have a lot to learn about how to bargain with people - I can teach you if you want, or we can start negotiations over, but what happened happened and you're not taking anything from me."

"You think you can kill me with your ghost, child?" The room began to get darker, and the walls groaned as cracks formed. "Knowledge is power here, and I know everything about spirits. I'll drag your withered husk back to my true self and wring every bit of memory out of it if I choose, and you can't hope to stop me."

I could feel that he was serious, and I could also feel the way he was gripping my domain in his fist. I watched the cracks spread, the lights flicker - listened to whispers escaping from the hallway that led to all my memories. This was just a dim reflection of the real Betokat, a fucking modified oydirme, and it was still able to do this? That was... extremely badass. I couldn't help it, I started laughing.

"Oh, you're amused? Good, good, they go down smooth when they enjoy it. They sit better in my stomach, knowing they belong there."

"No, it's not that," I said, "it's just that I realized you're not tethered to your real self. You talk about things you've learned, or memories you've received, but they've got holes in them. And it was strange, but then you mentioned being an emissary, and taking me back to your actual form and whatever."

"And that's funny?" Betokat was looming closer, and the floor sprouted vines to bind my ghost in place. I didn't bother struggling.

"Oh, it's hilarious," I said, "because I know something you don't. I'll tell you, just between us. This is something you'll have to see in person, not as some consumed memory. Trust me." I leaned in to whisper to him, and rested a hand on his shoulder. "I know a trick," I said, and then he barely had time to try and scream before the pale, doughy form of a perfectly normal oydirme stumbled back from my touch - leaving me holding a bust of Betokat in my hand. "It's a very cool trick, where I strip oydirme of everything they were pretending to be and package it up nice and neat. Knowledge is power, huh? Well then, thanks for all the power. I'll put this to good use, as soon as I figure out the best way to crack you open."

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