On the bank of an ethereal river with water more golden than blue, and dancing blue sprites, a woman sat and meditated, her face toward a mountain far in the distance, where the river poured its payload.

A disturbance in space had her whipping her head around and frowning. Someone was knocking, metaphorically of course, on the door to her realm. She considered.

"Realms. Divine realms? How to connect the multiverse?"

She had been pondering these questions since her secret friends and allies had died. She would have gratefully died with them, but apparently she had one more mission. This young multiverse and its celestials were proving harder to mould than she'd first anticipated though.

With a flick of her hand, she tore a hole through the void. She needed a shortcut to her realm, which she hadn't been back to for close to a century now.

"Is that you, Devila Vors? Where is the boy then?"

"He is busy," the little one snapped. "He is busy trying to bring order to this chaotic multiverse, which you should be doing."

"Yes, I should be doing that…"

Devila didn't know how close she had been to the truth on that occasion. Only, of course, organizing probably meant wildly different things to both of them. To Devila, it meant control. To Gweneth, it meant self sustainability.

"It's harder than you'd think," Gweneth continued. "To create a good game, there need to be sides. Factions, if you will."

"What are you talking about?" Devila Vors asked, seeming too eager to not get to the point of her visit. "There are factions though."

"Oh? What would you say are the factions currently ruling the multiverse?"

"The guardians? And the celestials. It seems pretty obvious to me."

Gweneth stared at the child for a long time, trying to read her carefully guarded expression. She had had this same conversation with her nephew a hundred times before. The guardians never had been, and never would be a single cohesive faction. If the rest of the guardians had passed down their mantles like Skyholm, maybe they would have formed more united pantheons as well, but it was too late now.

"You children are still playing at war?" she asked to change the subject.

"We are playing your role!" Devila snapped.

"Why would I fight in a war? Who would be on my side? Against whom would we be fighting?"

"The other guardians would be with you. You are needed in the fight against the celestials."

"Hardly think we'd be evenly matched, numbers wise, even if we could put aside our differences and work together," Gweneth said bitterly, wondering how they'd ended up back here.

"What about the other guardian level entities from the other universes?" Devila questioned.

"Why would we risk meeting them. They might be at full power, you know?"

"I have it on good authority our universe had more guardians than all the others," Devila claimed.

Gweneth only snorted. "That is because most, if not all of them are younger and smaller than our original universe. They did not have enough time to collect mantles."

"Do you know what else I know? I know that after induction, without fail, all these entities have their mantles stolen by those cursed celestials."

"Listen child, the guardians worked together on occasion, especially with things concerning Skyholm. But we were never a faction. We are all independent, selfish, and arrogant things. Working together over an extended period is all but impossible."

"Fine then! We will fight on your behalf, you cowardly wrecks."

"And then you'll steal the mantles and come for us, won't you?" Gweneth smiled sadly. "The boy is going too far, mutilating his soul like that."

"He is trying to grow, to surpass what his father gave him. He is close to becoming a guardian himself, and then…"

Gweneth looked at the grinning girl. They said they were doing it for the multiverse, but Gweneth found that hard to believe. And anyway, surpass what his father gave him? Not all people in the multiverse were lucky enough to be birthed by a pinnacle being, especially the guardians themselves.

She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. A very mortal gesture. One she had out grown millennia ago.

"What do you want, little girl?"

"Girl? I'll be breaking into the A grade in the next thousand years," Devila complained halfheartedly. "And that too only if we fail on our first attempt at the core. If we succeed, I'll be halfway to the S grade in less than a decade. And with a mantle, hmm…"

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For a minute, Gweneth saw fate branching into multiple threads. With a pang she remembered a head of red. She took the time to settle her heart. The girl must have thought Gweneth had decided to deliberately ignore her because she was tired of the bantering.

"We need you to scry for us," the girl said, a little too fast.

Gweneth snorted. "What about that brat? Oh …what's this? What has he done to his soul? It's worse than your leader."

"Yes," the girl said with resignation. "In his attempt to break through, he has decided to embody different expressions of luck with his soul. Lucky, unlucky, cursed, jinxed, blessed, chosen."

"Hmm. What about those little girls he experimented on before? The three fates or nuns or whatever he called them?"

"You know a lot of things. Even given the fact you haven't left your domain in a long time."

"It was always my job to know these kinds of things."

She had been the greatest diviner. She had been the guardian of fate.

"Then why haven't you been doing it recently?" Devila grabbed onto the lifeline.

What was it she wanted to know that she was so scared of?

"I am trying to create a new game, as I've already told you. It is not as easy as it would seem. As the boy will attest. All your recent divining methods are not getting as wide spread as you'd like? It is not easy to read the whole multiverse."

Devila chewed on her lips for a bit. "Anyway the girls are unable to look into this. It's annoying. The boy is an f grade too."

Gweneth frowned. "A boy? F grade? This seems a lot more interesting than talking of those old cowards."

"They just need a leader," the girl spoke up passionately. "Why don't you call for a conclave—"

"Just tell me the name. Perhaps the Deck will have some sort of answer, even if it is outdated."

The girl's stalling was getting tiring. The conclave city was no longer the biggest and most impressive interdimensional planet city. It had been abandoned by the guardians after the Enchantress' ambush. And now those old coots would never leave their domains. She was also a semi shut-in, but for her case, she only needed to finish her game and then she'd probably die.

"Rafael Kingsley."

Her domain shook when Devila Vors said the name. Her power sensed the amount of fate there, and almost as if she were in a trance she started to chant.

It wasn't the chant for a spell. It was just a meditative chant, to get her mind in the right frame to perform a reading.

A deck of cards appeared in her hands. Unconsciously, she shuffled them. The realm was quiet, watching, waiting.

And then she drew the first card. She studied it, her eyes widening before she showed it to the girl.

"I don't know what that means," Devila said nervously.

Obviously she had noticed the reaction the realm had had to the name she'd spoken before. And the reaction Gwen had had to the card.

"The unclaimed throne has made a choice," Gweneth declared.

Then she drew the next card. And the next. And the next. It was getting harder to believe with every card.

"All the celestials have made a choice."

"What?!" Devila Vors asked in trepidation.

Gweneth shrugged. "Well, it seems the celestials are finally taking your challenge to fight them seriously. Only, they chose a single champion to go against all of you."

Devila Vors stayed quiet, her face going through various expressions in a few seconds. There was something personal about her decision to research this name, Gweneth knew. And the last card she had to draw would perhaps inform her. After all, as far as she knew, Devila was the most impressive graduand from the Skyholm legacy trial. Yet she still hadn't received every single gift of that trial as far as Gweneth knew.

"The celestials have all chosen one boy?! What are they thinking? Are they underestimating us?"

"You should know those things can't think," Gweneth said. When Devila looked up questioningly, she shrugged and said, "I know the children recently stirred. It does make one wonder, if the reason they stirred had to do with this here boy."

Gweneth wanted to laugh as Devila's face started to take on a green tinge.

"Oh, that's not even the worst of it," she said as she drew the last card.

A card depicting a party of six adventurers all pointing their hands forward. Gweneth studied the card for a while, almost not believing it herself at first. But then her brain started to work. The system era. Pantheons. Blessings. Divine realms. Paths. Creating a new game to unite the multiverse. A new game to read the trends, the movements of fate. Something was starting to click in her mind.

"What does this mean?!" Devila bristled, breaking Gweneth from her trance.

It was why she was especially vicious when she answered.

"Oh. Your Patrons decided to bless the boy as well. The champion of the unclaimed throne is also …the chosen of Skyholm."

"What?! He was Noid's apprentice! Enith would never…"

Gweneth shrugged again. "It seems the boy is even more impressive than you. As I said, all six of them came together to give him a blessing."

It was hours later when the young immortal left. Gweneth watched her back for a while. Then she was out of her realm and navigating the void again.

"Come!" she said, her authority ringing out as she settled herself on her perch by the river.

A golden throne, shimmering and translucent appeared across from her. The golden faeries were draped all over it in various states of waking from a shallow sleep.

"Explain!"

She sent her impressions of what she'd read in her words. She hoped for all their sakes this inexperienced little one hadn't just randomly chosen to select a champion. She hoped there was some logic to the choice at least. She had acted as mother and nanny to the children, even as she tried to find a logic with which to guide this young multiverse.

"It was fated!" she cried. How would the throne be able to read fate? It wasn't the river.

The blue faeries from the river moved though, as if to help their older sibling with the explanation.

"Huh? A balance was necessary. A person from an Essence Desert with a fate so strong it could have destroyed him and the trial too without your intervention?"

Gweneth thought for a bit. But how had the boy even gotten all that concentrated fate to begin with?

"A summoning ritual? The fate of a whole planet and its deities? You expect me to believe this. Hmm… A dungeon on the verge of evolution…will grow into a new home."

Her eyes became unfocused as she tried to see the past. It was ever changing, but if anyone could, it was her.

So, the boy had become a fulcrum of fate unintentionally. And he'd almost died for it too. But then the trial had come, giving him even more fate points. And the river of fate he moved with could have washed the last remnant of Skyholm, and the Enchantress with it. The children wouldn't let that happen.

To hold onto a bit of his fate until he was able to reclaim it, they'd given gifts. A skill the like of which had only been seen once. And then later they'd given him the Quest system, even if he was a child still.

"Fate. A fulcrum. A champion?"

She studied the threads for a time, watching them move this way and that.

"Hmm? The Riorson empire? He is still stuck in the tutorial sector, but his fate beckons from this frontier sector. He is still a child, this champion of yours. Maybe he can use a little guidance."

And the void was torn open for the third time that day, and Gweneth, the Game Master, one of the oldest guardians descended on the frontier.

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