Yeah, that should do the trick.

  I think to myself as I exit a rift next to the old fountain in the middle of New Moonside. After both a brief introduction and thoroughly cowing my students, I left them to the wise ministrations of Nula to absorb the basics of etiquette… though I’m sure they didn’t expect that was to be their coursework for the day.

  Especially considering I didn’t give them any warning or schedule ahead of time, but that’s fine. They’ll adapt, and if they don’t? They’d never make useful subordinate demon lords to begin with.

  Not that I plan to direct them personally. I mostly intend to let them do what they want and hammer down the nails that choose to stick out too far.

  That’s what Owyn wanted anyway. He should be pleased.

  The strangest part of it though… was that he didn’t order me.

  The old rabbit monster simply asked. And you know what? It sounded entertaining, so why not?

  Why not rear the next generation, or even generations, of demon lords? More like myself, at least in one sense?

  I can teach them to plot and scheme, and enact casual yet performative cruelty… they’ll need an iron fist to properly pull off the persona, but there’s no point to completely alienating your subordinates or destroying your power base.

  So they have a lot to learn, especially that… whatever it was. That beetle person thing. I have a feeling it’s going to be a headache in the future.

  I sigh and take my seat on the edge of stonework, absentmindedly kicking my feet in the air as I gaze at the sky. There’s so much left I need to do, even just to get the project off the ground.

  The best thing about it though, the thing that makes it all worth the effort?

  Even if I’m an enemy of both major pantheons and most of the lesser ones as well, to the point that they’d issued declarations of war – not that they’d ever act on them… even then. They want their heroes and demon lords, and the struggle between them.

  They want their show, their entertainment.

  Even Dolos hasn’t been interfering, which I find… strange. I don’t even feel him flitting about here as often as he used to, although he certainly is here.

  In that sense, my former master has actually done me a number of favors with one single suggestion.

  “Make a building,” he said, “and use this layout.”

  And he wouldn’t tell me what it was for until it was done… and then specifically said I couldn’t build it myself, or he wouldn’t tell me anything.

  How the hells did I not guess it was a school building? I spent actual time attending the main campus!

  Not that I ever graduated, mind you. Not that I’d ever intended to. I’m not even sure why I attended… other than pressure from Izzy and the others.

  …

  It’s sure been a long time, hasn’t it?

  …

  …

  I wonder what that adventurer party is doing now… what were their names again?

  …

  I can’t remember. Oh well. They’ll be dead in another hundred years or…

  Hm. No, a number of them weren’t human, I think… Right? I think so. And they’re all ascendants…

  Hells, maybe they’ll all be gods too one day. That could be interesting, although considering everything I doubt they’d be friendly.

  Maybe neutral. I wouldn’t mind more amicability among the divinities.

  I don’t even flinch as someone takes my hand an interlaces our fingers, someone I hadn’t heard approach.

  Which doesn’t surprise me. Long ago she was apparently my spymaster as well, so it makes sense she’d be silent… even to another god.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  I manifest a tentacle and gently press my wife to my side, one of her furry ears tickling my cheek. It’s strange to think that someone so powerful, with the might to call forth hordes to ravage literal heavens and hells to dust, would be this much shorter than I am. And yet here we are.

  She sighs contentedly, and I can’t say I don’t share her sentiment.

  This is peace.

  I’m at peace.

  And I doubt I’d ever experience this in my true form… maybe that’s the point.

  I’d have never experienced this, a small fragment of the pleasures and pains of life, if it weren’t for being forced to slumber, with a small part of myself shunted into a mortal… well, near-mortal body. A physical one.

  A part of the Record, like the mortals.

  I rest the side of my head on Livvie’s and exhale.

  This place. Here.

  This is where I belong.

  And if I have any power, any say in the matter at all, no matter how small I am as a part of the whole…

  I hope that if I wake up, I’ll remember.

  Maybe, just maybe… I’ll remember to protect it.

  ***

  Being a headmaster…

  IS BORING! GAH! How has Owyn done it this long? I get that he’s loyal to his old master, but this!?

  I flop to my desk in frustration – my ornate, shiny, and extra fancy hand-carved desk made from some sort of imported wood, as if that will ever stand the test of time.

  Well, I can fix that much at least… one single word in the ancient tongue later and it’ll never change again, fixed in time.

  Permanent.

  These simple yet not simple spells, if you can even call them spells… I wonder if they even have limitations of any kind.

  Maybe they only work inside the Record’s grasp… it’d be easy enough to test, but I don’t particularly care.

  When did I stop caring about things like this?

  Oh well. Not like that matters either.

  …

  I idly fiddle with a fancy pen on the wooden surface, turning it to dust and rust… then back to a pen… then to raw metal and whatever the ink is made of… then back to a pen…

  It still takes a lot of mana to manipulate even a small object’s place in time, and I still have no idea at all how it works.

  Does the Record maintain time as well? What even is ‘now’, then?

  …

  …

  I guess that doesn’t matter either. It’s not like I can move my place in the timeline. Well… I suppose maybe I could, with enough mana, but it’d probably be a lot more difficult than tearing a hole in the real and stepping through.

  I’d heard before that time is different on different planes, or at least passes differently… usually at different speeds, but sometimes even different rates. Some of the fae planes supposedly have time that speeds up and slows down without any kind of set pattern.

  Not a big surprise, considering the lack of stability. The mad court is notorious for its chaotic nature, and the chaos it brings to whatever it touches. It’s probably for the best that I’ve never come in contact with them.

  Other than Artemis, of course. It’s still strange to me that she’d ever been part of both the mad court and the light pantheon… I wonder if those had coincided. Did she ever leave the mad court? Can she leave the mad court?

  Huh. No idea.

  “Do you want to turn back time?”

  I blink, then slowly turn my head to face the source of the voice.

  “Why does everyone do that? Sneak up on me? No, don’t answer that, I know the answer. You all just teleport in and out, so I can’t feel you coming with Will Sense. You’d think it’d have some kind of way to account for that but no, it doesn’t, does it?”

  My former former Assistant faintly smiles. “Everything managed by the Record is designed to have a weakness, a counter of some kind. Not even the gods are meant to be omnipotent.”

  “Sure,” I sigh, “but you’d think… eh. It doesn’t really matter, does it?”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  …

  “I’m still not used to ‘Nyx’ agreeing with me so readily, even though I know you’re not her.”

  “And I’m not used to being back.”

  “So what, do you just keep dying deliberately?”

  There’s that faint smile again.

  “You do. You absolutely do. To escape me, was it? Well, I don’t even care. You’re in Nyx’s body, you’re her now, so go do what you want. The same thing I offered her.”

  “I’m not her, and neither was she.”

  I furrow my brow. “Wait, what does that even mean?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “No,” I immediately answer, “not really. But you’re going to tell me anyway probably, and probably in that same cryptic whatever way. So, out with it.”

  “It’s less of a ‘tell’ and more of a ‘show’.”

  “Semantics?”

  “Yes, and an important distinction. Some actions cannot be taken back.”

  She leans closer as I practice my flat stare, seemingly to no effect on her.

  And then she says, “Are you absolutely sure you want this?”

  I have no idea what she’s even asking for anymore.

  Well, whatever.

  “Yes.”

  ***

  I wake in my bed. Because of course I do. Vulkan won’t let me just work the entire day… he insists that rest is critical for the creative process and even takes time to sleep himself.

  But I don’t need to understand that. All I need is his knowledge, resources, and training. I can tell I’m on the edge of a breakthrough, I just know it!

  With purpose to my step, I glide my way back to the exquisitely outfitted workshop, stopping only for final entry via the transport pad the god of invention lent me for the purpose.

  Of course, my mentor is already there. He always is by now.

  And he quirks an eyebrow. A strange reaction, but I’m not typically fixated on things like that.

  “Good morning, Vulkan. Ready to pick up where we left off?”

  After a long gaze, he slowly nods and gestures to the workbench where I’d left my tools… my own, ones I’d made using the god’s at his instruction.

  Better than any I’d used before, or owned, or even seen.

  Getting to work on my latest – a simplification of the entry scanner for integration with a ucomm as an attachment - I absentmindedly snatch a small spanner from the other side of the large table with a feeler. This would be so much easier if I’d only keep these organized! Livvie always used to give me that sour side eye when I’d throw my day’s dresswear everywhere, but it’d never stop me before. But…

  It…

  I…

  …

  …

  …What?