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  Epilogue: Emmett of Life EverstingToday, Emmett of Life Eversting would grant immortality. The first step was death. It was unfortunate, but he had discovered no way to make a mortal body immortal. Thus, the first step was to part the immortal soul from the mortal vessel. Death. It had taken him a half millennium to verify that sad fact. However, just because the first step was death did not mean one did not have to be careful in how they killed the vessel. The trauma of death carried into the next life. So many souls had been foolishly ruined before he understood this fact. They were the mistakes made in his youthful enthusiasm, so Emmett forgave himself for it. He'd been as precocious in his two hundreds as he had been as a youth, after all.

  Emmett inspected the mortal vessel of today's fortunate soul. He was an older man, appearing in his forties but likely much older. Salt littered his bck beard, and his long glossy mane of hair was still immacutely brushed and waxed. He had a deep tan complexion with a well-built figure. His figure was obviously well-built, given he was stripped naked. Clothing would only get in the way of the operation. One could not tell just from looking, but the man was also a nascent god. Gods could press their weight on the world, but they could also withdraw it. Nascent gods had tremulous fingers. Even when they tried to apply the weight of their Divinity, it was not always felt.

  As for why Emmett would gift immortality to a nascent god, someone on the cusp of achieving it on their own, well, one of his Priests had once asked him about it. He told the man Ascension was not immortality. Ascension was the bastard brother of death. Emmett would even say that it was death by another name. Ascension was achieved when a gods body, mind, and soul fused into the fabric of the cosmos. They became the universe's sve, all so they could bend one of its rules the tiniest bit if given a pittance of worship. Emmett was certain that the Heavens would be better than that. But could either be better than life eversting? Obviously not. Truly, he was kind to offer his blessing to gods. Those he blessed would never Ascend. When they reached that stage, their bodies would fuse with their minds and souls into a gestalt entity.

  There was still a kind of Ascension, but not one where they were trapped by the cosmos as custodians to its mechanical will. It was prideful of him, but he liked to think they Ascended into a new breed of Dragon. He never told anyone this, for he knew it was his own hubris talking. How could he believe he had found a means of making artificial Dragons?

  Yet, this Ascension was no easier than that of other mortal gods. Only two of his projects had ever managed it. Emmett was endlessly disappointed he was not one of them. Why he persisted as mere a mortal god, he could never figure out. Becoming a… well, he had no other word for it. Becoming a 'false Dragon' would solve so many of his problems. No longer would he have to hide his grand work. No one would ever have to die again, because he would be free to convert everyone. What a grand world that would be!

  Shaking off his wandering thoughts, Emmett focused on the matter at hand. One of Emmett's Priests kept the man unconscious. Other Priests finished preparing the ritual for the first step of his undertaking. Converting mortals had become a humdrum process that he left to his competent Priests. They rarely needed his assistance, and only when the former mortal found some way to fight the process. Each nascent god was its own unique challenge.

  Emmett's head Priest came before him, and bowed deeply. "We are ready, Lord Eversting."

  "Thank you, Carter."

  Emmett extended his domain. All around him the veil was pulled away, revealing the unseen realm of the dead. The pce where vengeful spirits, ghosts, and Lost Souls drifted when they had not stolen their way into the world of the living. A newly inducted Priest shuddered at his first time entering his master's domain. Emmett spared him a conciliatory smile. He remembered his first peek beyond the veil into the netherworld. It had not been a pleasant experience for him, either. Lost Souls appeared as ghost lights, and mortal souls as apparitions of themselves. Vengeful spirits took on a myriad of horrific guises. Then there were the other things. Even after a millennium of study he had no idea of what they were. They could not enter his domain, and yet he could see them just beyond the edge of his realm peering in with their strange, alien eyes. If they were eyes. They were something too other to be sure what their parts were. Sometimes he wondered if they were the true face of the living universe. The forces of the world that the gods of the Empire sliced their little chunks of dominion out of.

  Emmett turned away from the strange things beyond his domain to examine his subject's soul. He took his time. Souls were not just simple ghost lights. They had a convoluted pattern etched into them. If one just gnced over it, you would think they were a simple thing, but if you looked closely the details twisted, spun, and branched. Those patterns held the soul's memory of the life it lived etched into it. Death ended the etching, though one could 'fake' it, like when a Lost Soul inhabited a corpse. Such false life allowed the soul to etch a continuation of life into it. That invariably ruined the soul. Even that prick Arliss would cast souls that had dabbled in undeath back into the netherworld. Emmett had only learned how to read a little of the life etched into the soul. Enough to make out the souls glories, failures, and terrible wounds. He checked the body again, but if the man has sustained significant trauma, then a skilled Healer had removed any sign of the injury he saw sketched out in the soul.

  Emmett finished his inspection of the man's soul, and moved onto his mana pool and its aspect. 'Terminus' and 'light'. That made him a Knight of the Order of Severing Twilight. His pool was deep and thick, and woven into his body. He was adept with his techniques, and has mastered an aura technique. It made the operation a little more difficult. He'd have to slice those veins away cleanly. Damaging them would make it harder for the nascent god to use the aura technique, although they would heal on their own even if he crippled them. Emmett examined the man's techniques within his pool. Usually they would be opaque without the proper ritual, a variant of [Wizard Eye], but within his domain and with his handcrafted eyes, they were obvious to him. He knew the techniques well, and the aura was one of the simpler ones. Sadly, nothing special.

  Completing his inspection, Emmett activated the ritual the man id within. It drained the man's mana pool, compacted it, and forced it into the mortal world as a rare mana gem. The mana pool was drained, but not destroyed. Destroying it would harm the man. His techniques were erased, the mana used to construct them drained with the rest of the pool. Reforming and refining the techniques might set the nascent god back, but many of his subjects found it to be an opportunity to solidify their foundations. This setback would only lead him to greater heights.

  Emmett examined the mana gem, turning it as he checked for occlusions. Blended aspects, like Severing Twilight's 'light' and 'terminus', tended to separate when formed into a gem. If he found such a stark imperfection, he would have to shatter the gem and start again once the man's mana pool refilled. Finding no obvious occlusions, he took a hammer and gently tapped the gem. He was checking for another imperfection: hidden cleavage pnes. The trick was to hit hard enough that the cleavage pne would split, but not so hard that the gem chipped.

  Satisfied that the gem was well-formed after a few carefully selected strikes, he pced it on the naked man's chest. He extended his tool hands from where his guts would be if he still needed them. They were small, nimble limbs. Their long fingers ended in specialized tools, each one crafted by Emmett to help in his grand work.

  It was time to part the mind, mana pool, and soul from the body. It was difficult, delicate work. One of his priests had once likened it to the filigree work a jeweler would perform. First he spun the disparate parts together. Threads of his mana and Divinity were spun into threads to encase and bind them together. He checked the strength of the bindings, tugging and pulling with fingers specially made for the purpose, to ensure it would hold fast. Check completed, he started severing links to the body. As each piece was severed, he bound them to the mana gem. By doing so, he transferred all that made the man, except his body, to its new host.

  During this delicate work, a man entered the ritual site to speak with him. It was one of the agents he'd sent out into the world. Unlike some reclusive Wizards, he liked to keep his fingers on the pulse of the world. How else would he find new Priests? Or new candidates for his good work?

  Busy saving a soul, he left the conversation to Second Mind. He also had Hidden Mind spy on Second Mind. It wouldn't do to have Second Mind handle his business without a minder. Not too long ago he'd discovered Second Mind was plotting against him with Third Mind. Fortunately, he had caught onto their duplicity before they could act. It was the st time he allowed Second and Third Mind to spy on each other, creating Hidden Mind to spy on the both of them. Hidden Mind's only ability was to remember things. That way, it could never plot against him. Emmett knew he should break down Second and Third Mind and make them more loyal. The problem was that minds were a difficult thing to make or modify.

  With Second Mind receiving Avery's report, Emmett continued operating on the man. It was a little ironic he had been thinking about the difficulty of adjusting minds, because he had reached the point where he needed to tweak the mind of the nascent god. If he didn't his subjects would denounce him for his kindness in granting him life eversting. Many of them called him a heretic. A Monster! And things he was far too much a gentleman to repeat, even in his own mind. Emmett hated to do it, but there was little choice but to fix their misbegotten opinions. Nothing too drastic. A little bit of loyalty to him, a lot of faith that his point of view was the obviously correct one, and a little bit of nudging them into wishing their own loved ones could join them.

  Not that Emmett made much effort to induct whole families into his Priests and followers. He had tried doing it for a while, but messy retionships kept getting in the way of his great work. It was far more convenient to wait for his people to outlive their loved ones. When that happened, the problem took care of itself. It had resulted in one or two unfortunate deaths, but he had learned to see the signs. His Priests were trained to spot people making immature decision in time to erase their memories of their loved ones.

  Removing a final memory from the subject that was inconvenient for him, that of the man's wife sustaining a grave injury when he was taken, Emmett sealed up the mind.

  Now it was time to bind the soul core, his name for the mana gem, into the immortal body he had prepared for it. A body of undying flesh, unbreakable bones, and yet alive in every way that mattered. The soul would grow and develop as it would in the mortal body it was born in. The flesh and bones were not the only improvements in the immortal body. Emmett had bound this one with additional mana pools, giving this Knight mana pools with aspects of 'cutting', 'light', and 'dark'. That was in addition to the pool attached to his mind. The man's new body would conduct mana better than high steel, making his techniques, particurly his aura technique, far more effective. With the improved organs Emmett gave the Knight, he had extra space he could use to hide weapons, extra arms, or the man might even surprise him with something imaginative. Even now, the inventiveness of the Human mind could leave him in awe.

  Operation completed, all that was left was for the man to recover. Emmett's Priests would dispose of the carcass and keep an eye on the new immortal's condition. That left Emmett free to check Avery's report. He could ask Second Mind about it, but it had been disagreeable ever since he caught it plotting. It was still obedient, but recalcitrant. Emmett chose to review Hidden Mind's memory instead.

  "Lord Eversting," Avery said.

  "What is it, Avery?" Second Mind asked. The agent flinched. Second Mind was a bit too terse. Emmett really should take it apart and adjust it. If only it was that simple.

  "I have important news. The Imperial Government has recognized a new god of the dead."

  "The Empire doesn't recognize death gods. Not since Non the Wise judged an entire city as wicked and started sughtering them all." Second Mind ughed acidly. "Ah, that was a spectacle! They had to abandon the north war to raise enough troops to put the madman down. No, the Empire would never suffer a death god."

  "They were very particur in the way they worded it, Lord Eversting. This new god, she is not a god of death. She is a god of the dead. No one seems entirely sure just what that's supposed to mean, but the evidence suggests she might be god of Lost Souls? We know she fought against a demon. There was some chatter early on that she was a demon herself, but the Treasure Hunters have recently discredited the cim."

  "I see. Well, if she kills demons she can't be all bad. Her name?"

  "She's already a god, Lord Eversting. I don't think it'd be wise to attract her attention until we know if she's an ally. Her epithet is Demon Eater."

  "How has a god arisen without us knowing about it before now?" Second Mind asked. His tone was accusatory. Avery quaked in fear.

  "No one knew about her! She kept quiet, unlike most gods." He swallowed. "She's coming to Shadow Gate. Do you have any orders for us?"

  "Demon Eater could be a new ally. What to do… she'll arrive in the fall?"

  "That's what the Treasure Hunters say, Lord Eversting."

  "Can we get an agent close to her?" Second Mind asked.

  "Unlikely. She recruited a small army for herself in the aftermath of the battle with the demon, and reportedly has limited funds. She's with Knights from the Order of the Stone Circle, too. We might be able to arrange for her to stay at an estate in Shadow Gate with some of our agents. Do you want us to start working on ensuring that now? Or we could just capture one of the servants and convert them."

  "Stone Circle? Maybe she's a god of protection. Those Knights are usually too stuck up to slum with a lesser Order, let alone such a questionable god."

  "I don't think so. Given her epithet, and she waged war against a demon, we do think she could be a kind of war god."

  Second Mind frowned. "Did she engage in necromancy?"

  "… reports say she raised the dead to continue the fight."

  Second Mind grimaced. "Crude. And disgusting. Also, something else the Empire typically doesn't allow. Well, no matter. We'll have to teach her to do better. If I don't just kill her. Our Priests or agents didn't have a chance to meet with her?"

  "We had no one in the Lonely Knoll, the city she's staying in. Our information is also sparse. Our best guess is that she'll be our enemy."

  Second mind mused on that. "Gods are hard to kill, but it can be done. Collect more information about her. Make arrangements to keep her under watch as soon as you can. If we can't manage to slip an agent in, then select someone we can make disappear for a few hours without anyone noticing. Someone close to the god, but not too close. We wouldn't want our agent to be accidentally discovered."

  "As you will, Lord Eversting," Avery said, while bowing his way out of the room.

  Emmett didn't approve of Second Mind's tone, but the decision was sound. A little too vicious, but he probably would have to kill this pretender. He was the true god of life after death, after all. The god of Life Eversting.