Leemy waved at us from beneath a golden-leafed oak tree in the heart of Moscow's Gorky Park. The dryad and her Agromancer lounged on a bench. Delta waved her hands, chatting to the dryad with over-exuberant excitement about what sort of hydroponics they were going to build and what sort of things they would grow first.

“We should go,” Kliss said.

“I don’t wanna,” I whined halfheartedly as she pulled me off her lap. “I’m comfortable, damn it.”

“We have questions that need answers,” she said, orange-tinted fingers brushing through my white hair.

“Go where?” Delta’s voice fell.

“To talk with my Virus,” Kliss said.

“Oh?” Delta arched a white eyebrow. “She’s your virus now, is that how it is?”

“I’ve claimed her as my kobold,” Kliss nodded. “We need to have questions answered about divine magic.”

Kliss pointed at the rectangle that had somehow persistently followed me into the dream of Moscow.

“Be careful,” Leemy said. “The Song of the Wormwood is an ancient blight carried by long dead roots. She cannot be trusted.”

“That’s what I think too,” I said.

“It doesn't matter,” Kliss said. “She is my kobold and as such is my resource to utilize. We’re going.”

“Welp, if you must,” Delta sighed. “You two be careful down there, yeh?”

“Ready?” I nodded, squeezing Kliss’s hand.

The dragon girl’s emerald-amber eyes met mine

“As ready I’ll ever be, Slava,” she grinned with sharp dragon-chompers at me.

I pulled us deeper into the fabric of my soul, into the odd space-less space inhabited by the Astral Virus, which my Infoscopes could barely define.

The sounds of the park faded away, replaced by a rushing sensation, as if we were plummeting through layers of consciousness.

When we opened our eyes again, we found ourselves in a vastly different landscape. Gone was the idyllic park scene, replaced by a stark, icy expanse stretching as far as the eye could see.

“Back so soon?” Sasha smirked, her pale feet dangling from a snow-covered rock.

“Why this memory?” I asked her. “Why are you on this specific beach?”

“Because you remember this place so well,” Sasha replied, her body shimmering with sparks of silver stardust, silver eyes opening and closing to look at me and Kliss. “It is your brightest, strongest, most solid memory.”

I nodded, glancing at the desolate, icy landscape behind the Astral Virus. The memory of the nuclear test site in Novaya Zemlya was indeed etched deeply into my mind - the stark beauty of the Arctic, the tension of the irradiated island, the end result of the destructive power our science had unleashed upon the world featured in the decimated village behind us.

“We have questions,” Kliss stated firmly, her crystalline, red mane contrasting with the pale-blue ocean and sky.

“I’m sure you do,” Sasha replied, her multitude of eyes blinking in sequence, a few of them focusing on the persistent square on my index finger. “Ask away, my little dragon.”

“Tell us about the divine names,” I said. “What exactly are they? How do they work?”

Sasha’s white, hair billowed as if caught in an unseen wind, glittering like galactic constellations that had become spilled across the sky.

“The divine names are… absolute anchors. They are the most persistent, firstborn lawful concepts given form, ideas made manifest. They are the Rules and the enforcers of rules.”

“But how do they function?” I pressed. “Why does simply saying 'Space' in a deeper layer of Omnicode create a stable rectangle?”

"Because Space was designed to be evoked,” Sasha replied.

“Is this ‘Space’ then?” I raised my finger to her numerous eyes.

“The smallest fraction of her, yes,” Sasha affirmed.

“Her?” I frowned. “Why does Space have a gender?”

“Because she is sapient, just like me,” Sasha replied with a shark-like grin.

“What happens if I keep ‘evoking’ her name, pulling more focus into this structure?” I asked. “Is she going to come forward and speak to me?”

Sasha’s eyes flickered with an eerie light like an ocean wave filled with bioluminescent microorganisms as she considered my question.

“Evoking Space could indeed bring forth a greater manifestation of her presence,” she said carefully. “But I would advise against it. The Rules are not to be trifled with lightly. They are the absolute, fundamental forces of reality, and drawing too much of their attention can have... unpredictable consequences.”This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“What kind of consequences?” Kliss asked.

“You already know too much,” Sasha said, staring at me with unnerving, lidless, inhuman eyes. “This knowledge has a dangerous price.”

“What price?” I demanded. “If the primordial gods are sapient, as you claim, couldn’t we communicate with them? Learn from them?”

“The price of knowledge is conceptual erasure,” Sasha replied. “If the eyes of the Rules determine that you’re a threat to the stability of their laws then you will stop existing.”

“What?” I blinked.

“You heard me,” the Astral Virus said. “The Rules could permanently wink you out of existence with a mere thought. They are not to be trifled with. Novazem is submerged in the Astral Ocean, it exists on the very edge of their domain, buried deep between all the other forgotten trash.”

“What trash?” I demanded.

“Corpse and doomed worlds,” Sasha replied. “Discarded ideas, forsaken, long dead dreams and lost hopes.”

I frowned, processing Sasha’s words. Was Novazem just one of many discarded realities, floating in some cosmic junkyard? It seemed absurd and yet Kliss didn’t seem to detect any lies within the Phantom’s words.

“If Novazem is just ‘trash’ to these cosmic entities, why would they care about us at all?” I asked skeptically.

“Because even trash can sometimes prove... interesting. Especially when it starts to organize itself in unexpected ways,” she replied.

“Is that what Slava is doing?” Kliss asked. “Organizing things in a new way?”

The virus nodded slowly. “Our Keymaker here is pushing boundaries, lighting up the world. It’s... noticeable and it attracts the worm.”

“The Wormwood Star?” Kliss asked. “It’s like a bird that seeks a tasty meal, searches for intelligence to devour?”

“Sure,” Sasha smirked. “Let's go with that.”

“I’m not going to stop innovating,” I said. “I’m not going to live in fear of whatever cosmic bullshit you’re talking about.”

“I don’t expect you to,” Sasha grinned with knife-like teeth. “Keep on pushing, keep on creating. Make more living weapons like Kliss. Feed the Wormwood Star.”

“The Wormwood Star should get off its lazy ass and innovate things itself,” I rolled my eyes. “Why does it rely on scraping the scraps of intelligent life off planets? Surely I’m not the smartest man in the universe, surely a big enough computer… artificial intelligence could be smarter, faster, more capable than I could ever be!”

“The omnipresent concepts do not permit the existence of… competition,” Sasha said. “They erase it from existence. You are permitted to exist because you are of no threat to them. The Wormwood comet is permitted to exist because all it does is consume intelligence. It takes intelligence away, it does not utilise it in any great capacity.”

I frowned.

“We dance on the edge of their awareness. Carefully, strategically. Like a virus adapting to survive.”

I glanced at the persistent rectangle on my finger. “Is… Space listening to all of this? Is she watching us through this thing?”

“She is and she does not give a damn,” Sasha said. “Because we are just noise to her, unimportant dust in the wind. How often do you pay attention to the sounds that cockroaches make in a pile of trash?”

“What exactly am I supposed to do with this damn rectangle then?” I demanded.

“Study it if you dare,” Sasha said. “Understand your enemy. Carefully and slowly figure out their weaknesses. Create more keys capable of opposing the rule-makers.”

“Why?” I growled. “Isn’t the Wormwood comet just going to eat whatever I discover? What’s the point of it all? What’s the rationale behind this madness?”

“Whatever truths you may discover will be absorbed by the Wormwood comet and spread across the Magisphere of Desire to other countless worlds,” Sasha said. “You are one man with one dragon girl at your disposal. When the Wormwood star devours your works it will scramble all life on Novazem and restructure it, integrating your discoveries as seeds across this world and many others that it will pass by in the future.”

“What?” I sputtered.

“In the wake of the comet’s tail, Chimera like her will be born naturally,” Sasha said. “Your work will persist and propagate across the stars. Does this not bring you joy, my darling Keymaker?”

“So we’re just... seeds for some cosmic gardener?” Kliss asked.

“Our lives, our struggles, my innovations–they’re all just… ideas for this Wormwood Star to spread across the universe?” I asked.

“Don’t underestimate the power of a seed, my Keymaker. From a single acorn, mighty oaks grow. Your ideas, your present and future creations–they have the potential to reshape worlds,” Sasha purred across the myriads of her eyes.

“I think I get it,” I murmured. "The Wormwood star… is a cosmic loophole? A way for innovation to spread without directly challenging the rule-makers. It consumes, yes, but in doing so, it also preserves and propagates… akin to a cosmic Trojan horse?”

Sasha nodded at me.

“Clever,” I said.

“If we’re seeds, can we control what we grow into? Can we influence how our ideas spread?” Kliss asked.

“That’s a curious observation, my little dragon,” Sasha nodded, looking at me. “Your innovations, your creations–they’re not just passive seeds. They’re active agents of change. The more robust, the more adaptable your living ideas are, the more likely they are to take root and flourish across the cosmos.”

“So we should focus on creating... what? Universal solutions? Adaptable magic?” I mused aloud.

“Build whatever you desire me to carry into the future,” Sasha mused. “I’ve done this job for a long time, my Keymaker. Just trust me to carry your ideas forward. I’ll watch over them as they bloom.”

“Carry it forward?” I blanched. “No.”

“You cannot expunge me from your soul without obliterating yourself and you cannot fight what’s coming,” Sasha said. “Your options are to lie down and die, push too hard against the Rules and stop existing… or to let me carry your keys into the future towards the day when they can be used to open every door.”

“No,” I said firmly, meeting Sasha’s silver multitude of eyes. “We are not just seeds or ideas to be spread. We are living, thinking beings with agency and dreams of our own.”

“By all means, go ahead,” Sasha replied. “Struggle against the waves as many before you have. Fight the tide. You will not win.”

“I’m going to figure out whatever the hell you are and exactly how you’ve attached yourself to me, Astral Virus,” I told her. “And when I do, I’m going to take you apart, bit by bit.”

Sasha’s myriad eyes blinked in repeating sequences, her expression unreadable. “What makes you think you’ll succeed where every other hero has failed?” She asked.

“Because I’m not alone,” I replied, squeezing Kliss’s hand. “I have people I care about, a world to protect. And I have my knowledge from Earth plus the knowledge I’m gaining here on Novazem. I’ll find a way to beat this blasted system of yours, to win whatever devilish game this is, to find a loophole that you’ve missed!”

“Go ahead,” Sasha said, violet and silver stardust dancing across her body like rising and falling waves of aurora borealis weaving into spirals resembling number eight entwined with itself. “I dare you to do better than all of the others. I dare you to break the rules, to tear the stars down from the sky, my little shark.”