At the hut of Wu Lung the alchemist, Voltage makes herself at home, rummaging through the lizard-man's collection of junk and malfunctioning gadgets. She declares that she's going to earn her keep by creating an invention - and she sees a few items to help her in that regard. Kathmandu buys a few items off of the alchemist - some pretty throwing stars that look as if they might have some supernatural properties. Rose goes through the alchemist's collection of spells, and buys a few for herself. Meanwhile, the Turtle Ninjas do some sparring practice, and then, after supper, settle in to get some sleep. Most of the others follow suit - except for Rose and Vixa, and the tireless Wu Lung himself.

Vixa has discovered Wu Lung's collection of books, and she practically devours information as she works her way through the shelves. In a corner of a cavern cul-de-sac underneath the hut, she sits down with a book spread across her lap, while Wu Lung is at his work-table, mixing chemicals and occasionally letting Pyrite - his golden shoulder-dragon - sniff at them. (Pyrite occasionally makes squeals or chirps that Wu Lung interprets in some way as approval or disapproval of his concoctions.) Rose paces about, and finally comes to sit down beside Vixa.

Both of them seem eager to talk - and that's what they start to do, at the same time. A pause - then, another awkward attempt at starting conversation. Another moment's silence, and then, "You first," from Vixa.

So, Rose talks. She ponders recent events and revelations, and she worries. Is Morpheus their friend, or is he merely using the heroes as pawns in some sort of game with Zeus? And then, there's the matter of just how many "pawns" there might be; Rose alleges that the group has been acting as if they are the only ones to really know what's going on, when there might very well be groups of self-aware "NPCs" elsewhere. After all, they've learned that there isn't just Superior City; there's DungeonWorld, of course, and then the horror setting of Night City, the sci-fi setting of Deimos, the various fantasies of the Aphrodite system, and perhaps some sort of virtual realities tied to the Apollo medical system - or even others. What if there are others who can be found there - either self-aware NPCs like themselves, or perhaps "ghosts" who have become attached to NPCs, and may or may not be fully aware of their circumstances, or the threat facing the players?

And then, there's the matter of herself. She worries about the revelations made by the "dragon ghost", also known as Steve Xerxes, in the Old Cemetery. His allegations against Morpheus are very grave, she suggests - and she would like to hear Morpheus's side of the story. Might there be some way that she could summon Morpheus, and ask him questions? But then, if she did, what would she ask. Rose admits to being somewhat less than diplomatic when it comes to getting answers - and she fears that if Morpheus is innocent, he might take offense ... and if he's not, then it might be very dangerous to accuse the murderer of his crime to his face.

Furthermore, there's the matter of Xerxes's quirky statements about members of the hero group. Kathmandu, Voltage, Ferrari, Scars and even Abigail XR-37 seem to have fairly well-established identities, even if they may not yet know all the details. On the other hand, Fireman, Rose and Vixa have been declared to just be "evolved artificial intelligences" - but with the extra complication that Xerxes hinted that Rose had a "spark" in her of something else. When pressed for a detail, he never gave a satisfactory answer - and that has been bugging Rose ever since. Rose wonders if, indeed, she might have a "spirit" behind her ... but that it might be buried somewhere. In order to learn more about herself, she wonders aloud to Vixa, should she try to conduct a séance or some other ritual to bring this "Other Me" to the forefront?

Vixa ponders this, and expresses her reservations. "That could be very dangerous," she says. "I've read of several stories - and movies - that involve someone who has amnesia, who discovers that the person he used to be wasn't very pleasant indeed. How much of your identity is determined by your memories? It's one thing to at least try to find out the facts, but if you're trying to pull something buried into the forefront ... well, what if it displaces the 'you' that you are right now? What if we lose Rose?"

Rose doesn't seem to be too terribly pleased by that prospect, but she brings up the "pyramid scheme" that Xerxes hinted at. "I talk a lot about vampires. I think they're kind of cool. But I don't think I really want to be one - at least, not like that. I don't want to think that I'm some sort of parasite; I don't want to think that I only get to be me because I'm crushing the identity of someone else."

Vixa nods, and there's another awkward silence, but then she dares to interject, "That brings up something that has been bothering me as well. Do you remember back when we discovered the Elk's Lodge?" And so they spend some time going over the facts of that day, trying to get the chronology right - since, now, it seems so long ago and far away. Vixa recalls the curious "experiment" that the others put Rose and her through, and what they saw inside the lodge. Vixa indicates that she's been giving the incident further thought ... and she has come to the alarming conclusion, based on the way others were talking, that the lodge only looked that way, because Rose and Vixa somehow expected it to look that way. They wonder whether, if someone else were to visit that same place - without the meddling of one of the Guardians - it would be just as they left it. Vixa goes on to talk about her time in the library, and her visit to a grocery store. At the time, Vixa suggests, she didn't seem to be terribly aware of so many of the oddities going on around her ... but now, as she looks back on those events, there are so many things she didn't notice - didn't even think about. She talks about the incident with the book about the Megamon, where she "discovered" another page in the book that revealed the male version of her species, and a special little creature that she would very much like to have for her own pet - and then the alarmed look on Kathmandu after this discovery. In retrospect, she fears that she may have somehow caused that change to come into being, unknowingly. She also is alarmed about some of the books she had read in the library: At the time, she thought nothing odd about anything she read, in particular. There were plenty of books to read, and many of them were complete stories. However, some of the books just contained the first few chapters - or, at the very least, she can't remember anything about them past those first few chapters, and she's fairly sure that she would have cared about the endings. At the time, though, it was as if she was simply incapable of noticing anything amiss. Other times, she would pick up books and read them, and she had a vague idea that this book was funny, or this book was sad, or that this book was a fantasy story with a few general details ... but in retrospect she's fairly sure that the books were just collections of gibberish that made sense at the time, but seem to her like nonsense now. For some reason, she wants to compare it to a dream, where things seem to "make sense" at the time, but are nonsense later ... but Vixa is alarmed to realize that she's not entirely sure that she's ever really had a dream.

Rose is given pause at this, and, as she thinks about it, she can't recall any specific dream she's ever had, though she feels as if she ought to have had some. (After all, nightmares seem like the sort of thing she would have a distinct interest in.) They talk for a while about this, trying to establish whether or not either of them has ever really had a dream. "Voltage dreamed about her death," Rose suggests - but Vixa wonders whether that was really a dream at all, but just a "flashback". And this leads to further back-and-forth discussion, since Rose supposes that a "flashback" might very well be the same thing as a dream, and so on.

Finally, they wander back to Vixa's concerns about the idea of changing reality. To her, it sounds like Kathmandu's theories that reality is shaped by the collective beliefs and expectations of the people in it. She can't speak for the "real world", which she has never visited, but it seems as if the world she knows just might be subject to that sort of a rule: that there have been changes made because of her beliefs and expectations, and those of others.

Rose nods at this. She posits that, based on what she's seen, she's come to believe that there are parts of the environment that are specifically programmed and designed to be and behave a certain way. There are places where certain events repeat themselves, under certain conditions, regardless of how many times the "superheroes" defeat the villains. But in other places, less "important", she wonders whether maybe "lazy programmers" just let the system fill in the blanks ... and it might do so by drawing upon memories and expectations of the players. She further proposes that the reason Vixa found incomplete books could be that they only existed because of memories drawn from people who had read them ... and Vixa may simply have picked up some books that they hadn't finished reading yet - so they were only complete to the point where it was last dropped off. Vixa wonders at how accurate memories really are, that the text of a book could be reproduced - up to a certain point - but then she concedes that she can't even be sure that the books really held accurate transcripts of the original stories. After all, she doesn't have the originals to compare against, and if her memory were that accurate anyway, then she should assume that others might have such accurate memories as well.

Ultimately, though, Vixa admits a more personal concern about this business of "bending reality". She brings up how the succubus brought up the idea of Vixa being some sort of "vampire". Vixa confesses that she was frightened not so much by the idea that her friends would turn on her at the claim of a demon ... but rather, that she was afraid that it might be true. She is certain that she's never consumed blood or tried to suck out anyone's soul, but her fear is rather that somehow the demon's claim might actually cause it to be true. "After all," Vixa says, "if the system fills in blanks ... well, my background is one huge blank!"

Rose doesn't have much of an answer for this, though she suggests that being a vampire wouldn't necessarily be the worst thing in the world. Who knows? It might even be kind of cool. She suggests that her opinion of Vixa had been waning lately, what with all the running around screaming and being afraid of "robot ghosts" - when, she reveals, it was really just Ferrari running up and poking Vixa in the ribs. (Vixa looks sour and more than a little ashamed at this revelation.) Rose moves on by suggesting that it's possible to be a vampire without being a monster. After all, she suggests, isn't any carnivore a "vampire", in a sense? Is it any less detrimental to the beast involved to eat its meat rather than to drink some of its blood?

So, Vixa and Rose keep talking for a while about the morality of vampires and other creatures of the darkness ... and then, their attention turns to the lizard-man alchemist, who is happily working away late into the night, at his table full of gadgets, gizmos and bottles of strange bubbling liquids. He doesn't seem to be responding at all to any of their talk about the nature of reality, or that this might all just be a game - but when Rose asks him, out of the blue, what he's working on, he's more than happy to tell her.

Rose decides to get up and speak with him for a while. She finds that he's quite responsive, compared to, say, the average villager or monster. He talks at length about the various chemicals he's working with, and the potions he's trying to concoct. A lot of it sounds rather scientific, though Rose hasn't the knowledge to compare it to, to see if he is speaking reasonably, or whether it's all just "technobabble" programmed into him to impress ignorant players. Some of it, however, is evidently mystical: the focus of his work is on various crystals that are instrumental to the workings of "technomancy", and the creation of golems.

Wu Lung reveals that he is in regular contact with Bryce Hammerhand, the Dwarven Chief Engineer and Guildmaster who resides at the top of the Clockwork Tower. He occasionally receives visits from clockwork pigeons sent from the tower, bearing further instructions, and some offerings of gadgets and samples and tools to add to his collection. (He proudly indicates a microscope that was a gift from the Chief Engineer: It looks very much like a modern microscope in shape and apparent function, except that, instead of having a shell of shiny white plastic, it has a brassy shell, intricately engraved with knotwork designs and arcane-looking runes, set with glass gems, and inlaid with silver. It looks like a modern contraption pretending to be something from a fantasy world.)

Wu Lung is studying the workings of the crystals used in golems, and some of the other magical elements that are involved in technomancy. He is well aware, he says, of the workings of gears, springs, counterweights, ratchets, pistons, boilers, and so forth. He knows some of the basic ideas of how crystals work with such conventional machinery; some of them provide a more compact source of power, while others perform complex functions that would require a great many more gears and switches than could possibly fit into a golem's body of any reasonable size. Others still provide a sort of "spark of life" that gives direction and reason to a golem's function that gears and wheels could never achieve.

He spends some time explaining the details in such length that most of it sails right over Rose's head, but she's nonetheless fascinated at just how enthusiastic he is about his work, and how "real" he seems compared to most of this world. In fact, she can't help but notice that his dwelling seems a little more real than the surrounding area. There is evidence of artificiality, in that each of the planks used for the stairs leading into his cave has exactly the same grain pattern, and his collection of bottles look like perhaps six or seven specific varieties, with exactly the same irregularities in their casting as the next. However, not only does everything feel real and sound real and smell real to the touch - but it looks real enough, and seems to be as malleable as anything in the "real world" (or, at least, Superior City) would be. For instance, the steps on the stairs show scuff marks and wear - and an experimental bit of vandalism reveals that Rose is able to leave an actual scratch in the wood's surface (something that would have been impossible on the polygonal trees in the forest).

Rose makes a comment to this effect, and Wu Lung indicates that there is a curse upon the land that is called "DungeonWorld": Long ago, legend says that there was a terrible battle between wizards who deemed themselves like gods. Much of the world was destroyed, and the gods took portions of those wizards' domains and ripped them apart from the remaining world. Curses were placed upon these fragments of the world; these wizards could indeed be "gods" over their own lands, after all, and rule over their few subjects, but their worlds would be preserved, almost immutable and unchanging, a mere mockery of the life that the world once knew.

Wu Lung suggests that there may be a way to lift this curse, and the Chief Engineer is diligently looking into it, from his clockwork tower. The Chief Engineer believes that, in order to bring the world to life again, it is necessary to intricately know every last detail about how the world works. Wu Lung indicates that the Chief Engineer has access to a great many secrets of how life works, and how the world is built, how the winds blow, and the stars shine - but when it comes to the realm of magic, there is no knowing. It is like a strange little machine that can't be opened: You can wind the spring and set it on the floor, and it trundles along. You know what you do to make it move, but you don't know what is inside the box, what makes it really work. This is the case with the golem crystals - not to mention all other sorts of "magic". "Magic", Wu Lung alleges, is merely a statement of resignation, of not really knowing how things truly work. If, he says, he could learn all the secrets to the arts of Alchemy and Technomancy, then it would be no longer necessary to relegate them to the realms of magic: they would become arts and sciences.

Rose listens with a mixture of interest and disappointment. While Wu Lung seems very capable of forming thoughts and articulating them, and he shows evidence of responding to Rose and interacting with her in a way that most of DungeonWorld's inhabitants don't - he seems to be completely oblivious to any notion that this is some sort of game, and he has his own rationale for why things are the way they are. She wonders if that means that he's not "real", after all. This doesn't do much for her mood, so she grabs Vixa, and declares that they're going to perform a séance.

Wu Lung warns them, as they go out, to beware of the Magic Pool. "Don't fall into it! If you do, you may find that you don't come back out where you started. You can spend all night jumping into the pool and out again just to try to find your way home - and some of the places you may go aren't terribly friendly, either." He also tells them of the wards he has set up about his limited domain: they are easily enough seen, so as long as they stay within his "fence" of wards, they shouldn't be bothered by wandering monsters or the like.

Vixa helps Rose find a suitable spot to set up a séance, and they locate what they suppose to be the Magic Pool - and elect to stay well away from it.

Vixa rushes back into the hut, and buys some candles off of the alchemist - and puts away the book she had been reading. She comes back out and helps Rose set up. They sit down, facing each other, holding candles and "charging them up" as per Rose's instructions. Rose tries some invocations, calling out to the spirits to reveal themselves - and, inspiration strikes her to be a little more specific. She invokes the name of Nathan Blake - the man who created the half-finished "Dark Portals" plot, who inadvertently created "Mad Molly" ... and who might very well have been responsible for Rose as well.

A chill wind blows, and for a moment, it seems strong enough to shake the very stars in the sky. It takes all the determination that Rose and Vixa can muster, not to let go of each others' hands and just scramble for the presumed safety of the hut. Then, the winds die down, and an apparition forms.

It is not a pleasant sight. It looks only very vaguely like the form of a man, its legs fading off into the air, its arms tapering off into handless limbs that look as if they could impale with a thrust. It has something resembling wings on its back, but nothing so well defined as to look usable. Perhaps more alarming, it has no noticeable head. Instead, its chest has distorted features that vaguely look like that of a skull - and it is from a glowing cavity in that skull/chest that the creature screams in many voices. It sounds like a man's voice, distorted, saying many things at once - as if someone had recorded him several times, and then played the different recordings back all at once. Rose can only make out a few things amidst the jumble, and even those things she can't quite be sure about. "I'm sorry," and "BETRAYAL!" and "I'm such a fool," stand out amongst them.

Rose hesitantly tries to talk with the apparition; it visibly shifts its shape now and then, as if its own form were at the subject of its own will - and it hasn't the strength of self-control to maintain a consistent appearance. Vixa clamps her mouth firmly shut and lets Rose do the talking. The going is slow, most of the apparition's responses nonsensical, and unreasonably alternating between angry and placating. Rose finds herself struggling to contain her own emotions, as she so much wants to bark out at this thing to get a grip on itself and make some sense ... but she also suspects that she could very easily set off this being, causing it to lurch out and attack, or to flee away - and neither result interests her.

After a time, the creature seems to collect itself somewhat, and it briefly begins to take on something slowly more recognizable as a being that may have at least once upon a time been human - though not so recognizable as to have a fully formed face. There are fewer voices speaking at once now - or at least more of the voices are saying something similar to each other, so it's somewhat easier to pick out the words. In halting, broken words, the creature tells something of its story. Roughly paraphrase, it reveals that it was once Nathan Blake, a tester and programmer for the "Universe". Nathan's job was to create scenarios for others who were taking on the roles of heroes. It was all just a game for him, but he was fascinated by parts of the game that seemed more real than others. He met a woman who was very beautiful, very charming - though he never got her name. Upon repeated encounters with her, she seemed to become more real - and he found that he was getting attached to her. There was just one problem: She had a little girl named Molly, and presumably she was married.

Nathan, however, being a programmer, had something approaching god-like powers over inhabitants of this virtual world. He found that he wasn't content with just creating villains for the heroes to fight. He wanted his own fantasy. And so, using his limited knowledge of how to "program" changes into the setting, he created a girlfriend for himself, who would be just like the woman he had fallen for, though unattached and without any responsibilities. He decided to call her "Molly" - since that was the name he so often heard coming from her mouth, and he had rather come to associate the name with her instead.

His quasi-role in the Universe was as a sort of demon/genie - an efreet - and he would sometimes take on the personal role as an adversary for mid-level heroes, or a prankster in larger plots. When visiting Molly, however, he would take on a more appealing appearance ... and played the role of a granter of wishes, to make her every dream come true. She wanted to be a successful singer. She wanted to be famous. And eventually, she wanted everybody to love her. It was the granting of this last wish that caused the trouble.

Nathan admits at this point that he had read more than a few stories about genies. He was well aware of the risks with "granting wishes"; however, he had become very accustomed to putting himself in the role of the person who would be twisting the meaning of a wish away from its intent. He didn't stop to think that he was not, after all, the one really granting the "wishes" - but, instead, it was the Zeus system that was responsible for interpreting requests and turning them into (virtual) reality. The attempt to make "everyone" love Molly was disastrous. It simply couldn't be done, since players, after all, have their own hearts and minds. It might be possible to simulate a "mind-controlling" villain by momentarily taking over a "superhero" body and treating it like a puppet, or an "illusionist" by playing trickery with appearances - but there was no way the Zeus system could fulfill the request by bending the minds of its players ... and, besides, there were more than a few villains who were either incapable of love, or who had very specific coded instructions that they "hated" everybody.

The system couldn't take it. It crashed. And when the system came back online, the other programmers were somewhat vindictive in their "solution" to the problem. Molly's life, such as it was, was re-written. She was now thrust into the role of a supervillain who had used amazing mental powers to mesmerize most of the city (except, of course, for the superheroes). When the players were allowed back on, the major system plot involved the heroes joining forces against the evil "Mad Molly". And, once she was vanquished, she was reduced to a mere fraction of her former "glory" - consigned as a minor bit villain character, doomed to forever hold impromptu concerts and bank robberies at the repeated "Grand Opening" of the National Bank of Superior City.

Rose wonders about herself, then. In a great many jumbled words, the apparition basically tells Rose that she was a mistake. She wasn't supposed to be. Rose takes this like a slap in the face - to be told by the closest thing she has to a "father" that, after all, she's just a mistake.

As for Nathan Blake, he was fired - but Rose wonders why he's here, then.

"They ... killed me!" His voice rises to a howling scream, and his body loses its definition again, turning more feral and monstrous. Its arms lengthen into blade-like tapers again, and it lurches toward Rose. Rose's face turns to horror, and her voice quavers. "Daddy?" she squeaks out, but she doesn't try to break away or escape.

The creature's blade-arms stop mere inches from Rose's face. It screams again, and hugs its arms against itself, tearing into itself. It thrashes about - then fades in an explosion of ethereal flame, its voice dying away on the wind.

It seems very, very cold once the apparition vanishes. Rose starts to fall back - and Vixa falls over herself, trying to get up from a cross-legged position, as she grabs for Rose and wraps her in a hug.

"Don't tell anybody," Rose says, in a quavering voice. Vixa nods and just holds her for a while, letting the little girl be a little girl for a while.

Time passes, and Rose's emotions eventually return to anger. She feels so frustrated that she wasn't able to find out more. She storms about, and Vixa recoils, alarmed at some of the language Rose is using. Rose supposes that she shouldn't be afraid of a ghost - and is this really her "father" if she, after all, was just a mistake? She ponders summoning him up again, but Vixa urges caution - she worries that he might be just as dangerous. Perhaps, Vixa suggests, he needs a bit of cooling off. Perhaps he's something like Rose and the others - that it takes time to really come to grips with the reality that they're all in, bit by bit.

Rose concedes this point, and they just talk for a while. Vixa talks a bit more about her own concerns, about how she worries that if she doesn't do something about her identity, someone else is going to shape it for her. She's not so sure she wants to be a "cute fluffy vixen" who has no real name of her own - just the name of her "species" - and who is only supposed to talk in nonsense fragments of her own name ("Xa, Vixa Vi!") that only carry meaning the same way a surfer can get all sorts of meaning out of various inflections of the word "Dude". She's also more than a little concerned about how she's supposed to be all cuddly and cute, to make little girls happy ... and then she goes out and beats other cuddly and cute creatures senseless, for no other reason than that's what she's supposed to do.

She indicates that she had been spending a lot of time with Kathmandu, since he seemed to be the closest to her of anyone. After all, he is a fellow "Megamon", and had escaped with her from the Center from Xenozoological Studies. But ... he isn't quite the same. He can look like a human, and blend in with normal people. When she sees all the flirting going on between him and Voltage, she can't really think of him as a beast who takes on human form. Rather, she thinks of him as a man who just happens to be able to make himself look like a cat now and then ... and even more so, now that she knows he has a real name and a real identity as Dr. Miguel Venezuela. "He's real," Vixa says, "and I'm ... something else." She supposes that he wants her around, that he wants her to be something - but she's not sure what that is, and whether that's what she wants to be.

Rose wonders whether Vixa might resent being made to wear "goth clothes", and she volunteers that it isn't necessary anymore. Vixa's ears blush; she suggests that, what with being able to talk and all, and being able to wear a trench coat as a "disguise", by now it would feel wrong if she went back to being the way she was. Kathmandu, after all, seems perfectly normal the way he is, when he turns into a beast, but she's not quite the same: She's somewhere between beast and person, and can't freely change between the two extremes. As it is, Vixa declares that she'd rather be a person than a beast; at least, that way, she might have more say in what she wants to be - if only she knew what that might be.

Nonetheless, Rose declares to Vixa that she doesn't need to be her "sidekick" anymore. Rose suggests that she'll stop fighting with Kathmandu over her - and that Vixa can be Kathmandu's sidekick instead. "After all," Rose argues, "despite everything, I know he likes you, and you fit well together."

And with that, Rose decides to try out a new spell that she acquired from Wu Lung: "Call Familiar". She performs a ritual to summon a familiar, and the call is answered by all sorts of spirit creatures. Apparitions rise from the earth. Little faeries flutter through the air, leaving glittering trails of light in their wake. Small beasts bound through the underbrush, and small birds flap down from the trees. A female centaur steps regally into the circle, a black crow caws from a branch, and a little black cat peers at Rose with yellow eyes.

Rose coldly dismisses anything overly "girly", such as the faeries with their colorful wings - and anything "busty", such as the various nymphs and their like. Various of the animals are shooed off for being too "cute". The animated trees are just too "silly". A couple of Phookas look suspiciously like the ones who stole Rose's amulet earlier, so she dismisses them with a baleful glare. She outright ignores the rest, save for the black cat, the crow, and a tall and ominous shade. After some careful consideration, she decides that the shade wins her favor - a tall, long, semi-ethereal robed figure with a cowled hood hiding what looks like an iron mask, and with long bladed gauntlet fingers extending from its billowing sleeves. The other creatures scatter off, looking somewhat miffed for being turned down, but the shade just bows, wordlessly accepting its new master.

Vixa frowns, looking upset for reasons she can't articulate. Quietly, she leaves behind Rose and her new "sidekick", and returns to their séance circle, carefully snuffing the candles and gathering them up for later. Then, she returns to Wu Lung's hut, and finds him slumbering, at last, draped over his work table, with his little golden shoulder-lizard curled up in a fold of his robes. She quietly tip-toes past him and goes to his shelf, pulling off a book of legends of ghosts and spirits of a far-away place, and another book about magic. She sneaks back outside, and lights a candle again, leaning up against a tree as she starts to read a tale about a Chinese "fox spirit", by the light of the candle and the waxing moon.