Chaotic Craftsman Worships The Cube

He felt a line of thoughts he hadn’t previously let himself touch on burrow into his mind and whisper in his ear, a truth to it all he couldn’t escape. Saving the world was probably impossible. Saving himself and a handful of people who mattered to him though? Would that even be a challenge?

He even already had ideas that could work. When he’d discussed the prospect of some alternative other than killing Oaun when he’d gotten back with the gods he’d suggested a few he knew would be doomed to fail but that was only when working on the scale of trying to save the planet. On a significantly smaller scale though, would there even be any real problems?

Construct a vessel with time enchantments on it to keep the occupants frozen within while getting Ogilt to transport them to another galaxy and it might have actually been feasible. Ben would have to constantly move mana from the souls he created into the great spirit but there was no reason it couldn’t be done, and regardless of how wrong it would be, if Ogilt was against it, Ben was confident he could take him over with hive mind to force the other to his will.

There were other issues with it too, how long it might take to get somewhere safe from the demon’s god and gathering the people he cared about, with both being affected by just how many he’d be willing to bring with him and what he’d need to do to make it happen.

Thera and her entire family were obvious and without much thought, he knew he’d want to bring every human on the planet too regardless of how close or not he was with some of them, and if he was bringing one entire group of summoned then he might as well take another. It would do no harm for the grey to feel in his debt if he took every member of their kind he could off of that doomed world.

And who else? He liked Sachel and Ralia enough that he’d want to save them, really he’d choose to take her entire village, adding a few hundred dryads to the list and why stop at just one village? He’d obviously need to bring the demidemons too, with that thought growing to all of Myriad’s believers since there were still less than a thousand in total.

Yuzu too, though since she was Jake’s wife that should have been obvious but it did raise the point that he’d need to try and bring at least a few of the people everyone else he would take was close to as well, and when he thought about the list of people he liked well enough on the planet that he didn’t want to die, that meant the number was only going to grow.

But no matter how many mortals he decided he wanted to grab in the end, he believed he could make it manageable. There was no way their numbers would be above ten thousand and if he did make a vessel to help hold them all, he could manipulate not only the flow of time but space as well, keeping the size reasonably small. The bigger issue was that some of the gods of the world might stop him but so long as he built it, he could get the space spirits of the world to bring him everyone else he would want to take along the day he was ready to go and escape before any deity would notice.

That did bring another obvious point though; the gods. He was comfortable saying there were four he’d want to save, maybe five if he included Jagal since she’d always been good to him but that would be harder to deal with, with the best idea he had at the moment being to trick them into descending upon their believers before trapping them to bring along. Myriad would be extra difficult but Ben would find a way, although all of them would need to have at least a couple hundred of their believers brought along too, with the last question being what he’d even do after.

He would in essence be kidnapping gods and mortals alike to leave the rest of the planet to die. Even if he succeeded and got to a new planet far away from whatever demons that galaxy held, how many of them would be grateful? Even if he saved a few, he’d be tearing plenty away from friends and family, leaving them behind to deal with whatever horrors were left waiting once the third wave went through. Just how would thousands of potential people react to that? How many would forgive him either, even among the ones he cared about?

A question that didn’t really matter. They could all hate him but they’d be alive to hate him, wasn’t that good enough? In whatever world they’d end up building, he could go down in history as a monster and that would be fine if it meant there were people alive to view him as such.

And aren’t I uncomfortably well equipped to help build a new world if it comes to that? I have the near total of this planet’s magical knowledge in my head and I can read up on every other book worth reading too. I’m one of the best at making things on this entire planet, if I combine that with the millions of points of mana I can pull from my jacket then I could have a real settlement made in a day, plus my materializers could keep us all fed during initial set up.

Hell, they could do the job for years if it came to it for some reason and I could get the greys’ help too. No reason they couldn’t chip in on city planning if I’m saving some of their people and it’s not like I’d stop working on the summoning spell. Plus, that would actually be better for them. I know they’re having trouble finding a backup world they’d want to contact if this one falls but a brand-new planet should be pretty tolerable, shouldn’t it? And given the gods of this one have all had to live among others, I’d at least say the ones I’d want to bring with me are probably mellow enough that they won’t have any of those insane restrictions that gods used to ruling their worlds alone or in small groups would have.

That does leave the issue of whatever gods already exist on whatever world we’d land on since we’d need something that already has life and an ecosystem, but as long as we get somewhere that hasn’t started to uplift a group… Well, I’m confident in my negotiation skills, I’ll make it work. Especially if whatever gods are young enough actually, finding a planet like that should be the goal. Nare said they’re basically infants or animals, no reason not to let the ones I’d drag along raise whichever ones we find.

The more he thought about it, the better the idea felt. Let the people he loved live, let himself live, and abandon this planet that viewed him as nothing more than a resource. All at the cost of everyone he’d leave behind.

…

That was the key issue with that entire line of thought but one he was happy to try and ignore as a larger part of him tried to work out the logistics, even with one question still in his head. Could he go through with it?

…Deny.

Whether he could or not, he had months to decide and it was never too soon to start planning so as he continued to draw he refined the idea, feeling all he’d learned on the planet click into place so he could abandon it.