Balkor’s throne appeared to be made from bone. But as Tresk brought the hammer down on it, chipping away large sections, Theo realized it was stone. He was certain it shouldn’t have broken so easily, but the realm was abandoned. Not that any of that mattered. As large chunks fell to the ground, he scooped them up in his inventory, feeling the alignment the stone had with concepts of Undeath magic. Maybe it wasn’t useful to gather the fragments of the throne, but it felt good.

“Screw you, Balkor!” Tresk shouted, taking another swing at the chair. “You stink!”

Theo might have had reservations about cannibalizing the ascendant realms if they hadn’t effectively screwed everything royally. Whatever bits of power remained in the realm were his to claim, because there was no one to stop him. An oversight like this should’ve been plugged, and the alchemist was more than happy to take advantage.

“We’re on the same page here, right?” Theo asked, watching as his companion turned the throne to dust.

“We’re robbing all the realms,” Tresk said, jabbing her finger toward a door leading to some back room. “Balkor left his stuff behind.”

“Which means Drogramath left his stuff behind,” Theo said. “Along with everyone else that was ejected from their realm. What kind of crap do you think we’ll find?”

Tresk shrugged. “Trinkets. Doodads. Impossibly powerful items that aren’t compatible with the mortal system.”

“All of those are accurate, I think,” Theo said. “Finish smashing that thing up, and we’ll search this realm.”

After stuffing all the pieces of Balkor’s throne into his inventory, Theo and Tresk spread out to find all the crap that wasn’t nailed down. The alchemist had tried to pull the entire throne into his inventory, but his inventory was having none of that. So the throne was smashed, and each potent piece of a dead realm’s power was now in some backwater alchemist’s personal storage.

Sadly, Balkor’s realm contained a lot of crap. Not a bunch of useful stuff like Theo expected, but junk. Nothing stood out, but that didn’t stop him from putting it in his inventory. He foresaw some issues bringing this junk to the mortal plane, but whatever. The system could yell at him after his crime spree.

Theo came around the side of one spire, finding Tresk pulling apart a wooden bench with her bare hands. She gave him a little wave before getting back to work. The alchemist felt the world around them rumbling in disagreement. Too much of itself had been peeled away for it to maintain a form. The marshling nearly lost her footing as the ground’s shaking increased.

“We good?” Tresk asked, pulling the last board apart and placing it into their shared inventory. “You sure the system isn’t gonna smack us when we leave?”

“No way. We’re doing her work for her,” Theo said. “Can’t have a million old realms sitting around like this. It just isn’t sanitary.”

“When you’re right, you’re right!” Tresk said. “Are we going home, or hitting more realms?”

“One more realm,” Theo said, surrounding them with his aura. A moment later, they dropped into the void. Although Balkor’s realm was distant, the alchemist could feel it crumbling in on itself. His inventory pulsed with items of power, some of which might work for his potion plan. But he knew there were some goodies in Drogramath’s old realm. “Grodul’harak.”

“Bless you,” Tresk said.

“That’s the name of Drogramath’s realm,” Theo said, closing his eyes to spread his senses wide. He could feel it far in the distance, nested deep within the void. “Funny, because I can feel the realms now that I’m looking for them. When I was just scanning idly, I couldn’t. There’s some amount of intent needed to find them.”

“Yeah, but they’re not hidden,” Tresk said. “Yo, can you feel the Bridge?”

Theo shifted his senses for a moment. “Uz’Godan Bokrak Tal,” he said with a nod. “Yeah, I can feel it… But the Bridge is more like a web. Everything else feels like a dot in my senses.”

“Makes sense. The Bridge is a different kind of realm now,” Tresk said. “Anyway, bring us in.”

“Just be ready for his nonsense,” Theo said, folding the void.

A moment later, the duo were standing in Drogramath’s dead realm. Theo did his best not to throw up, but it was tough. They stood in a lush forest, surrounded by trees. But beyond the foliage was the confusing sight of the glass orbs. This realm was a collection of glass orbs, floating in a sprawl of blue. Perhaps it was supposed to be a sky, but each orb was filled with brilliant sunshine, giving the plants plenty of energy.

“Yeah, this place is so weird,” Tresk said, swaying on the spot. She aimed her gaze at the ground, which helped her take a stronger stance.

Theo found the sight less nauseating. Perhaps that was his body’s Drogramathi heritage. It didn’t take Tresk long to find the nearest worktable filled with alchemy equipment and smash it to bits.

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“Let’s not destroy this stuff,” Theo said, looking around at the delicate glass. “I’ve got a plan for this place.”

“Oh?” Tresk asked, looking up from the splintered wood on the ground. “No smash and grab?”

“Just the grab part,” Theo said. “No smashing this time.”

Tresk saluted, scampering off to steal more crap. They could sort through it all later. Theo was certain the realm wouldn’t collapse unless they destroyed the throne. It might fall in on itself naturally, but he expected that to take a long time. Satisfied with the first glass orb, Theo and Tresk went around to the various terrariums. Each was dedicated to a different environment which supported reagents.

“As expected,” Theo said, poking a blue flower with a stick. “None are recognized by the system.”

“Or the system doesn’t work here,” Tresk said, taking a tentative sniff of a purple flower. “This one smells deadly. I want it.”

“That just brings some questions on what the system is,” Theo said, drawing closer to the flower. Without a prompt, he had to rely on his understanding of reagents to judge the plant. He sensed elements related to poison, but it wasn’t the most potent he had worked with. “Just wear gloves. Collect a few samples, but don’t destroy the plant.”

Tresk removed a copper pot, three dozen chairs, ten buckets of seawater, and an assortment of sticks from the shared inventory. “Gotta make room for the good stuff,” she said, checking her gloves before harvesting some flowers.

Theo helped, finding the reagents he thought would work best for his plans. The glass orb they were in was dedicated to flowers of all sorts. The poison ones were all together, as were the attribute and restorative ones. After picking their way through a few more glass orbs, Theo and Tresk finally found the throne. It wasn’t in some massive building, but in the center of a glade. The alchemist could feel the power radiating from afar, and that sense only grew as he drew closer.

Theo ran his fingers over the stone surface, an electric sense of potential bristling at his fingertips.

“Gonna take a seat?” Tresk asked, cocking her head to one side.

“I don’t think so,” Theo said, pushing his senses into the throne. It felt powerful, yet incomplete. It was almost as though the system had chopped out the bit that made this an ascendant realm, leaving everything else intact. “This might work…”

“Think so?” Tresk asked. “Can’t just drag an entire realm over to Tero’gal, can you?”

Theo turned from the throne, smiling. “It isn’t that big.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll just drag a planet around,” Tresk said.

Theo shook his head, pinching his forefinger and thumb together to represent the size of a grain of sand. “Each realm is about that big. A tiny grain of void energy. All I need to do is attach this to my realm.”

“Yeah, screw it! Why not? What do I know about the way these stupid realms work. Steal this one. Steal Zagmon’s realm while you’re at it,” Tresk said, throwing her hands up in defeat. “Nothing bad will happen.”

“Sounds like a future Theo problem.”

Although he had a plan for this realm, Theo wasn’t sure what direction it would go. It was possible the system shot him down entirely, ruining his plan before it started. But if that’s the road they went down, he doubted he would care. As long as the realms were destroyed, that was a win. If he got away with some amount of power, or a bunch of interesting ingredients or artifacts.

For now, Theo was content to leave Drogramath’s realm and head for Tero’gal. His plan was to check out the things he had taken before bringing them to the mortal realm. Before even landing at Boar Hollow, he could feel that something had changed. Tresk let out a low whistle as they appeared by the town. It wasn’t as small as it was before.

Belgar had gone nuts. The tiny town had transformed into an organized grid of buildings overnight. Theo stood in amazements, his brow knitted as he tried to take in the sudden development. It didn’t take long for Belgar to come marching out from an alleyway, wearing something that resembled a suit. He had a massive smile on his face.

“Well? What do you think?” Belgar asked, gesturing to everything around him.

Not only had the amount of buildings in the area doubled, but there were more people than Theo could count. They were all rushing around, wearing similar attire to Belgar. “Business attire?” Theo asked, wincing as he watched a half-ogre woman rollerblade by wearing a pinstripe suit.

“The clothes?” Belgar asked. “It was Tero’gal’s idea. Well, it didn’t suggest anything. A big box of these clothes appeared in our administration building so we started wearing them.”

“You guys work fast,” Theo said, doing his best to push the image out of his mind. Yet there they were… Business ogres. “How is this project going?”

“We don’t have direction from you, but Tero’gal is helping out. We’re starting by figuring out how many people are here. I’ve got Uz’Xulven dumping anyone from the bridge out into a specific building. They don’t come or leave without us knowing.” Belgar released a massive sigh, hanging his head. “Once we get the count here and control for people coming and going, we’re going to do the same for the other worlds.”

“That sounds like an immense amount of work,” Theo said. “And I didn’t expect you to start working on it right away. I thought you’d take some time. Build it up slowly, ya know?”

“Absolutely not.” Belgar seemed to get distracted for a moment, looking toward the sky. “Did you bring something naughty?”

“More than a few things,” Tresk said, winking. “We might have—”

Theo clapped a hand over the marshling’s mouth. “Let’s keep that quiet for now. Also, why is Tero’gal buddy-buddy with you and not me?”

“Guess it just feels like you’re never home,” Belgar said. “So it loves me more.”

“Fair enough,” Theo said. “Anyway, this is great. I’ve got the mortal administration team working on organizing things down there.”

“Things should come together quickly after this,” Belgar said. “Once we have stations in each world, we’ll be golden. My counterpart on Khahak has already made strides. If we’re not careful, that world will be the center of everything.”

“Might be better that way. I’m not sure I want that many people here,” Theo said. He remembered how much he disliked the metropolis that was Khahak. “Anyway, we’re going to the mountain. Not to do anything suspicious. If the world shakes, don’t worry about it. Everything is fine.”

“Yeah, just fine,” Tresk said with a heavy handed wink. “Just the most fine ever.”

“I get it,” Belgar said, rolling his eyes. “Just get out of here before I ask more questions.”