Eugene gripped Utopianna’s hands, his palms still clammy from fever, but his eyes were clear.
"I need them here," he said. "The infected. As many as you can safely bring. As close to the Veiled Pinnacle as possible."
Utopianna tilted her head. Her expression softened, but not with understanding—more like concern wrapped in calculation.
"Why?" she asked. "What are you planning, Eugene?"
He didn’t answer immediately. Not fully.
"The Pinnacle resonates with me," he said. "It... responds. I think I can use that."
Utopianna studied him carefully. "The Veiled Pinnacle is a magnifier," she murmured. "It wasn’t made for healing, not directly. And it’s not a weapon."
Eugene nodded. "I know. But I’m not using it to heal, technically."
That made her blink.
She saw it then—only the outline of the idea, like the shape of a thing moving behind frosted glass. Eugene wasn’t just relying on the tower. He was planning something layered. She could feel other presences at the edge of the room. Old magic. Ancient pacts. Jennie magic.
Cozimia’s lantern glowed faintly nearby. Hazel’s presence buzzed like static in the space between seconds. And somewhere, distant but unmistakably watching, the Jennie of Potential was waiting.
Utopianna folded her arms, looking him over again.
"Does Krungus know what you're about to do?"
Eugene gave a half-smile. "Not yet."
"And you’re sure you’re strong enough?"
He looked past her, toward the heart of the Pinnacle. "It won’t be just me."
Utopianna stood silent for a moment longer, then turned to the city outside, where the fungal haze crawled through the cracks in the skyline.
"I’ll start moving them," she said. "But if this goes wrong, you won’t be the only one it destroys."
Eugene met her gaze and nodded. "I know."
And he meant it.
But even as Utopianna turned away, Eugene found his thoughts drifting—just for a moment—back to one of the last movies he’d watched on Earth. Armageddon. Bruce Willis playing the gruff, self-sacrificing oil driller. What was his name? Harry. Yeah. Harry.
He realized, with some surprise, that he hadn’t really thought about Earth in days. Maybe longer. It was like the memory had been sealed away behind everything that had happened here—spores, sorcery, sentient lanterns. But now it cracked open, vivid and clear.
That ending. Armageddon.
The moment Harry stayed behind to set off the bomb and save the world. Eugene had cried—cried because Harry chose it. Not out of duty, but out of love. That kind of sacrifice, made willingly, hit something deep in him. It wasn’t the explosion that broke him. It was the moment he realized what strength really looked like.
He wasn’t planning to die, not yet. But if he overestimated himself—if he tried to act like Harry and wasn’t strong enough—he wouldn’t just fail. He’d doom the rest of them.
He clenched his fists, trying to shake off the tremor in his gut.
No. This wasn’t about bravado. He wasn’t a hero. He was a warlock with two Jennies—Cozimia and Hazel—and a tower that listened when he spoke. The Jennie of Potential would be his third, if she accepted him. That had to be enough.
He figured she’d want confidence. Potential always admired the bold, didn’t it? He wasn’t sure how Jennie psychology worked exactly, but if there was one thing he remembered from that movie, it was how Bruce Willis never hesitated. He was going to channel that—be that. Even if his stomach was still flipping inside out.
He straightened his back, but something snagged in his chest. A creeping doubt.
He hadn’t really done anything brave before this. Not on Earth. No adventures. No impossible odds. No life-or-death choices. Most days had been microwaved meals, part-time jobs, half-finished ideas. He’d never had to save anyone. He’d never had to try this hard.
The doubt started to hollow him out. He thought of all the people depending on him now—people who didn’t know his name a few weeks ago, who might die because he thought he could be something more than he was. What if this was all just ego? A delusion wrapped in luck? He was no chosen one. He was a scared kid who fell into power he didn’t earn. What if they’d all been better off if he’d never come here at all?
But then, almost without thinking, he started humming.
That damn Aerosmith song. From Armageddon.
I don’t wanna close my eyes... I don’t wanna fall asleep...
He could see Steven Tyler in his mind—sweaty, intense, belting into the mic in that ridiculous music video, intercut with Bruce Willis on the asteroid. It was over-the-top and dramatic and perfect.
It was stupid. It was cheesy. But the melody carried something that anchored him. A weight. A warmth. A willingness to hold on.
He hummed it again, louder this time. Just enough to steady himself.
He didn’t even know why that movie had come to mind. Maybe it was just nostalgia. Maybe it was something about Earth that still had the power to ground him when everything here felt like it was spinning out of control. Or maybe that movie really was just that good. The kind you remember when you’re staring down the end of the world... suddenly. After accidentally releasing deadly, magical spores onto The City.
Channeling his inner Bruce Willis, Eugene walked towards the fountain in the Veiled Pinnacle. He was going to have a talk with Potential.
The Jennie of Potential was playing with the baby near the fountain. Eugene didn't hesistate. he walked up and began to give his speech. He cleared his throat.
"I know I’m not supposed to be the guy saving the city. I didn’t train for this. I’m not a wizard, not a hero."
The Jennie placed the baby down, her form seeming to pay attention to Eugene now.
"I'm just… the one who's still standing here, staring at the rot. Everyone else is too scared to look.
And maybe this isn’t my job. Maybe it’s yours. Maybe it’s theirs. But they’re all waiting—stalling—debating. Meanwhile, this city, your city, is on the brink.
I don’t want to be a warlock. I never asked for your power. But if you give it to me… I will walk straight into the core of this thing. I’ll climb into the heart of that infection. And I will light it up from the inside.
You’re the Jennie of Potential. I’m asking you to help me become more than I am—just for this. Just for a moment let's tap into that Potential.
Because if we don’t stop this now… there won’t be a City left to save."
He looked down at himself—at the Victorian-style suit Krungus had purchased for him when they'd first tried to make him look "wizardly." High collar, dark lapels, silver trim, way too many buttons. His hair was a little wild, but still very much there—brown, thick, very not Bruce Willis.
He laughed softly under his breath.
"I don’t even look like Harry," he muttered. "Not even close."
A ripple passed through the air behind him. Light caught in the fountain’s mist, fracturing into a prism of shifting color. He turned.
She was there.
The Jennie of Potential emerged as if from nothing—her form coalescing from scattered shards of light and color. Her silhouette seemed made of glass or crystal, yet within it swirled countless refracted versions of herself—half-formed futures dancing behind her gaze.
She stepped forward slowly, her voice like a melody unspoken.
"Eugene from Cincinnati," she said. "I am Enalia of the Threshold, the Jennie of Potential. And I have been waiting."
Eugene stared, blinking at the way her form shimmered with too many possibilities. At times, she looked like a young girl—no older than ten, barefoot and bright-eyed. Other times, he saw the hunched outline of an ancient woman, bent under the weight of centuries, her hands gnarled like tree roots. Each flicker of identity shifted with the tilt of the light, as if time couldn’t decide what she was meant to be.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Eugene was already holding the staff that carried Cozimia’s lantern. As Enalia approached, she didn’t speak again—she simply stepped forward, and with a gesture more fluid than light, disappeared into the lantern’s mouth.
The moment she entered, Eugene staggered.
A surge of power tore through him—raw, radiant, immense. It wasn’t like fire or lightning. It was like momentum itself had entered his body. The sensation wanted to shoot straight out of his fingertips, explode from his eyeballs, make his hair stand on end. It coursed through his veins like he was a lightning rod in a storm of purpose.
And while the magic burned through him, his mind opened. Flickers of potential danced behind his eyes—visions of what he could become. What he might already be. Himself as a leader. As a destroyer. As a savior. As something else entirely, something neither good nor evil but limitless.
Within the lantern, the Jennies stirred.
Cozimia’s voice rang out first, warm and sharp as ever. “Well, sugar, you sure know how to make an entrance. That felt like waking up with a sunrise in my chest.”
Hazel Fortuna’s voice followed, sly and layered. “Ooooh, this one’s going to get interesting. Threads are twitching already. So many improbable lines lighting up. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Then came Enalia—not speaking so much as resonating. Her presence shimmered through Eugene’s spine like a tuning fork struck against divinity.
“You have stepped through,” she whispered. “Now show me what you do with the path you’ve chosen.”
[VOID INTERFACE: UPDATE RECEIVED]
NEW CONTRACT ESTABLISHED: JENNIE OF POTENTIAL (ENALIA OF THE THRESHOLD) WARLOCK SIGNATURE: EUGENE CALHOUN DOMAIN INTEGRATION: POTENTIAL (UNBOUND, REFRACTIVE)
ABILITY UNLOCKED: → [Echo Step]: Momentarily project diverging paths of action into your mind—glimpses of what might occur based on your next move. Each vision reflects a potential outcome but does not influence time or reality. Echo Step grants insight, not alteration. The clarity fades quickly, but in that moment, you see several futures—then choose the one that feels right.
SYNERGY MODIFIER: VEILED PINNACLE POWER OUTPUT: +3,800% STABILITY: UNKNOWN
[ADVICE: CAUTION ADVISED. YOU ARE NO LONGER WHO YOU WERE. NOR YET WHO YOU WILL BE.]
Eugene blinked at the numbers, his heart thudding. An increase of 3,800%? That wasn’t just a boost—it was an eruption. He tried to picture what that kind of jump looked like in real terms, and then realized he couldn’t. It wasn’t just him anymore. It was the tower—the Veiled Pinnacle, humming beneath his feet like a tuning fork of ancient intent. It was Cozimia’s hospitality, Hazel’s impossible luck, and now Enalia’s boundless refracted futures, all threaded into his veins.
He didn’t know what he was becoming.
But it was happening fast.
[VOID INTERFACE: LEVEL ADVANCEMENT DETECTED]
WARLOCK LEVEL: 6
JENNIE BOND INTEGRITY: STABLE (Cozimia, Hazel, Enalia)
PROGRESSION TYPE: UNSTRUCTURED / EMERGENT
PHYSICAL STRENGTH: +15%
VITALITY: +15%
NEW ABILITY UNLOCKED: → [Hearth Recall]: Once per day, teleport instantly to your bound sanctuary—defined as the safest available location among your active Jennie contracts. Currently set to: Veiled Pinnacle.
[WARNING: Subject exhibits nonlinear growth pattern. Predictive modeling unreliable. Probability vectors highly divergent.]
[ADVICE: Maintain self-awareness. Monitor magical load. You are evolving faster than the system can track.]
Eugene stared at the flickering interface, the glow pulsing in the corners of his vision. Two new abilities.
Echo Step lingered in his mind—an ability that let him see possibilities, projected futures that could unfold depending on his choices. Not time travel. Not rewinding. Just glimpses. Warnings. Maybe even chances. It was subtle. Dangerous. A map with no scale.
And Hearth Recall… that one sent a strange warmth through his chest. A tether. A way out. A way home—whatever home meant now. Once a day, no more. He didn’t know when he’d need it, but he knew one day he absolutely would.
It was the kind of power you didn’t ask for unless you were desperate. And he was starting to understand that desperation was what real magic fed on most.
Cozimia’s voice broke through the moment with a snap of urgency. “Alright, sugar—enough introspection. Clock’s ticking. Let’s move.”
Eugene turned and made his way to the main platform—Krungus’s centerpiece within the Veiled Pinnacle. A ritual dais of silver-threaded stone hovered slightly above the floor, crackling with faint currents of invisible energy. He stepped up, careful, reverent.
He placed the lantern at its heart, setting it into the hollow that had been carved just for it.
Then, without hesitation, he climbed in.
The inside of the lantern—the Hearth behind the Stars—was larger than Eugene remembered. Vast. Expansive. It wasn’t just the usual illusion of space-inside-space; something had changed. The air shimmered differently now, as though possibility itself was folded into the walls.
He realized, with awe and a whisper of dread, that Enalia's presence had transformed it. The Jennie of Potential had pushed the space further, pulled at its hidden corners, teased out its dormant depths. It was becoming what it could be—not what it had been.
It wasn’t so much a room as a plane of potential, expanding with every breath he took. The air thrummed with unseen currents, brilliant and lightless all at once, like being inside a star that hadn’t decided whether to be born or collapse.
The power here was overwhelming. Terrifying.
It pressed on his skin, threatened to crack his bones from within. It wanted out. It wanted more. Every cell in his body thrummed with it. He felt like he could fly apart in a thousand directions—become something unrecognizable.
Then, a voice—Utopianna’s—slipped through the magic, crisp and composed, projected through a message spell.
"Eugene. They’re coming. We’re teleporting the infected into the perimeter around the Pinnacle now. Be ready.
Eugene nodded to himself, even though no one could see him. He turned back toward the center of the Hearth, already feeling the weight of what he was about to attempt.
Three spells. That was the idea—three spells, layered through the amplification field of the Veiled Pinnacle, synchronized through the unique resonance of his Jennie bonds. One to separate, one to protect, and one to cleanse.
The logistics alone would be impossible for anyone else. But he wasn’t anyone else anymore.
As he steadied his breath, the first pounding came—dull, rhythmic, distant. Then more. Thuds and fists and clawed fingers battering against the outer gates of the Pinnacle. The infected had arrived. They were trying to get in.
Eugene’s thoughts narrowed in on the spellcasting itself.
When Krungus or Utopianna cast, their spells were symphonies—meticulous, orchestrated, refined by centuries of discipline. Their gestures came from endless practice, their power tempered and honed through study, repetition, mastery.
But they were wizards.
Eugene was a warlock.
He was a doorway.
The Jennies didn’t ask him to shape the magic—they flowed through him. He didn’t need to construct the spell from glyphs and formulas. He needed to open the gate and let it roar.
He wasn’t the conductor of the orchestra. He was the amplifier. The key in the lock. The flint and the strike.
And now, the spark was ready.
Eugene didn’t hesitate.
He raised his hands and cast the first of the three: Hospitable Rebuke, at full strength.
The spell tore through the Hearth like a tidal wave of warmth turned wrathful—a wave of radiant repulsion, imbued with Cozimia’s domain. From the tower’s core, it pulsed outward through every wall, every stone, every open seam of the Veiled Pinnacle.
Outside, the infected howled.
He could hear it. Through the walls, through the magic, through the air itself—they roared in pain as the spell struck them. Not killing them. Not yet. But burning at the infection that ruled them. A divine refusal. A sacred no.
Eugene couldn’t see the spell's effect directly—not through the stone, not through the walls of the Hearth—but he could sense it. The fungal infection was being evicted. The rapidly growing spores were forcibly pulled from muscle and marrow, from lungs and eyes and tongues. Cozimia’s magic didn’t kill them; it rejected them.
The spores didn’t vanish. They didn’t burn. Instead, they were suspended—lifted into the air above their hosts like clouds of dust halted mid-fall. Eugene could feel the tension of it—so much raw contagion hovering just beyond the threshold, waiting for the next moment, the next spell.
It worked. The first wave worked.
Now came the hard part.
Eugene gritted his teeth. His pulse surged. "Hold on," he whispered, staring into the radiant current. "It’s going to get better."
He lifted his hand again, the magic already swelling through him like sunlight behind stormclouds.
Welcoming Ward was the next spell, and this one drew from Cozimia’s most sacred domain—the sacred art of protection, of creating space where others could be safe, even if only for a moment.
He didn’t aim it at the spores. He aimed it at the infected themselves.
The spell flared to life as golden light spilled outward from the Hearth, sweeping through the Pinnacle and beyond like a vast, rippling dome. One by one, each infected being outside was wrapped in a glowing shell of protective magic—a radiant barrier that shimmered like stained glass in candlelight.
It held the spores out. Just for now. Just long enough.
Eugene couldn’t see the shields, but he felt them lock into place. Like doors being bolted across the city. Like welcome signs hung up in houses on fire.
It wasn’t a cure.
But it was time.
Eugene didn’t wait.
He clenched the staff tight and called out the third and final spell—Hospitality’s Reckoning.
Where the first had separated, and the second had shielded, this one destroyed.
The spell exploded outward from the lantern like a pulse of judgment—a piercing shriek of golden-white magic that made the very walls of the Pinnacle tremble. Eugene felt it rip through the air, through the Weave, through the very breath of the city.
Every spore suspended above the infected, held aloft in that fragile limbo, vanished. There was no fire, no scorch, no ash—just sudden, absolute absence.
Hospitality did not negotiate. It did not debate.
It simply removed what didn’t belong.
Eugene’s knees buckled.
The magic that had roared through him, once focused and sharp, now tore away like a wave retreating too fast. The light dimmed from his veins, his fingers trembled, and his vision blurred. The Hearth behind the Stars—once infinite—shuddered, distant.
He collapsed.
The ground of the Hearth caught him—not stone, but something softer. Yielding. Gentle.
He collapsed into it without resistance, his body folding like a marionette with cut strings. The magic had taken everything.
Darkness edged in, closing fast.
His last thought, strangely quiet, was a flicker of gratitude:
Damn, these pillows are soft.
