In a certain tiny, little known, world, there was a forest. A great forest. A black forest. This wood was known to the people as the devil's black wood. A forest filled with magic. A wood known for stealing men's' minds and tainting men's souls. A forest filled with countless beasts and myriad horrors.
The forest's black trees stood tall with silver-green leaves. Their trunks were wide enough for many men to stand around while joining hands and chanting in the darkness.The branches of the trees meshed together, forming a vast web. The leaves of the branches grew thick and bunching together to block out the light of day.
In one day, while everyone in the neighboring towns and villages slept, this forest disappeared. Instantly ceasing to exist. The very land it was grown upon vanished, pulling a great number of lands together and hastening the war between the region's eastern and western kingdoms by ten years.
Danke awoke. Returning to the waking world after a hundred trillion year slumber. The first thing he did was look for his other half and only buddy in the whole wide world.
"Yo, Wis? Wis? You here? Y-, You didn't die while I was sleeping did you?" said Danke. Beginning to feel unnerved as he called to her and she didn't immediately answer.
His heart rate spiked as he considered the prospect of being all alone. He found himself beginning to hyperventilate. He was only able to calm himself when he heard her familiar voice, soft, crisp, and vaguely posh as per usual.
"I'm here, Master! I didn't expect you to awaken quite so soon. I was busy experimenting with some templars that were trespassing in your forest and…"
Danke was fairly sure he'd heard something suspect amidst that explanation but he didn't care. He was mostly concerned with Wis' continued survival.
"Are you okay?!"
"What?" said Wis.
"You're fine, right?! Nothing happened while I was sleeping?!" said Danke. His voice a deep, rough, bestial bellow.
"I...I'm fine, master." said the puppe.
Danke sighed in relief placing a hand against a chest that was broad and lined with thick muscle and bony plate.
"Sorry for freaking out on you, Wis ...It's just... A couple eons of nothing but bad dreams eventually gets to you." said Danke.
"I...I couldn't imagine, master." said the puppe. Looking flustered as she met with her figment again for the first time in ages.
Wis began to make some strange noises. Noises that were unfamiliar to Danke. It took a moment of searching his memory but he eventually figured out that he'd never seen the puppe cry before. He hadn't even known that puppes 'could' cry.
"Hey, w-, why are you crying?" said Danke.
"It's nothing, master. I'm just...I'm just so happy to see you again." said Wis. Weeping tears of joy. Oily slicks of darkness that poured from the corners of her eyes.
"Well...Uh, I'm glad to see you too ...You look good. Real good." said Danke. His words sincere.
The puppe had changed again. She now stood at a little over six feet tall, possibly six foot three. She still had the same white hair and alabaster skin but the skin was now actually skin instead of porcelain. Her golden eyes held a luminous charm and her body had gained a luxurious fullness that made Danke just a little uncomfortable until he remembered that she was still the same friend she'd always been.
"Thank you, master. You look marvelous as well. It seems you've undergone yet another great evolution."
"Really? Already?! Sh*t, if you count the thing inside my soul I've got more cheats than a isekai protagonist." laughed Danke.
"Master?"
Danke used his spiritual sense to step outside himself and observe his new body.
He was tall, very tall, nearly twelve feet in height. He was slender in frame but his shoulders were broad. He stood on two, long, digitigrade legs. His back was ridged, the bones of his spine rising out from beneath his dark purple-brown skin. His arms were long, long to the point of nearly dragging along the ground, with five dexterous fingers on each.
His neck was graceful and though it felt odd to say it about himself he, Danke, had become something quite beautiful. Beautiful and fierce. His face a delicate mixture of feminine grace and masculine sharpness.
Danke was mortified to realize that this was the first form that had come equipped with genitalia. His member swung majestically between his legs. After deciding that the length wasn't terrible, Danke forced a calm upon himself and quickly used his dream magic to create a toga for himself out of some nearby shadow.
"Any clue what I am now?" asked Danke. Turning to his puppe to guidance as usual.
"I...I don't know, master. Honestly, no puppe was meant to survive to this stage. I was not born equipped with the knowledge you seek. That knowledge lies within 'you'. If all was as it should be, I would at most be an index within your mind allowing you to readily access that knowledge without thinking."
"Oh...Uh, then giving me a second." said Danke. Turning his attention inwards.
"Ah, there it is...I'm an Arch Dream Archivist...The Vague and Hazy Existence That Lies Between Wakefulness and Death. That's a weird name for a species. Kind of a mouthful." said Danke. Frowning. His brow furrowing.
Wis' jaw dropped. Danke couldn't help gazing at her. There was something fascinating about seeing Wis with normal expressions.
"Master...Do you realize what you've done? Do you realize what you are?"
"Nope. That's what you're here for." said Danke. Laughing coarsely. His arms crossed.
"You're no longer a figment."
"Really? That was bloody fast. Did I die again?"
"No, master...Master, you've evolved. Normally, reaching this stage would take thousands, if not billions of smaller evolutions and you've done it in a single step."
"Pft...Not like it means much...Took me trillions of years to get here, didn't it." said Danke. Waving dismissively.
"Yes...But who cares how much time it took. Master, time doesn't matter in the great unwinding. There are layers within Abwickeln, where time runs backwards or stands still. It's the effort that matters...The achievement. There hasn't been a figment that has done what you've in forever...I'm not...I don't...I'm not sure there's ever been a figment that stopped being just a figment in just three evolutions."
"Wow...I sound awesome. And thus you are awesome by proxy. I hope you remember to reward yourself later, Wis." said Danke. Deciding to be silly because he was feeling quite lost and a little afraid.
"I shall, master…. As soon as I find suitable prey I shall glut myself on their blood posthaste."
"Ugh...I mean. Sure." said Danke. Wondering exactly what manner of creature his puppe had turned into now.
"So...uh, if I'm not a figment any more. What am I?" said Danke.
"A fractal. Figments are seeds. Fractals are the shoots. All are Abwickeln's children."
"Does that have anything to do with why I can't see my level anymore?" said Danke. His gaze tilting upwards to where the numbers should have been.
"The level indicator always existed solely as an instrument of simplifying the concept of strength. Like training wheels on a child's bicycle. After having grown as you, do really think you still need those numbers to be able to tell if someone is stronger than you or not, master?" said Wis.
"No...I guess not. Here's another question for you, Wis. What are you? You look human… Plus, you're weirdly attractive and it's distracting. Plus my connection to you feels… funny." said Danke.
The puppe fell quiet. Looking towards the ground with a sombre expression.
"Master… I'm afraid I don't know. I've already said this but we puppe aren't meant to exist for this long. And each time you've grown you've changed me. This time was no different. I have become something else. Something separate from what I once was. The bond between us, almost broke, and it was only with great difficulty that I was able to maintain it, master. Do you know how hard that was? Very hard! Master, please stop being so irrational. I can't keep up anymore!" said Wis. Her words degrading into simply complaints and sniffling by the end.
"I'll try." said Danke. Bowing his head in a chastened fashion.
For a while, Wis just cried. Danke held her feeling inexplicably guilty. Then the pale woman calmed herself and stepped away.
"My apologies, master. The passage of the eons has been hard on me...There's so many damned idiots trying to cut you down or plunder your heart while you slept.
"Huh?"
"As a sort of sub-evolution, or intermediary step you spent much of the last trillion years as a 'forest of somnus'. A living organism that feeds off of the dreams of those within its surroundings."
"Oh, that's...well, that explains why my hair seems to be made out of leaves, I guess. Said Danke.
"Indeed, master."
"Final question? Where the f**k are we? This doesn't look at all like the memorial I fell asleep on." said Danke.
"Well, it isn't master. Of course it isn't. Figments and visitors may enter the layers but fractals are meant to explore. Wondering the unformed parts of Abwickeln and the many worlds that intersect with our unwinding world."
"Meaning, you're not on any layer...but you're still in the unwinding world. And despite being in the unwinding world you're also in a world known as Lapine."
"Lapine?" said Danke. Wrinkling his broad, vaguely wet, nose.
"One of the lesser worlds." said Wis. Looking nervous and faintly queasy.
"Cool… I don't know why but I instantly hate this place. Why can't I teleport us back into the proper parts of Abwickeln?" said Danke. Feeling a growing sense of unease.
"Well,...master. You're a fractal now. A fully formed figment that has finished its initial development ...Children do not return to the mother's womb after birth. Thus a fractal cannot return to the core world. Instead they must build worlds of their own. Building layers of their own. Adding to their mother's bounty in the process." said Wis.
"What? Build a world of my own? How the hell am I supposed to do that?! Oh, yeah...I literally just remembered. Good thing I had those inherited memories because I was about to freak the f**k out." said Danke.
"Yes, master." said Wis. Looking relieved.
"Great, let's get out of here. This place smells... wrong... somehow. We can talk more in our new home."