The painter looked at Eos, and it gasped before it began to laugh.
"Why this sudden change of mind, Eos. You are holding," the Painter waved his infinite arms over the board. "You are Magnificent. My beautiful forty-fourth, my impossible thing, my unrepeatable cook, you are holding the volume. I had not believed it was possible. I had calculated the strain, of course. I had budgeted for a partial breakthrough. The audience would have eaten the partial breakthrough, and the partial breakthrough would have been my course. But the partial breakthrough is minimal, and the audience is uncertain, and uncertain is a flavor I have not served in millions of Existences."
The Painter pointed half of its infinite arms to all the substrates that could create a heaven and the other to the substrates that could create hells.
None of these existed before, but its gesture made them appear out of nothing.
