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Platinum rain fell upon stone boxes full of sand and seeds, soaking in, turning orange dirt into browns and tans. Bright green shoots erupted from the low-quality soil, stretching into the dim light above. Storm clouds covered the sky, but sunlight still shone through to the city below, to the Gardens, and their workers.  

People harvested everything they could, and replaced the plants as necessary. Some of them had been doing this sort of harvesting for months, now. Not every farmer left for the farms of the Greensoil Republic, after all. The ‘old hands’ who chose to stay guided those who had never done this before; those who wanted first pick and free food by the right of work.

Soon enough, rice and potatoes and thirty seven other types of partially processed or raw goods began to stream into the temporary markets erected near the Human District, outside the rain. Most of that food left those markets in large crates, packed full, destined for grocers and restaurants. Tomorrow, the temporary markets would open to the public.  

There were quite a few logistical problems and angry words and minor fights happening all around the Gardens, simultaneously, but the goods were cheap, and plentiful, and the Guard was on duty, making sure that nothing too disruptive happened.  

In the course of the first harvest, Erick made a few discoveries. The first, was that it was easy to hold his own [Exalted Storm Aura] into the shape it needed to be, in order to rain on the Garden, by itself. The second, much nicer discovery, was that he could set an Ophiel atop his house, inside the Restful air of the [Prismatic Ward], and have that Ophiel cast [Exalted Storm Aura] almost exactly as Erick had done himself.

Without [Clarity], or Shape Spell, or Erick’s Favored Spell, or even Aurify’s radius bonus to all auras, Ophiel had a lot larger drain on his mana than Erick had on his. For Ophiel, the 1 Mana per second of [Exalted Storm Aura] was 5 Mana per second, taking into account all the necessary shapings to keep the spell in the proper formation. But at Rest, inside the dense air of the [Prismatic Ward], Ophiel regenerated 8 mana per second.  

As Erick handed the spell over to Ophiel atop the roof of Erick’s mage tower, Ophiel trilled in happy violins and energized guitars. He sang at the storm above, a hundred eyes wide open across his full, three meter body, taking in all the sights around him, making sure he was casting the spell exactly as needed.  

Rain on the Gardens, and nowhere else!

Erick left Ophiel to his assignment then went to speak to Calizi and Rollo about selling his own vegetables and the market prices of various foodstuffs, but the two older incani launched into an immediate argument over the price of potatoes. That was enough of that for Erick, so he went and worked in his own garden; it had gotten some unintentional platinum rain, and needed some pruning because of that.  

Erick had never rained platinum across the whole Human District before today. Some problems rapidly appeared with the rain, in light of this experiment. Platinum rain slowly, but surely, collected into puddles around the not-flat-at-all Human District. Some of those puddles became minor lakes. Some of it ran into the sandy soil of Erick’s own green space, so he shored up the [Weather Ward]s around the garden and added small walls of stone at the edges, to keep the water out.

More than a few of the growing spaces out there in the Garden were experiencing the same problems. Ophiel was raining properly, but some plots were ill-designed, or near an unintentional platinum river. People scrambled to divert the rain to where it needed to go. More than a few people raced around, creating ditches, while organizers directed them from [Scry] eyes in the sky. The only council member who seemed to have made his plots well was Kip, the man with all the rice fields. His workers had already drawn ditches into the Human District to collect the rain. Those ditches were quickly connected to the new ditches, solving most of the district’s water problems with one elegant solution.  

But even with all the small problems Erick saw, no one asked him to hold off on the rain, so he got down to his own business.  

With a thousand telekinetic hands made of air and intent, Erick harvested potatoes, picked tomatoes, dug up carrots, unearthed onions, and grabbed everything else that looked even the slightest bit overgrown.  

Eventually, hours later, a blushing young orangescale girl interrupted him from the side of his garden, while he was still deep in the herbs and listening to Ophiel sing. It was past noon; he could stop now. Erick nodded to the girl and had Ophiel stop. The winged [Familiar] squawked at being interrupted, but he cut the rain anyway, then gladly trilled in violins as Erick offered up his shoulder as a perch. As Ophiel turned tiny and took his spot, Erick offered the girl some vegetables from his garden, but she silently shook her head and took off running, back to the edge of town.  

Poi stood to the side this whole time, under his own [Weather Ward], silent, and observant.  

Erick stepped out of the herbs, to stand by his fresh harvest. He asked, “Grilled veggies for dinner?”

“As you wish.” Poi said, “I’d prefer fish, but the lake is not yet carved and it won’t be stable enough to harvest for months, anyway. I think I will miss that part of Oceanside, most of all.”

Erick smiled. “That reminds me. It’s time to start trying to recreate [Teleport].”

As the clouds above wisped away on the northern winds, Poi frowned.

Erick noticed. “It’s not going to be that bad.”

“There will be explosions.” Poi added, “There’s always explosions.”

Erick laughed, as he telekinetically picked up his produce, and said, “Not always!”

- - - -

In one of the larger rooms on the third floor, where no one lived and nothing was stored and the occasional lesson was taught via conjured blackboards, Erick played around with [Lightwalk].  

--

Lightwalk, instant, close range, 5 MP per second + Variable

You are the light.

--

Like all of the other ‘minimally described’ spells, [Lightwalk] was deceptively deep. He hadn’t read much on the skill, but he knew about what it was supposed to do, thanks to his talks with his daughter, back before she started sleeping.

Erick flickered into insubstantial light as the spell shifted his entire body into ephemeral illumination. He walked forward—

He stayed in place, but not for lack of trying. He put one foot forward, but his center of gravity didn’t change—

Oh! He was weightless! His back foot pressed against the orange stone underfoot, but instead of touching, his foot sort of puddled against the ground, turning into white light that stretched out from where he touched. He picked his foot up, and it came out of that puddle, the same as it went in…

He picked up both feet, and hovered in the air. He couldn’t move from his original position except to wave his hands and body around. He was a human lightward; stuck in place forever more.  

Or at least until he turned the spell off. Which he did. Which caused him to fall to his butt with a little “Oof!” popping out of his mouth, and his [Personal Ward] flickering white light across his skin.  

He stood up and sighed out—  

He paused. He was breathing. Well, duh. Of course he was breathing. But what was odd—

He turned the spell back on, and the need to breathe... vanished? Yup. That was right. He had not noticed it before, but he did not need to breath when he was light. Odd! Useful, too? Yes; definitely useful. Jane hadn’t ever mentioned this before.

… There didn’t seem to be a downside to not breathing.  

And what was even odder, was that his brain was not telling his body to automatically breathe. He looked down. Oh. No. He had it wrong. He wasn’t exactly breathing; no air seemed to flow through his nose or mouth, but his chest was rising and falling like normal. He was ‘breathing’. Sort of?  

He forcefully stopped breathing.  

… Nope. His chest continued to gently rise and fall.  

He said, “What is going on with that?”

It was only after the words escaped his body —they had not escaped his lips, for sure, but rather his whole self, in some odd sort of way— that he realized something very peculiar, that might have given a hint as to some stranger mystery that had been on Erick’s mind ever since he started really working lightwards.  

Back when he was first learning magic, when he tried to apply for a lightwarding license from the Mage Guild, he had accidentally created a lightward that screamed. He had never been able to duplicate that effect after that day. Lightwards did not usually make noise, after all.

Properly made lightwards, anyway?

There was a book in Esoteric Magic that listed the stranger magical effects that had been observed in the world. One of the stranger phenomenon was that of the ‘uneducated lightwarder’. When someone with [Ward] below level 10, who had no formal training, tried to make a lightward, they sometimes failed in weird and spectacular ways. One of those failures was in the creation of a noisy lightward.  

Now what did all of that have to do with being able to speak while he was [Lightwalk]ing?  

Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot of something. Erick had no idea.  

He looked down. “And my chest is still rising and falling… Hmm.”

Erick canceled [Lightwalk]. He held his breath. He activated [Lightwalk]. His chest was not moving up and down. Strange!

“Maybe it puts me in a stasis? That only looks like me? Is that it? But I can still move my limbs… But I can’t walk forward.” He shrugged, and said, “I haven’t even used the skill yet, duh. This is the next test.”

Erick pushed a point of mana and intent into the skill, exactly how he would do to cast any magic, urging himself forward. He immediately began to drift through the air of the room, disturbing nothing at his passing. He watched as the wall on the other side of the room got closer, and closer. When he struck the wall, he struck it arm first. Fingers turned to light puddles, followed closely by hands, legs, and then his face. He fully touched the wall, and became a white layer of ephemeral light upon the orange surface. His eyesight was briefly impaired, but as he thought about what was happening, he wondered why his eyesight was impaired at all. He was literally light, right now.

With that thought, and a mental turn, Erick became a puddle of light on the wall, that looked back the way he came. Another point of intent-filled mana pushed Erick off of the wall. His hands came out of the white puddle first, followed by his knee and then the rest of him. He drifted back into the open air of the room, facing the interior.

He set his feet down to catch himself, and canceled the spell. Weight returned. Breathing came back. His eyesight returned to its normal location of out from his eyes. Normalcy was restored.  

He mumbled, “I wonder if shadowspiders even have lungs? Or spiracles… whatever spiders usually have.”  

Erick had not really experimented with lightwards in the way he was planning, now, but he felt he should, just to see if he was misunderstanding something. He plucked a pebble from the floor with [Stoneshape], then cast a special ball of blue light around the pebble; the outside of the wardlight was solid blue, but the inside was solid white.  

As he held the wardlight in his hand, he could already tell that he was on the right track.  

The wardlight flickered blue around his hand, but where it touched the skin of his wrist, it was deformed. Tiny flickers of white light escaped against his skin.

He went to the door of the room, the only surface that was thin enough for this experiment, and pressed the blue wardlight to the surface.  

Just as he expected, the wardlight deformed upon contact with the solid surface, turning into a disjointed puddle against the solid door. White flickers escaped at the joining. The radius of the wardlight was more than enough to fully go through the door, too, but the light did not appear on the other side.  

It was possible that [Lightwalk] turned a person into something similar to a wardlight version of themselves, at the time of casting. He was able to get a version of himself that breathed, and another that did not, but neither version actually needed to breathe. Neither version needed to actually be physically whole, either, as Erick was able to smush himself against the wall like wardlight with no ill effects afterward.  

Erick dismissed the blue wardlight around the stone and set the stone on the windowsill. He turned back to the room and tossed a complete lightmask into the air; blocking out all light in a meter sphere. A darkness appeared, like a black hole. Erick turned himself to light, then touched the darkness.  

His lightform body did not deform against the black space, but his fingers touched the darkness, and made it solid. Or maybe his fingers turned solid? Whatever the case, the complete maskward was a barrier, unlike touching the wall, or a floor.  

Erick dismissed the maskward. In its place, he conjured a shadowy space, where half of all light was blocked. Touching this dim space was like pressing his hand into wet concrete; he could do it, but he felt resistance…

Erick pulled his hand back, dismissed the shadowy orb, and went through all of his senses.  

Touch was the first offender to get scrutinized, because aside from touching the maskward, which he had definitely done, touching anything else felt like a simple pressure that deformed his lightform body based on the degree he pressed into the object. Touching darkness felt like touching something real.

Maybe he could only exist in the light, when he was in lightform?

Ah. Yes. That would make sense. Duh.

But why the difference in his sense of touch, between pressing into a maskward versus pressing into a wall?

Hmm.

Erick left that be for now, then scrutinized his sense of sight. Since he had already proven he wasn’t his physical self, it seemed rather arbitrary that he saw the world through his ‘eyes’ didn’t it? He had already made himself a pressed puddle against a wall, and was able to ‘turn’ his body around in that puddle to see back to the room, so maybe he just needed to see with his feet, or with the back of his head?

In their talks, Jane had briefly spoken of how she was able to see and hear with her [Greater Shadowalk].  

Maybe a part of unlocking [Greater Shadowalk] was tuning all of your senses into your new, magical form? Or was that the bonus of the ‘greater’ title at work?

Erick pinged intent-filled mana into [Lightwalk], trying to ‘see through his feet’, for the next minute, but got nowhere. He would come back to this, later.  

Taste would have to be scrutinized later, too. How would he do that, though?

Hearing worked perfectly fine, but he was not really hearing with his ears, was he?  

… He turned on [Hunter’s Instincts].  

He tasted the air floating through his body, smelling baking bread wafting up from downstairs. He knew Kiri was working on something in the kitchen, so that made sense. Erick heard heartbeats nearby; only two of them. One belonged to Kiri, the other to Poi. Erick’s head guard was standing outside of the open door to this room, exactly as he had been since Erick started his experiments.  

But stronger than taste and sound, Erick saw all around him as though he was a light slime; 360 degree full, clear vision.  

Erice drew his senses back to himself, and smiled. He even saw himself smile, like he was both inside his body, and outside, at the same time.  

“Gods,” Erick said, “That’s trippy.”  

He dropped [Hunter’s Instincts] and was suddenly back inside his ‘body’.  

“Also trippy,” he said, to himself. He pulled up his Status, just to see if he could. It came up easy enough. He put it away, saying, “No accidental [Hunter’s Instincts] [Lightwalk] spell.” He decided, right then, that he was going to try for just such a spell, just to see what he would get…

… When he understood what he was going for better; later.  

He flexed his shoulders, and paused to marvel at how he didn’t actually flex his shoulders at all. He just moved a lightward version of himself around a bit, mimicking what he would have done if he had a real body. Ah, well, whatever!

He popped 10 intent-filled mana into [Lightwalk], trying to move across the room.  

He splattered against the wall five meters away, briefly turning into a puddle of light, before plopping back into the air just before the wall. It was only slightly embarrassing. Reorienting back to the room, he experimented with amounts of mana and the distance it would gain him. One point of mana, gently cast, moved him forward at a slow, walking pace. Two points of mana was running. More mana was required to change direction, but that was also trivial; Erick’s mana never went much under ‘full’. Soon, Erick was rushing around the room, silently flying fast and reckless. He would have been puking if he were in his normal body.  

He was disoriented, for sure, and he silently crashed into walls over and over again, but he took no damage, and there was no pain.  

Erick continued to zip around. And then he canceled the spell, running full tilt forward, just to see what would happen. He instantly realized his mistake. He crashed into the stone wall with a loud whap.  

He opened his eyes to see Poi standing over him, holding the rod of [Treat Wounds].

“You’re already up.” Poi said, “Only one use of the rod, too.”

Erick tried to smile, but ended up groaning a bit. He sat up. He breathed. Whatever pain there had been, quickly passed. He said, “I’m fine?” He declared, “Of course I’m fine.”

Poi asked, “Having fun hurting yourself?”

Erick laughed, and that briefly hurt, but no part of him felt injured enough to need a [Treat Wounds]. He stumbled to his feet, saying, “It’s kinda fun. Yeah. But it’s time to take this experiment outside.”

- - - -

Erick and Poi blipped into the center of an unimportant and unremarkable stretch of the Crystal Forest, where the agave were few, the mimics were of average density, and the sun beat down from a clear, blue sky. A hot wind blew into Erick’s clothes, as Ophiel blipped into the air above. Erick began using [Lightwalk].

In this bright, windy place, Ophiel trilled to ride the breeze, and Erick discovered a quick truth about [Lightwalk]; it was easier to walk around in the sun. So easy, in fact, that he was doing just that. Without spending mana to move.  

He walked across the sand, and it was almost as though he was in a real, physical body. He wasn’t, of course; he was in the wardlight-esque form of [Lightwalk]. But he could touch the ground, and feel the sand move at his weight. He could pick up the sand, too. He took an experimental step into the air, and then he was walking on air; simple as that.

Ophiel tried to land on his shoulder. It did not go well. The little guy planted his lower wings onto nothing, settling down into a surprised flute fall through Erick’s body that became an intensely confused guitar solo and a sudden expansion to full, three-meter size. Ophiel loomed over Erick, who just curled up into the air, laughing. Wing pokes failed to find purchase on Erick; Erick was an ephemeral being, right now.  

At Ophiel’s loom, Erick realized that being under his [Familiar]’s shadow was like being back in the room of the house; he needed to use mana to move.  

Ophiel dropped down into his tiny self and cried in flutes—

And that would just not do! Erick quickly gave Ophiel [Lightwalk], and had him cast a [Prismatic Ward] into the air, enveloping both of them, and Poi, placing the three of them inside the Restful air. Ophiel could play around with the spell now, too, and just retreat to dense air if he needed to Rest.

Ophiel shifted into a being of light and air, then poked at Erick with his tiny wings. This time, the poke landed. Ophiel crashed into Erick’s chest, trilling in happy harps and satisfied violins, as Erick held him in a tight hug.  

“There, there.” Erick said, “See? It’s just a new spell.” He offered, “Go play. See how you like it.”

Ophiel took off to play in the air.  

Erick looked over to Poi, and said, “I ate half the horn and got [Lightwalk] but I couldn’t stop myself from eating the rest, trying for some better skill.” He added, “Sorry, Poi. I should have saved it for you.”

Ophiel darted through the light. He cast no shadow while in lightform, but he carved no air, either. A quick burst of annoyed flutes told the world he did not like that, at all. He turned off the new spell, ending his own lightform experiment with another unhappy spurt of flute sounds.  

Poi said, “Experiments cost money, and since you created a light slime dungeon, that horn is not so precious that it needed to be used in the best possible way.” He added, “I don’t have an Elemental Body skill, and I don’t want one, either; but thank you, anyway.”

“You don’t?” Erick floated through the air, saying, “It’s really quite strange.” He asked, “How do you hurt someone in a [Lightwalk], anyway?”

Poi said, “I can show you if you want. It shouldn’t hurt.”

Erick said, “Lay it on me.”

Poi nodded, then said, “This is [Lightshape].”  

Poi stepped to Erick and tapped him in the chest. Thump thump.

“Okay.” Erick floated backward a step, frowning, saying, “You were able to touch me. That’s different.”

“That’s not what happened. I made you solid.”

“… There’s a difference?— Oh wait. Yeah. There’s a difference. No body to harm means stuff like Decay magic and Burning magic can’t stick. I didn’t drop [Lightwalk], after all. You were just able to touch my projection.” Erick asked, “But what does that mean in a fight?”

“Against those monsters without means to damage or control light, it means you take a great deal less damage. In some cases, you take no damage at all. Against those with access to light-disrupting attacks, it means you take a great deal more damage.” Poi added, “I have heard that with training you can evade opposing light-based effects by not being where the attacker thinks you are, but mostly, [Lightwalk] is best used to evade and flee, and only when necessary. As soon as an attacker knows that you’re capable of [Lightwalk], they can attack you inside that [Lightwalk]. The outcome is usually rather bad.”  

Erick’s eyes almost went wide, but he schooled his expression to a simple smile; he almost wanted to say ‘that was the most you’ve ever talked about magic, Poi!’, lest the man never say anything again. Instead, Erick changed the subject, “Are they ready for rain at the lake, yet?”

Ophiel turned into light and settled down onto Erick’s shoulder, trilling in tiny violins.  

Poi looked to the air. He said, “No. They’re still working on de-glassing the land around the city. It might take a few more days before they’re ready for rain.”

“Hmm...” Erick looked to Ophiel. He said, “I’ll go help after I’m done here.”

The first thing he did was use [Lightwalk]s pseudo-[Teleport] to better understand that functionality; doing so was simple enough. All he had to do was throw anything over 15 mana into the spell and he moved from one location under the sun, to another, fifteen meters away. He blipped back and forth like that, more than a few times, experiencing the spell, imbuing varying amounts of mana to see how far he could get with one [Lightwalk] blip. Soon enough, he was blipping a hundred meters at a time, back and forth, up and down.

When he was satisfied with what he was seeing and feeling, Erick settled down near Poi and summoned a second Ophiel. He sent the first Ophiel into the air as Erick stayed on the ground, in normal form, to take direct control.

Setting up the superposition experiment he had created on Oceanside was simple enough.  

After a dozen tests where he shut down his senses and felt the mana around him and practiced being in two places at once, thanks to the extra senses that [Hunter’s Instincts] helped him to understand, Ophiel blipped in a manner that was entirely different from a normal [Lightwalk] blip. When Erick came back to himself, he had a notification waiting for him.

--

Special Quest Complete!

You have remade a Basic Spell.

Since you already have Blink, have this instead:

+1 point!

--

He said, “Special Quest Complete! That was easier than I thought it would be.”

Poi just nodded.

Recreating [Teleport] would likely be a great deal more trouble than [Blink]. When he was experimenting with [Lightwalk]’s pseudo-[Teleport] range, he dumped a thousand mana into the spell but still only managed to travel a hundred meters. Maybe there was a range limit when it came to working the spell how Erick was working the spell, or maybe there was an exponential growth curve to blipping mana costs? It was hard to tell which was theory was more true.  

And then there was the matter of splitting his senses between two locations 1000 kilometers apart. Where would he even start with that requirement? Through [Scry], perhaps? But that would make a tier 2 spell, wouldn’t it?

Erick quickly came to the realization that there was a reason [Blink] and [Teleport] were both Basic Tier spells, even though you needed the first before you could buy the second. Recreating [Blink] had been easy; barely an inconvenience. Recreating [Teleport] would take a lot more experimentation.  

Maybe he needed [Greater Lightwalk]? Or maybe not? How had Everlin Etherspray done it? She was the air elementassi who had created the first spatial magic for the Script, but she had died in a time of turmoil, along with every other Half on Veird. She left few legacies behind.

… Apogee had probably tracked her life? Maybe? He was a Spatial Mage, after all. Had he done that in order to try and find a way back home?  

… How far had he gotten in his search?

Erick had to go see about the lake and the ranch, anyway. Maybe Apogee would be there, clearing glass?  

How long would it take for Apogee to open up about his experiences as a Spatial Mage? Could Erick even get him to do that? Apogee was obviously reluctant to talk about his planar experience, but maybe he’d be okay talking about his spatial magic?

- - - -

Erick expected Apogee to be there, working among black, spiked and puddled glass north of Spur, but he was not. Plenty of other people were. Dozens of platforms floated over the dark land, each of them carrying two or three people. By Erick’s estimations, one person had to be controlling the platform, but everyone on the various platforms seemed to be working on the glass below. At their passing, black glass turned to dark sand. Maybe it’d turn back to orange after some rain?

Not all of the land here was the same. In one part of the land a chunk of glass the size of a small house had been lifted from the rest. It was here that Erick found the organizers of the cleanup effort, all floating on their own platforms around the large protrusion; Mage Guildmaster Sirocco Zago, along with several other people that Erick had seen before, but couldn’t quite remember. Erick floated his platform, including himself and Poi, to the grouping. As he got closer, a woman there noticed him, then spoke to Zago.  

Zago turned and waved at him, calling out, “Hello, Erick!”

Erick floated his platform to the meeting, saying, “Hello, Sirocco. So we’re just turning it back to sand?”

“Mostly: Yes.” Zago stepped to the edge of her platform, nearest to Erick, as she gestured to the large, uneven ridge of black glass behind her. “Except for the larger prominences like this one, it’s all getting turned to sand.”  

Erick looked at the black glass protrusion again. It was kinda artsy? Maybe that’s why they wanted it? He asked, “What’s going on with that one?”

“Some of these larger pieces might hold enough remnants of the Red Dot to allow us to understand the Red Dot. It destroyed souls, after all, and not through any necromancy, but through pure power that rewrote Reality into Fire.” Zago waved a dismissive hand through the air, saying, “But that’s for the [Dispel] mages. They’ll give us some insight into unraveling that spell later, I’m sure. That’s not my field of study.”

Erick looked to the people near Zago. A few of them were silently stealing glances Erick’s way, but two people only had time for each other, and the rock. One of them was a pale orcol woman, while the other was a dark wrought incani man.  

Erick said, “I heard there was some difficulty with [Dispel]ing the Red Dot.” He asked, “Was the Red Dot just too expensive?”

The wrought must have heard Erick, because he spoke up, “No.” He interrupted his conversation with the orcol woman to turn his attention to Erick, saying, “It was a 10,000 mana spell, at most.”

The orcol woman argued, “It was not that cheap.” She glanced toward Erick, saying, “25,000, at the least. It was the spell of an archmage of some sort.”

“A savant, perhaps. No one I ever heard of,” said the wrought.

Zago said, “Archmage Flatt. May I introduce to you Ranari Irinsi, and Hadragog Newfield.”

Erick said, “Hello.”

Ranari, the wrought, frowned at Erick, saying, “You realize, of course, that your premature detonation of the Red Dot was an ill conceived and almost disastrous end to Spur. Thank the gods for the real archmages like Opal who managed to save the lives of everyone you almost doomed to a fiery end.”

Erick faltered in a response, and Ranari sneered. Anger bloomed in Erick’s chest.

Erick practically spat out, “Did you try and fail to stop the dot? Yes? Okay then. Case closed.”

Ranari chuckled ever so slightly, before saying, “I’m not pretending to be an archmage, unlike some people who shall go unmentioned. All I am is a Dispeller.”

Erick did not look to Zago. He did not look to anyone else. He just nodded, and turned his platform around. He heard quiet, angry voices behind him, but he did not turn to see whatever was going on back there.  

But then someone yelped.
 

Erick turned around just in time to see Hadragog standing where Ranari stood, and Ranari crash to the black glass below. Ranari stood up atop the glass—

Erick turned away. Seeing Ranari get pushed to the ground didn’t make him feel any better. Somehow, it made him feel worse. In a split second, his day had gone bad.  

And then he felt bad for feeling bad.  

When he had floated far enough away from Zago’s gathering, and his words would not easily reach anyone else’s ears except for Poi’s, Erick asked, “Did I do right, trying to stop the Red Dot? I showed you [Pure Reflection Ward]. It reflects all magic, perfectly. When Jane used it, she managed to make the Queen of the Forest kill herself on her own spell.” He looked around. “But I think when I used it, I just stressed out Opal.”

Poi said, “I have it on good authority that you did not stress Opal’s ability to shield the city. She was only able to block the Red Dot’s fire because most of it had been directed away from the city.” Poi said, “Ranari is a known misanthrope. He is a great Dispeller, but best not to pay him any mind in any social situation.”

“… How bad would it have been if it hit?”

“Messalina’s village was two kilometers wide, but the crater that replaced that location was also two kilometers wide, with well defined edges. The forest beyond her village did not burn; the Red Dot fit the location.” He added, “It is entirely possible that the Red Dot would have carved out a two kilometer hole where the Courthouse is, but it’s theoretically possible that the Red Dot would have carved all the way to the walls. It was a magnitude 9 spell, after all.” He gazed at the black glass all around them, saying, “It certainly created a fire storm 20 kilometers wide, with enough power to melt glass and burn Reality.”

Erick felt his heart drop. “Did I… Did I make it worse?”

“Obviously not.” Poi said, “You detonated that spell early, bringing it from a concentrated magnitude 9 down to a diffuse magnitude 9. That’s a big difference.”

Erick sighed into the northern wind, saying, “You’re going to have to explain that magnitude system to me some day, Poi.”

Poi smiled, saying, “But not today.”

“… I guess not.”

Erick began summoning Ophiel. He had the first one cast a full power [Prismatic Ward] across their floating platform. Then he sent out the rest with [Stoneshape], and directions to turn black glass into fine sand. When his mana came back, he summoned more Ophiel; quickly reaching the full ten.  

And then they went to work, together, each of them casting an Aurify’d [Stoneshape], each of them flying in formation, with Erick in the lead. They rolled across the land turning black glass into black sand.  

Not all sand is created equally. Erick knew this well before he came to Veird, or to Oceanside, to learn about such spells as [Stoneshape] in a classical classroom setting. And besides, Al spoke about the intricacies of [Stoneshape] enough to jog Erick’s memory.  

The classifications of sand is determined by the size of the particles. Sand that is so fine you can’t tell the particle size is actually clay. Between being able to see the particles and clay, you have silt. Sand is anything with a particle size large enough to see; mostly. [Stoneshape] did okay making clay, but clay-making was a process. That was probably what the slow moving people were making.

Or maybe they were making something else?

Whatever the case, Erick and his Ophiels went about making sand. The glass was as much as four foot deep in some locations, but mostly it was only a foot deep, or maybe two, and all of that needed to go away. They’d need clay to make the lake bottom, but other people could do that. Turning this solid, glass land, into workable dirt came first.

Poi spoke up when they were done with the first kilometer of transformation, “Guildmaster Zago has informed me that she appreciates your zeal, but would appreciate it more if you could pretend to have done enough, and let the other people also work to repair their home, too.”

Erick looked up and out. There were maybe only five other groups of people out here, but no one had gotten near each other; there was plenty of work to go around.  

“… Please tell her that I’ll do another square kilometer, and then stop.”

Poi nodded. “I will inform her of your decision.”

- - - -

They didn’t want him turning the land back to sand, either up north or anywhere else outside the wall. There were no books to read. The house was immaculate; a place for everything and everything in its place. He asked Poi to ask Liquid if she wanted any more Stat rings and which kinds, but the Army’s Quartermaster declined his offer with little explanation. Dinner was in the oven, cooking away, and Kiri had already made dessert. That dessert was sitting in the kitchen, under a glass cover, right now. Teressa was out working with Merit and the Guard; she had formally transitioned to a soldier of the Guard sometime in the last few days. Erick was kinda miffed about that. Not that she would transition, or anything like that. But he was worried about her.  

He was worried about a lot at the moment, but he had done everything he could do aside from more magical experiments, and right now, he couldn’t do much except for worry.  

From whatever the Shades were up to, to Jane getting in deeper with Oceanside, to Rats joining up with Messalina, to the fact that there was a power vacuum for hunters in the Crystal Forest. He had hoped that Apogee might show up and take his mind off some of his worries with a good, distracting conversation, but a kid wearing a blue vest and a blue badge appeared at his doorway, carrying a letter declining Erick’s offer of dinner and clippings from his cinnamon trees.  

Standing in the foyer, after the kid was gone and the door was shut, Erick brandished the letter at the air, asking Poi, “Did he take some clippings from somewhere else? I thought he would want to know where the cinnamon flavor came from!” He settled down, saying, “I was all ready to talk about the spice trade back on Earth.”

Poi seemed to lightly wrestle with some hidden emotion, then said, “I doubt he’d want to hear it.”

“… You’re probably right.” Erick folded the letter back up. He liked to hold on to the letters, and this one would be the start of a new collection. He asked Poi, “Does Mog have any monsters to kill? Shadow monsters would be good.”  

“You cleared her list weeks ago.” Poi paused. He reluctantly offered, “If you wish to try your skills against monsters from the Hole, we can go there at any time.”

Kiri called out from down the hallway, “A hunting trip?” A chair scraped across the stone floor, moments before Kiri appeared. She looked at Erick with hopeful eyes, and Sunny wrapped loosely around her shoulders. “I want to try some things with Sunny at the Hole.”

Erick saw Poi’s unhappiness out of the corner of his eyes. He said to Kiri, “Then you and I can go from here with the [Familiars] and Poi doesn’t have to worry.” He added, “Oh! And we can duel like how we used to, but without holding back.”

Kiri’s eyes lit up green, as she said, “I accept.” She paused. She asked, “Do we need to register the trip with the guild if it’s just the [Familiar]s?”

Poi said, “If you aren’t going yourselves, then that’s just extra paperwork that no one would care to record or file.” He added, “It’s only to keep track of where adventurers were last seen, anyway.”  

- - - -

A warm breeze flowed through Ophiel’s feathers to catch on deftly held wings.  

Erick wasn’t flying with [Airshape] right now. He was flying with skill and precise control. This was not how Ophiel usually flew. Ophiel’s body was a mess of wings that naturally moved around, responding to his desires and temperament. Ophiel was poorly suited to natural flight. But with Erick in control, Ophiel’s wings stabilized into a configuration of two large ones and a mess of smaller ones, to provide for easier flying on the natural wind. Getting to this point had taken Erick months of trial and error, and learning how to control a body that was not his, but he had managed to do it anyway. Flying, unaided, felt wonderful.  

Sunny, flying next to Ophiel in a completely magical manner, looked stilted by comparison. She didn’t bounce with the breeze, or turn with the wind. She just hovered forward, perfectly out of tune with her surroundings.  

‘There it is,’ came Kiri’s voice.  

With less of her attention spent on flying, Kiri was much more cognizant of their surroundings than Erick. Erick went back to using [Airshape] to fly. The wind turned into a friend, holding Ophiel aloft without the beating of wings or any real effort, creating a rift of controlled reality between Reality and Erick’s senses of his [Familiar].

Erick gazed out across the southern sky with a few eyes, and saw what Kiri had seen.  

They had started their search from the north, flying with the wind. Erick had used [Cascade Imaging] to roughly scout the land; the Hole was supposed to be a very distinctive structure in the landscape, and it was, but seeing the Hole in a projected image and seeing it ‘in person’ were two very different things.  

The horizon was a flat orange line. Just below that line, was a dark thread. Sunny shot forward. Erick followed, marveling all the way at exactly how big the Hole truly was.  

The desert dipped down to a dark edge of jagged stone that stretched to the east and the west. Wider than Spur by double, at least, deeper than the tallest mountain Erick had ever seen, with depths that vanished into shadow, the Hole was a place of wind and sky that dove into the dirt, like a god had poked a hole into the surface of Veird, just to see how deep they could drive their power. It was an entrance to the Underworld. It was the second most dangerous place in the Crystal Forest. If not for Ar'Kendrithyst, there would undoubtedly have been some sort of permanent city near the Hole. But Ar’Kendrithyst did exist, and the Hole had a habit of spewing out monsters sized to eat small buildings, and hordes that ravaged indiscriminately.  

And that was all Erick knew of this place. He’d only picked up that much information on the Hole because some of the monsters he had to kill came from here. Most monsters from the Underworld didn’t usually make it far topside. This fact was even more true in the Crystal Forest; most natural living things couldn’t survive in this desert for more than a few days.

Flying high over the Hole, where the wind held him aloft with a bare push from [Airshape], Erick sent to Kiri, ‘How much do you know of the Hole?’

‘I know it’s full of dark-aspect monsters. I never really studied the Underworld, either. But now that we’ve found it—’ A rush of small joys accompanied Kiri’s words, ‘So? A real battle?’

Erick would have smiled if he was in his own body. He sent ‘I’ll go 121 kilometers north. You go 122. We’ll meet in the middle.’

Sunny, emerald green and shimmering like glass, blipped away.  

Ophiel followed, sort of.

- - - -

Erick came back to himself, sitting in a lounge chair with Ophiel in his lap. A few questioned filled his mind. His Ophiel near the Hole had been killed, obviously, but how? And so quickly, too? He looked across the room, to Kiri.

Kiri opened her eyes and grinned. Sunny lifted her head from Kiri’s shoulders.

Erick summoned another Ophiel and sent him blipping across the land, as he asked, “What did you hit me with?”

“A cheap shot.”  

“I really should have tried to join you in Professor Tinawa’s advanced combat courses.”

Kiri shrugged, smiling as she summoned another Sunny, saying, “Maybe next time you’ll see it coming?”  

- - - -

Hard-winged Ophiel watched all around him, burning [Hunter’s Instincts]; the sky was clear.  

There was no warning. One second the sky was clear. The next, it was still clear, but it was also refracted and glittering in every single direction, but only along thin, barely visible lines. Erick instantly recognized what was happening, but not before Ophiel’s natural wing movements had cut off five wings and dropped him to half Health. Ophiel blipped to the right, and saw where he had been.

A thousand thin lines of something populated the air.  

‘What is that, Kiri?’

Five Sunny appeared out of the air—

Erick added,  ‘And a 5 on one fight! And [Invisibility], too?’

‘I said it was a cheap shot.’ Kiri said, ‘Well… More like several cheap shots all at once. It’s [Hermetic Seal] but stretched into lines; [Hermetic Razor]. I made it a while ago. It only really works when it’s layered like this, though.’ She teased, ‘You told me exactly where you were going to show up for the fight! I knew where to be to screw up your plan.’

Erick considered for a moment, before he said, ‘All valid points.’ He realized yet another implication of her words. ‘And when did you get [Invisibility]?’

Kiri chuckled, ‘I don’t have [Invisibility]. I don’t need it when I’m fighting with Sunny.’

To punctuate her words, each Sunny faded from the color of bright jade, to green glass, to clear. Even with [Hunter’s Instincts] active, Ophiel could barely see the five of them, circling him like raiders waiting to strike.

Ophiel responded with two black bursts of magic, spending 1700 mana to [Dispel] with the same power as Erick’s 850 mana. Erick cast the same spell three times. The first two Sunnys went down without a reaction. The second two had enough time to realize something was happening. The third almost blipped away, but Erick caught her halfway through a [Blink], and apparently that was enough to work.

- - - -

Erick came back to himself, smiling.

Kiri glared at him. “I don’t have nearly as much mana as you, so it’ll take a while for me to get back out there.”

“No comment over the cheap shots?”

“Nope. None.” Kiri added, “[Dispel] is a valid tactic, and you know how much Sunny costs me to cast. I would have done the same to you, but then nothing is learned, and nothing is gained.”

“Yeah. But I won that one. Don’t try to pull that spoilsport ‘nothing learned, nothing gained’, on me.”

Kiri just summoned another Sunny, and magnanimously laid back down in her chair, ceding the point with an upturned nod of her head.

- - - -

Ophiel flew fast, carving the air with his wings and beams of force.  

Sunny dodged, returning fire with fire, setting feathers alight.  

With a twist and a flicker into light, the fire went out. Ophiel blipped to Sunny, layering fire around the serpentine [Familiar] like a cloying splash of white hot heat. Sunny peeled that fire away, shedding the [Endless Plasma Wrap] like a second skin—

‘Oh come on,’ Erick sent, ‘You can peel my Wrap away like that?’

‘Of course I can.’ Kiri said, ‘That spell is great for fighting monsters, but not people.’

‘You know? Almost none of my spells work against Sunny.’

‘That seems like a ‘you’ problem.’

They fought in the sky for an hour.  

Kiri won, almost every time. It was a humbling, yet fun, experience.

- - - -

“That’s enough for me!” Erick decided, sitting up in his chair after his tenth loss.

Kiri came back to herself, saying, “Time to explore the Underworld? At least a little?”

“Maybe tomorrow. I’m suddenly tired of fighting.” Erick paused in thought. He added, “That reminds me. I need to go see some people.” He asked, “Can you keep an eye on the roast? Or would you rather come look for Delia and Ikawa? I need to see if they’re doing okay.”

Kiri rapidly decided, “I will keep an eye on the roast!” She added, “And I might explore the Underworld a bit on my own, too.”

Erick nodded, “That works, too. Thanks, Kiri.”

- - - -

The Mage’s Guildhouse was a three towered, grey stone affair. It was one of the largest buildings in the Mage District, with peaked roofs, tall windows, and scant parapets. Since the last time Erick had been here, another grey building had gone up right next door, similar to the first in size, but not in style, with a carving over the entrance archway that read ‘Sapphire Halls’ and a smaller sign that read ‘Mage Guild Residence Only’. It looked like a dormitory of some sort, with individual balconies all around the outside.  

The entrance of the Guildhouse had changed, too.

Erick avoided looking too much at the people who looked at him and spoke in quiet voices, as he walked into the Guildhouse. He did, however, look for Anhelia, the iron wrought incani at the front desk. She spotted Erick almost as fast as Erick spotted her. She was working behind the receptionist’s desk, just beyond the doorway to the guild, as an instructor of some sort; she stood behind a young man who sat behind the desk. The young man, in turn, spoke to a woman standing on Erick’s side of the desk. With a few words from Anhelia, cutting the younger man short, the customer nodded, thanked Anhelia, and walked to the right, toward the job boards.  

Erick stepped up to the desk.

Anhelia smiled at him as she interrupted her junior, saying, “I’ll take care of this one.” She stepped to the side of the desk. “Hello, Archmage Flatt. What can I do for you, today?”

The young man did a double take at Erick, then quickly busied himself, acting like he was reading from a thin book behind the desk.

Erick stepped to the side, saying, “Hello, Anhelia. I’m looking for Ikawa Kali. I want to know if she’s doing okay.”

Anhelia lost her smile, but she did not seem angry. She said, “Ikawa moved into the sapphire residences next door.” She turned to the guy, asking, “Get me Ikawa Kali’s room number. She should be listed in the mages-for-hire book.” The guy rapidly fumbled through a different book, while Anhelia said, “Despite how Ikawa looks and acts, she is not doing well, Erick.” The man at the desk handed a small card to Anhelia. She glanced at it, then handed it off to Erick, saying, “Good luck.”

Erick took the card, saying, “Thank you, Anhelia.”

- - - -

The door was open. Erick peered inside. The only furniture in the grey stone room was a wooden couch. Someone moved something heavy further inside; whatever it was slid across the floor with a screech and a knock against the stone wall.  

Erick knocked on the open door, saying, “Hello?”

Ikawa called out, “One second! Be right there!” A crunch and a small, “Oh no,” preceded the sound of a glass breaking against stone. “Oh well.” Ten seconds later, Ikawa appeared around a corner. She saw Erick. She paused.  

For the briefest of moments, Erick saw Ikawa break in a hundred small ways. Her wingtips folded backward. Her claws clutched at nothing. Her eyes, the color of an amber sunset, turned dewy, as she blinked away a tear. But then Erick saw her lips twitch. Her eyebrows narrowed. Anger took hold, and then that emotion washed away, too.  

Erick said, “Hello, Ikawa. I’m sorry about—”

“Don’t. Not… Not yet.” She said, “I need a moment.”

She didn’t tell him to leave. She didn’t tell him to stay. She just stood there. So Erick waited outside the doorway, not stepping into the apartment.

After a minute, Ikawa found herself, or something close enough. She spoke without rancor, “I’m glad you didn’t try to talk to me at the party. I wouldn’t have been able to keep it together for Savral.” She added, “Grandmother never knew the specific vector that her death would take, but she knew it would come from you.”

Ikawa’s words were a punch to Erick’s stomach that kept going, to reach up into his ribcage and squeeze.  

She continued, “But that’s just the curse of the Weather Witch. When you speak with the sky for long enough, it sometimes tells you things you don’t want to know.” She smiled. She laughed. She broke into a quick sob, then stopped. She turned away. When she turned back, she gestured to the back of her apartment, saying, “I was just about to test out my new stove, making some tea. Would you like to come in and have some?”

Erick found his footing. He said, “Yes.”  

Ikawa put on a happy smile, saying, “Come on in, then! Shut the door and have a seat.” She stepped away, saying, “I’ll start the tea.”

Erick walked into Ikawa’s house and sat down on the couch. Poi followed and closed the door; he stayed standing with his back to the wall. The casual sounds of pots and pans clattering around came from the kitchen. A minute later, Ikawa came back to the living room, carrying a glass pot of tea, already turning dark from brewing leaves. She poured Erick a cup, first, then herself. She offered to Poi, but he politely declined.  

She began, “Krakina hated you, at first. She told me when she first saw you that the spectre of her death laid on your shoulders like a cloak. It wasn’t till later that she understood that hatred was just her fears that she had to work past.”

The hot tea in Erick’s hands felt cold.

She continued, “She never stopped being scared, not really. But she worked through her fear… I don’t know how to do that. Not really.” She added, “I only learned about this two weeks ago. I never knew any of this until the week before the Red Dot. Looking back on it, I’m sure that if her own death wasn’t coming for her, that she could have warned us about the attack. About what it meant. About who was coming, and how they would arrive.” She kept going, “She also told me that you would come calling after she died and that I was to throw away my fear, but it’s all very strange. I don’t think I can do that.” She stopped. She stared off into the distance. She said, “She held on to her fear. But she wants me to ignore mine— Huh. ‘Wants’… Look at me. Talking like she’s still alive.”

A long moment passed. Steam curled into the air from barely sipped mugs.

She asked, “Say something, please.”

Erick tried to find something to say. “I’m sorry for killing your grandmother.” He tried to find his footing; a joke came out, “No wonder she hated me! I’d hate me, too.”

“What? No. That’s wrong.” Ikawa paused. She said, “Sorry. I’m not… I had a small speech prepared because I knew you would show. Grandmother told me you would. But… Grandmother liked you, a lot. She also made sure to tell me— Sorry. I’m doing this all wrong. She didn’t blame you. But you were how she would die. Death comes for everyone, and Grandmother was no exception. She was scared, and she never fully accepted what would happen, but she knew you. She liked you, as a person.” Ikawa found her center, saying, “She liked you too much, in fact. You became the eye of her storm, and she never wanted that. She loved to be the free flowing wind, soaring above it all, only coming down when circumstance demanded. But death comes for us all. Even she couldn’t out fly that inevitability.” She smiled as a tear fell. She wiped it away with a wingtip and chuckled, saying, “But she made so much money working the Farm. She loved that. She loved the work, too. In the end, she decided to find solace in leaving a legacy. So she stayed on the Farm making money, putting away an inheritance.”  

Silence filled the room.

Erick said, “I’m glad Krakina had that opportunity. I don’t know what I’d do if I knew I was about to die.”  

Ikawa silently sipped her tea.

Erick tried to turn the conversation somewhere nicer, or at least less heavy, “Are you going to follow in her steps? Become Spur’s Weather Witch?”

“Yes. Grandma hoped to be there for my final tests, but she knew that would never happen. She guided me on most of the trials, though.” Ikawa said, “I drove a stormfront across the Crystal Forest last month. I was struck by lightning and survived. The sand storms are due to arrive in a few weeks. Some of them have already begun further up north. That’s the last test; Protect your home from Nature’s Scouring.”

“Is there any way I can help?”

Ikawa spoke with finality, “No.”

A long, silent moment passed.  

Erick asked, “Do you want to be involved in the Gardens? I would like to make that happen for you, if you wish.”

Ikawa eventually said, “No. I’m going to be more of a diviner than a farming magnate.” She offered, “But if you want to know the future I might be able to help in a few years.”

“Are you going to be okay, Ikawa?”

She smiled, but it was a put-upon expression. She said, “Not for a while, but eventually. Thank you for coming.” She added, “Truly, I mean that. It means a lot to me.”

Erick took that as his cue to leave.  

- - - -

Delia Greentalon, the 16 year-old pinkscale daughter of Valok Greentalon, stood on the sands of the Adventurer’s Guildhouse arena, fighting with a similarly sized blackscale boy. She clutched daggers in her hands, striking where she could, and dodging the boy’s spear when she needed to dodge. The boy tried to strike a decisive blow, but Delia held the spear away with one dagger and struck the boy’s hands, drawing a thin line of blood. The boy yelped, dropping the spear. Delia moved in—

Draz, the incani instructor overseeing the match, called out, “Enough!”

The boy was already on the ground. Delia held her daggers against his throat. She breathed hard. Her eyes were points of pink light that stared into the boy’s black eyes. She pressed—

Draz was suddenly beside the girl with one hand on the back of her neck and the other holding her hand away from the boy. The light in her eyes died. Draz hauled her to her feet. She dropped her daggers; they were wooden things, merely practice tools. The boy, for his part, scrambled backward, across the sand.

Draz let Delia go when the boy was far enough away, saying, “That was uncalled for, Delia.”

Delia put on a strong face. “Sorry.” She turned to the boy, who was already at the edge of the arena with the other young kids. She called out, “Sorry!” She almost said something else, but she saw Erick standing beyond the short wall around the arena. Her eyes went wide. She shouted, “You!”

Everyone turned toward Erick. Most of them focused on Mog, standing beside Erick; Mog was a much more well known person, in this place. She was also a meter taller than Erick. Hardly any of them recognized the archmage that had brought the rains to Spur; most of them were kids, so that didn’t surprise Erick. Draz, though, he recognized Erick. Delia rushed toward Erick—

Draz spoke with authority. “You’re not done here, Delia.”

Delia froze in her tracks. She turned to Draz. “May I please be excused?”

Draz wanted to say no; it was in his eyes and his posture, but as Erick glanced to Mog, he saw Mog nod toward Draz.

Draz said, “Get out of here.” He added, “You’re running punishment laps tomorrow.”

Delia bowed to her instructor and to her training partner, then quickly rushed toward Erick. She vaulted the wall between them, coming to stand a meter from him, then asked in a nice voice, “Can we speak somewhere else?”

Erick had no idea what to make of the young woman. Part of him was deeply concerned at her display, but Delia did not seem to be sad, and Mog had already expected this to happen, so Erick said, “Yes. Guildmaster Mog has been kind enough to provide a meeting room for us to use.”

Mog said, “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Thank you, Mog,” Erick said.

“Thank you, Guildmaster,” Delia added.

Mog gave a guarded look to Erick and a blank look to Delia, before turning and walking away.  

- - - -

Erick sat on one side of a short table. Delia sat on the other side.  

Delia began, “Thank you for taking the time to see me, archmage.”

Erick was prepared to let Delia keep her mask of emotions hard set, but he needed to know, “Are you okay, Delia?”

Delia did not answer. She just blinked a few times.

Erick continued, “I’m sorry about your father. If there is something I can do to help, please tell me.”

Delia paused for a moment, before saying, “There’s a whole group of us kids— Not kids. I mean. We Matriculated recently. A lot of us went early because we have to step up to the frontlines, wherever those frontlines may be. My birthday isn’t until next month, but the hunters attacked us and we’re on our own. Uh. Some of us have gone to the Church—” She breathed deep. She said, “I would— We would like if you could sponsor us.” She quickly added, “We don’t want money, or teaching, or any secrets. But we’ve seen those enchanted rings you’ve made for Spur’s Army and we want them. Um. Please. It will be a great boon for us moving forward in the world.”

Erick readily agreed, “Done. How many people?”

Delia flinched backward. Her mouth dropped open. She came back to herself as quick as she could, then said, “There are 283 of us.” She added, “Now that number might seem large, considering that only a 103 full time farmers were killed, but there were a fair number of those outside of the farming community that lost their… lost their...” Tears poured, and her voice cracked, but as her pinkscaled face turned red and pained, Delia kept speaking as best she could, “A lot of people don’t have breadwinners… anymore. So I would like… you to help us get… get back on our feet, a little.” She breathed. She calmed. She said, “Some increased Stats would do well for those of us who are planning on joining the time honored tradition of killing monsters.”

Erick said, “I’ll make 600 rings. 75 each of the normal Stats, and 300 other ones that I’m sure you’ll enjoy. Unless you’d prefer some other ratio on the first 300?”  

Delia seemed to deflate a little, like she had won a battle she had never known she could win. She said, “Thank you, archmage. That will be a good ratio.”  

“Your father did a great deal of good for everyone around him.” He said, “I look forward to you being as strong and as capable as him, but you have many years to get there. If you personally need something, and I can give it, please ask. This isn’t just a one time thing, either. I feel a great deal of responsibility toward what happened—”

“It was NOT your fault,” Delia shouted. She closed her eyes hard, embarrassed or mad for her outburst; Erick couldn’t tell. She said, “It was their fault. Portal’s. And the hunters.” She bared her fangs, saying, “They allowed that wyrm Caradogh into—” She cut herself short. She said, “You tried to do good. You helped my father make something beautiful.” She cried as she said, “We could have had a really good life! Dad loved Spur! He loved the Farm.” Delia sniffled, then said, “He loved it here.” She whispered, “I love it here, too.”

Erick waited for his own emotions to pass.

Erick asked, “What are you going to do, now, Delia? You have some place to stay? Is someone taking care of you? Feeding you dinner? Do you have money for clothes?”

Delia laughed a little. She said, “I’ve been making dinner for Dad and I for…” She paused. She said, “I’ve been making dinner for a while. I have my home, too. I cleaned up the results of the fight, so there’s no worries there. And Dad saved up a lot of money, anyway. I’m good, but I’ll be even better when some of the others get with the program and get back on their feet. I don’t know what the vast majority of everyone is doing, but some of us are becoming adventurers.”

“It’s only been a week. You don’t have to push yourself so hard.”

She smiled. “I’m not pushing myself hard at all, archmage, but thank you for your concern.”

Erick changed tactics. “What sort of adventurer do you think you want to be? Can I help you with that?”

“Poison. And no. Not really. Thank you.” She smiled, adding, “Poison is great against monsters, and it’s easy to avoid direct danger with just a bit of [Cleanse].”

Erick wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t poison. “Okay. Uh. Good luck with that?” He added, “I don’t know any poison magic at all.”

“It’s a good specialization!” She added, “It’s also good for killing bugs without killing plants. It’s not so useful in Spur where this place is the only green land in five [Teleport]s, but anywhere else inside a proper ecosystem? A good poisoner is necessary for a good harvest.”

Erick smiled. “You’re right. I hadn’t considered that angle.” He asked, “How do you make a good poison for killing the right insects? I suppose you wouldn’t want to accidentally kill bees or aphid reapers, either.”

Delia said, “It’s all in the proper use of the Decay aspect of Mana Altering. You gotta be able to do it just right or else you end up with something too harmful to use properly. And then there’s all the Health-cost debilitating magics, like [Blind] and [Deaf] and [Dumb]. If you’re good, you can make those into a poison with Decay, too, but that’ll take me years to get right.”

“That sounds good, Delia.” Erick said, “I’m glad you have a plan.”

“I do.” She stood, saying, “But that’s for later. I gotta pass Instructor Draz’s course, first, before they’ll let me take quests from the guild board. The first thing I’m gonna do is hunt mimics till level 35, then I’m headed to the Hole with some friends.”

Erick stood, saying, “You’re going to hunt mimics with friends, too, right?”

“… Yes.”

“Please be safe out there, Delia.” Erick said, “Get some adventuring friends before you go out after mimics. One of the safest ways I ever killed a mimic was with [Stoneshape] making a great big roller with spikes on it and then rolling over the mimic.”  

“I will get some friends before I hunt mimics, archmage. Thank you for looking after me. Thank you for that tip.” She asked, “Could you please deliver those rings to the Church?”

“Of course, Delia.”  

Delia bowed, and quickly exited the room. Erick heard Delia cry in the hallway, two tiny sobs, before she breathed easier and kept walking; she never broke her stride.

When he was in control of his own emotions, Erick sent Poi, ‘Should I make the bigger Stat rings for the kids, or smaller Stat rings?’

‘Smaller means less chance of someone recognizing the rings for what they are and trying to take them from the kids, which could be a problem. Larger ones mean that the kids might survive their more dangerous encounters, but once word gets out about that, they will become targets for sure.’ He added, ‘Therefore, I’d suggest the smaller ones.’

Erick nodded, and thought. He sent, ‘Smaller ones for now, with a promise that larger ones are possible if they prove to be reliable adventurers? That’s almost how the Headmaster does it.’

‘A fair compromise.’  

‘And did I hear that right? She’s still living in the home where they killed Valok? I guess it’s her home, but… That seems awful.’

‘You heard correctly; I heard it, too.’

Erick’s stomach seemed to twist into a knot.

- - - -

“It was non-stop fighting down there in the Hole.” Kiri smiled as she said, “I evaded the adventurers and killed the monsters, of course, but still! Not a single moment of rest.”

Erick smiled over dinner, as Kiri spoke of her short foray into the Hole.  

He had left a roast in the oven, surrounded by vegetables of all kinds. It turned out really well, especially with the spice blend that Ratchet had given him earlier in the day. Tomorrow would be another full morning of rain, but this time the food would be for sale directly to the public. Erick wasn’t quite happy with how stiff the current arrangement felt; something about it just didn’t sit right. But the Community Gardening Council had decided to do it this way, and everyone would get their food soon enough…

He made a plan, right then, to go out and investigate the grocers, to make sure that there wasn’t anything like price gouging happening out there. He doubted that there was, but he wanted to make sure, anyway.

Kiri sliced into her roast, saying, “I had to string a few Sunnys together in order to transmit past more than a few curves in the ground. The degradation of signal was just too much. But I managed to get a few kilometers down. Shadowolves just littered the place, you know, and Sunny looks like an absolute snack, apparently.” She exclaimed, “Practically everyone attacked me from every angle! Adventurers were no different than the wolves. You got the rookies swinging their [Force Beam]s wherever they could —which didn’t do much, of course— and then you got the veterans who were able to actually get to Sunny and slice her up, or explode her— One woman about my age was content to watch for a while, but I couldn’t evade her; she just kept appearing out of the edge of my vision. Every five minutes! I’d be killing some wolf that jumped out of nowhere, and then she’d be there, all wrapped in black cloth and brooding, with her little black horns jutting out of her headscarf.” Kiri said, “I almost attacked her twice! But she evaded, thankfully.”

Erick smiled. “But what did it all look like?”

“Oh? Uh.” Kiri thought for a moment. “It was dark, mostly. Cavernous. Kilometer-wide tunnels carved by people and monsters, full of swift moving air and side tunnels. No natural light. Dark as night. But Sunny is rather bright, so that didn’t bother me at all.” She smirked, saying, “It was great avoidance training, though.” She added, “There’s no ‘night time’ down there. You could go right now with Ophiel and try it, and probably get much of the same experience.”

Erick glanced out of the kitchen window. The sky was purple with twilight. Faint stars had already begun to appear. He said, “Maybe I will.”

A minute later, while Erick was speaking of [Lightwalk] and the intricacies of what it meant to be a projection of himself, but before Kiri had a chance to give her opinion, he heard the door to the house open. Heavy boots followed, as the door shut behind.  

Erick turned to the kitchen archway, saying, “Hey, Teressa! Welcome back! Dinner is already on.”

Teressa appeared around the corner, wearing the silver armor of Spur’s Guard. She smiled, saying, “Smells delicious.”

“Grab a plate.” Erick asked, “How was guard training?”

Teressa grabbed a plate and began dishing herself out an orcol-sized portion of the meal, saying, “One more day of training and learning the ropes, then I can come back here, full time. Guardmaster Merit wants me on partial-call, because—” She smiled, adding, “You’re looking at Spur’s newest [Witness]. I got the spell today.”

Erick smiled wide, saying, “Fantastic!”

Kiri clapped, saying, “Congratulations!”

Poi smiled softly, adding, “Good job, Teressa.”

“Well we have to celebrate, now!” Erick said, “I need to buy some beer!”

Kiri said, “We have some already. Rollo dropped off three kegs while you were out.”

Erick stood from the table, saying, “Even better.”

“I’ll get it,” Poi said, standing up from the table. “You did well, Teressa.”

Erick sat back down, saying, “You did very well.”

Teressa’s green skin turned ruddy as the tips of her ears turned darker. She smiled, quietly saying, “Thank you.”

“So what’s it like?” Erick asked. “[Witness], I mean.”

Teressa finished piling her plate high and came to the table, saying, “It’s like a memory playing out before you. Or watching a play, that you can move forward or backward at will. I’m still learning how to work the spell, but that’s just a matter of experience.” She flicked her eyes up and down, and a blue box floated into Erick’s vision. “Cheap to cast, too.”

--

Witness, variable cast time, variable range, 25 mana

See the past.

--

Erick said, “It’s one of them intricate spells, I see.”

Kiri asked, “All it says is ‘See the past’, right?”

Teressa said, “Yup. It’s only as good as its caster.” She added, “But I can’t really talk about what I see in the line of duty, anyway. Guardmaster Merit already warned me of that responsibility to privacy.”

Poi walked into the room, floating a chest-sized barrel and a stand with him, saying, “Time for a little celebration.”

Erick smiled.  

There was a small party. It was good.  

- - - -

Everyone was asleep except for Erick. During their little celebration for Teressa, he had gotten a chance to continue his conversation about [Lightwalk] with Kiri. She didn’t have much of an opinion or knowledge about what [Lightwalk] was capable of, but she did suggest that he try out a lightward [Personal Ward], to see if he could duplicate the ‘unimpeded movement’ that he had experienced while under the sun. [Personal Ward]s weren’t able to duplicate all of the functions of many different Elemental Body skills, not without a lot of experimentation and unique [Personal Ward]s that would kill a person to operate them without the appropriate Body skill. But the lightward functionality should be an easy scenario to test.

It was a good suggestion. Erick was currently lying in bed, but he was also two [Teleport]s away, inhabiting Ophiel, shining bright under a midnight sky. Ophiel was currently wrapped in a glowing lightward, and because of that, he flew through that sky with all the grace and ability that Erick had experienced in the daytime.  

He had tried [Lightwalk] without the glowing lightward [Personal Ward]. At night, [Lightwalk] basically froze Ophiel in place. It took dozens of mana to move even one meter. But with the personal lightward on, and [Lightwalk] active? It was like Erick was anywhere he wanted to be, for the barest of costs.

… In retrospect, this functionality of [Lightwalk] was painfully obvious. It was [Light-walk], not [Walk-wherever-you-want]. But still, to be able to prop up the ability for the spell to work basically anywhere that wasn’t through a solid surface? With just a personal lightward? That just seemed…  

Interesting.  

And with lots of possible implications. Erick couldn’t personally use this interaction. A non-Warder mage could only use one [Personal Ward] at a time, and Erick liked his 13,000 point [Personal Absorption Ward] more than he liked the idea of easy movement. But Ophiel couldn’t realistically use a [Personal Ward], anyway.

Erick inhabited Ophiel for a while longer, experimenting. He summoned a second Ophiel and sent that one blipping to the first, so he could see what the first Ophiel looked like. (Interestingly enough, the [Personal Lightward] on the first Ophiel did not blind him, because apparently no amount of light was blinding when already using [Lightwalk].)

The first Ophiel was a star that had descended to Veird, floating around like the world’s largest, most energetic firefly. Erick imbued [Invisibility] into the first Ophiel. The [Familiar] vanished from sight, but the bright halo given off by his lightward still floated around, illuminating the sky, catching on minuscule particles of sand blowing from the north.  

That was enough experimenting, for now.  

The pair of Ophiel blipped to their next destination.  

The Hole was a hungry maw below Ophiel that sucked in all light. Sand trickled over the northern edge, falling into the Hole like tiny streams of water that quickly vanished into darkness. Even the lights of the three moons above were like vampires; unwelcome and disallowed in the Underworld.

 Invisible, [Lightwalk] Ophiel, flew down first. Visible Ophiel followed. A third blipped in behind the pair, to remain in the air above the Hole, to provide a link to the other two. They wouldn’t explore for very long, but they would explore for a bit. Kiri’s tale got its hooks into Erick. He could do with some unknown threats trying to kill Ophiel; he needed to get better at surviving that sort of thing, just in case.  

Ophiel descended. The edge of the Hole passed by. Even the midnight sky was brighter than the darkness down here. He expected the walls to be stone-colored, but they were black. Even Ophiel’s brightness seemed to soak into the very air, disappearing before it reached walls that seemed so far away. The walls were only a kilometer away, but that single kilometer seemed much larger than normal.

The wind was calm. Invisible Ophiel rode the light, while visible Ophiel rode the quiet wind. Both of them were utterly silent. Erick had expected a stronger breeze than this.

 Erick journeyed down, riding the eyes and senses of his [Familiar]. Eventually, when the sky was a disk of blue barely brighter than the black walls, the walls became a slanted floor that was not black, but instead just dark rock. With two hundred eyes, and burning [Hunter’s Instincts], Erick was ready for anything. Ready to dodge, ready to evade; he wouldn’t kill any of the monsters here and he certainly wouldn’t harm the people, but he was ready to survive; to see if he could.  

Ophiel flew across the bottom of a wide open space and continued onward, into darkness beyond. Quite a few hands must have transformed the land of the tunnel into a workable road; the bottom was flat, except for rocks and scree and sand here and there. As Ophiel flew further, the tunnel turned horizontal, but no less massive; his lightward failed to illuminate the stone overhead. Both Visible and Invisible Ophiel traveled in a bubble of light, like his own personal oasis from the oppressive, unmoving air. Erick felt the experience would have been oppressive if he had been there in person, but even so, the darkness seemed to eat at the light around Ophiel.  

It wasn’t long before Erick passed the first signs of battle. Deep rents cut into the tunnel. Road turned to rubble. Slick rocks seemed covered in blood, but it was dark blood. Sticky and pooled and half dried. But there were no monsters. No shadowolves. No bodies of any sort.  

He traveled further. The tunnel branched, and branched again. He picked the ones that led down.  

Still no sign of other people or any monsters. If he had been traveling with anyone else, he would have joked that this was always the worst part of the horror movie.
 

He briefly came back to himself, with double vision. Ophiel must have been too far down the Hole. Erick summoned another two Ophiel and sent them blipping to the Hole, to solidify his connection to the forward pair.  

With his connection reestablished, Erick wandered. Eventually, he ended up in a dead end; a cavern with no obvious way forward, and no obvious signs of life. Ophiel floated forward. Beyond a natural blind in the cavern, behind a minor rock slide to the side, laid a small pile of white bones. Erick paused over the bones. They were small, and likely not humanoid; the skulls were elongated like a dogs. They were likely the bones of shadowolves. So what ate them? What lived in this hole in the ground?

Erick did not find out. The cavern was empty. He backtracked. He continue to explore the empty Underworld.

He encountered nothing and no one.  

But hard edged and slit-eyed, [Hunter’s Instincts] Ophiel, was unnaturally tuned into the wind, and his surroundings.  

There were lots of things out there, in the darkness. They struggled to be silent. They huddled against the walls, vibrated in their own shadows, or under the crevices of rocks, keeping themselves out of sight and hopefully out of mind, trying to appear like anything but a meal. 

Because occasionally, the flap of sails in the wind carried through the tunnels, as the Darkness flitted around Ophiel, watching.

Erick did not sleep that night.