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The day dawned with a gloomy haze covering the sky, and remnants of a near-constant, small rain, settled into puddles on street corners, which reflected the green, gold, red, and white lights of the season. A cold wind blew across the Forest, and into Treehome, casting a chill into the air, but doing nothing to hinder the festivities. Some people were still partying, but most of those awake this early morning were either bakers waiting for their bread to rise, or revelers on their way home after a night of parties and fun.

- - - -

The gloom was there, outside his windows as Erick laid in bed. He briefly woke when he thought he heard someone, but that turned out to be nothing but the wind. He closed his eyes, and drifted back to sleep. No need to get up, yet.

- - - -

Erick stood on the porch in the gloomy sunshine, smoking a blunt of blueweed and feeling good, with a warmth spreading through his body, and his belly full of a delicious breakfast.

The sun had risen hours ago, but no one in the suite, besides Jane, had risen until the doorbell rang. Jane had ordered room service, again. A pair of bellhops and their delivered goods almost tried to enter the room when she opened the door, but she stopped them before silver-domed plates and bowls went tumbling. This was how Erick woke to the scents of an already-cooked breakfast. Sweet rolls. Sausages. Syrup and pancakes. Eggs and breakfast tea. Mushrooms and some sort of oatmeal-like soup, both of which weren’t all that bad at all. Erick had never had mushrooms for breakfast, and he had quite liked it.

As he leaned against the balcony, watching the Forest to the north, Erick roughly planned his day. There was much room for adjustment, after the main event was done.

Soon enough, Poi came and said, “Syllea is ready, if you are.”

“Oh? Already?” Erick looked to Teressa, who was cleaning up breakfast, and who had stopped the second Poi mentioned Syllea. Erick asked, “Are you going out today?”

Everyone else within earshot found something else to do.

Teressa waffled for a moment, before saying, “No. Tomorrow, though… I’ll go out there tomorrow.” She glanced toward Kiri and Jane, saying, “We might sign up for a Celebration Hunt tonight.”

Jane whipped around, smiling, “You want to Hunt? Great! Yes! Let’s do that.” Jane instantly locked eyes with Kiri.

“Ehhhh…” Kiri shut the book she was reading, then said, “Well… Yeah. Okay. Let’s do a Hunt.”

“Yay!” Jane said, with enthusiasm.

Erick smirked, then tuned to Poi. “Then I’m ready. Where to?”

“Her house. The backyard.”

- - - -

In the light of day, even as gloomy as it was, Wyrmrest was the most impressive Arbor of Treehome, by far. From high above, he looked like a normal enough tree among a field of grass, with knotty, dense roots that twisted and turned and covered a space twice as much as himself. But if you were anywhere close enough to judge his true size, you would see that those knotty roots were actually normal-sized houses, stacked and nestled among each other in numbers that defied easy counting. You would see the grass that surrounded him was just the normal trees between the Arbor and the rest of Treehome. You would see that his trunk was a few hundred meters wide, which went well with his two kilometer height, to support a canopy that was almost as wide as the tangled houses below.

Erick, with Poi at his side, stepped onto the light a few hundred meters above Syllea’s house. He gazed up, briefly, to see the underside of Wyrmrest; to see the Starfruit glowing among those green leaves like tiny motes of light from afar. Those Starfruit were each the size of a person, but no one could tell that from down on the ground.

Erick turned his attentions back down to the ‘ground’.

Wyrmrest’s primary district was a maze. Bridges connected upper parts together. Stairs ran up and down everywhere. People worked and played and lived inside Wyrmrest himself, and Archmage Syllea was no exception.

… She was a slight exception. Her house was on the top floor of the knots down below, right next to Wyrmrest himself.

Erick saw his target, and stepped down onto a bit of wooden land behind Syllea’s house. The space was an off-kilter, somewhat square dip and rise of wood, of about 20 meters to a side, with three sides belonging to Syllea’s house, each of which had either glass windows or a glass door, and the final side being Wyrmrest’s main trunk. The Arbor of the district named after himself, loomed like a cliff, high above.

Syllea opened the glass door, saying, “Hey, Erick!”

“Hello.” Erick smiled. “Woke up later than usual and had a nice brunch. Thanks for the help in securing that room; it’s been great.”

Syllea stepped outside. “I’m glad you like it.” She got right to it, by saying, “So I was thinking of your dilemma regarding anonymity, Elemental Mercy, and your desire to subdue a target rather than kill them. I have a question though: What sort of people are you considering to use these spells against?”

Bayth stepped out of the house, next, silently holding a pair of chairs. She set them beside the door and sat in one, as she gestured to Poi and the other. Poi nodded, and sat down next to Bayth.

Erick looked around, at the clear air, and the lack of spells in the air, aside from the starfield that was Wyrmrest’s Domain. He asked, “Can we talk openly?”

“Oh yeah.” Syllea waved him off. “Wyrmrest has control over much that happens this close to him. Sound and mana sense only goes as far as he wants it.”

Erick blinked on his mana sense, and sure enough, his sight ended at the walls of this outdoor space. So Erick answered Syllea’s question, “I just want to be generally unidentified around others. But… specifically…” Erick paused. Ah. This was more difficult than he had expected. He tried, “There was this one guy—” His throat closed. Speaking was impossible. He felt both embarrassed and furious at himself for one brief moment, but then he breathed. He looked away. When he turned back, he spoke through the feeling of a stone sitting on his neck, “Specifically, there was this one guy who put [Neck Bombs] into the bodies of children.”

Syllea tensed, but said nothing. Erick practically saw as Syllea reassessed her future questions, but he also saw that she was willing to listen to what Erick said next.

Erick was thankful for that. He continued, “He put bombs in the necks of kids in order to keep his power over the nearby populace. I… I got lucky. I managed something that I don’t want to repeat.” He lost most of the pain in his chest as he realized that Syllea needed to know something. “The guy had a Charisma Stat. When you put two of the New Stats into a person, there’s a reaction. That reaction tore the guy apart. His soul turned broken as it collapsed inward— It didn’t kill him and I’m not sorry I did that to him. He deserved every bit of what he got. But… He could have had triggers on those kids… I got lucky, in that moment those triggers didn’t trigger. But before I did what I did to the man, two of those kids were blown up as a warning to me.”

Syllea seemed to relax, in that way that a person does when the horrible thing they expected to happen, happened.

Erick said, “That’s why I need something to put someone down and keep them down, without killing them. I’m fully convinced that if I just killed the guy, every single one of those kids and many of the people they were near would have died as a direct result of my action.”

“I had heard about you committing some sort of action against a guy… But I had not heard it quite like that.” She stood a bit straighter, stared Erick in his eyes, and said, “What happened was fine.”

Erick almost objected.

Syllea shook her head, and spoke with conviction. “Erick. You and I are the type of people who need to make the hard decisions when it comes to people’s lives. I know you understand this, for you killed that Charisma guy and only had two bits of collateral damage—”

Erick felt his face shift toward disgust.

“—and yes, calling the deaths of two children ‘collateral damage’ is harsh, but life is harsh.” Syllea said, “And that doesn’t matter right now. What matters is shutting someone like that Charisma person down so they can’t trigger whatever spells they might have waiting for a ‘go’ signal. This is best achieved with Mind Magic, but I’m not a Mind Mage, and you don’t want to get burdened by those people, anyway.” She quickly turned to Poi, saying, “No offense.”

Poi just bowed his head, ever so slightly, indicating that no offense was taken.

She turned back to Erick, asking, “Unless you want to go that route? Choosing that path means you aren’t allowed to participate in normal life. You would become a hermit. No one would know who you are after you became a full member of the Mind Mages, because you would remove yourself from their memories. There are archmages that do this, but I only know of them because I’ve been allowed to know that they exist.”

Erick had a lot of thoughts about what Syllea had just divulged. His first one was that he had not expected to hear that from her, but that he really should have; she had been at this archmage-thing for a lot longer than him. His second and third thoughts made him glance toward Poi.

Poi openly lied, making no effort to cover that fact, “Those people don’t exist.”

“Of course they don’t,” Syllea allowed the lie, saying, “I must have been mistaken.”

“That’s not an option for me, anyway,” Erick said.

“Good news, then, because a Mind Mage’s [Sleep] is somewhat duplicated with Elemental Mercy. Or, rather, it’s more like if you compound enough False Damage onto a person they usually go unconscious.” Syllea said, “A Mind Mage’s [Over Mind] is the perfect counter to triggered spells, though. Just so you know, you cannot duplicate that outside of that branch of magic.”

“… [Over Mind]?”

Syllea rambled off, “It’s a spell that wraps the target in a false cocoon of ‘everything is okay’, cutting that target off from all spells they have cast. It doesn’t disrupt more spells or more connections from being formed, but it’s good for an opening spell in order to go for a quick and less painful take-down. If you want the perfect solution to your problem of taking down a person who has planted bombs, [Over Mind] is it, but learning how to do that spell requires you to fully commit to being a Mind Mage. Which you won’t do.” Syllea said, “But now you know what the perfect solution is, which I always try to know before I make my own imperfect solutions.”

“How do you know of that spell?” Erick asked, for he had certainly never heard of much Mind Mage magic beyond the simple ones, like [Sleep] and [Sense Emotion], and the dangerous ones, like [Dominate]. He briefly wondered if Poi had any of those, but he doubted Poi would tell him, which was probably for the best.

Syllea said, “The only reason I can imagine that you don’t know more about various Mind Magics is that you haven’t yet pursued that particular discipline. Either that, or it could be that you’ve only been at this archmage stuff for less than a year. It wasn’t till five years in that I met the Mind Mages.” She shrugged. “And even then, they just told me how to identify and defend against some of the more dangerous mind altering spells. Have they not formally approached you, yet?”

“Have they?” Erick asked Poi.

“Not yet, sir.” Poi added, “You’re too high profile.”

“Ah.” Syllea said, “That makes sense. I might be an accredited archmage, but only a few people ever achieve the level of notoriety you’ve achieved. Which brings us back to the current problem. I’m probably a bit more knowledgeable about your spells than most, but every single new mage out there knows about [Call Lightning], Ophiel, and [Withering]. So you need a new way to fight, to be more low-profile.”

Erick nodded. “That’s the long and the short of it.”

Syllea asked, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re all about large spells and vast effects. Do you have any short range spells at all?”

“I do, but I barely use them. Being in melee is… I’m not good at that.”

“That’s fine. I’m rather poor at melee, too.” Syllea said, “But I can fake it well enough with a few buff spells. Do you want to do the melee-thing?”

“… No.”

“Mid-range mage, then.” Syllea said, “Much easier to acclimate to. Much easier to fit in with all the other mages the world over.” Syllea paused. She asked, “Did you ever do the normal ‘adventurer mage’ thing? From what I heard, you just stayed in Spur, mostly. Except when you came out to Oceanside that one time.”

“That is correct. Oh— I did go on a wyrm hunt once. That was… That was dangerous and I was not truly prepared for that, but it worked out well enough.”

Syllea nodded, then said, “Okay. So you’re… pretty new to the kind of fighting that most people will do in their lifetimes.”

“I have taken remedial adventuring courses at a Guildhouse, as well as done the equivalent of three months of sparring every single day… But I haven’t done that in a while. And it wasn’t continuous sparring… or very good sparring.”

Syllea’s face seemed to light up. “That’s all good! That makes me a lot more confident in helping you.”

“I can do the mid-range mage-thing, even though I don’t have much experience with it.” Erick said, “I really am just looking for spells to appear to be like another person when I’m in a low-recognition environment.”

“I can skip almost everything I was going to say and go right to the magic, then.” Syllea said, “I’m going to ask a few questions. Tell me the first thing that comes to your mind.”

“Okay.” Erick wondered where she was going with this, but it seemed fun. “Sure.”

“Fire.”

Erick recoiled. “Too much lingering pain.”

Syllea tilted her head. “Lightning.”

“I can do that already.”

“Stone.”

“You can hit someone with stone and not kill them?”

Syllea smiled. “Holy.”

“Too angelic.”

“Ice.”

“… Uncomfortable?”

Syllea nodded. “Chaos.”

“Uh. What does that mean, though?”

“Order.”

“The idea is interesting, but what does that mean?”

“Blood.”

“Illegal, but useful.”

“Ooze.”

“Dangerous, but useful.” Erick considered his [Harmonic Blood Ooze] spell. “Very useful.”

“Decay.”

“Lingering pain. Do not like.”

With a slight joy in her eyes, Syllea said, “Wind.”

“I like flying.”

Syllea paused, a smirk on her face. After a moment of thinking, she asked, “What if I told you that you can make painless Decay magic?”

“… I am intrigued. But it’s too slow, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Decay is slow. But a well made Merciful Decay would be a ‘container’ spell; something you cast on someone in order to keep them down.” Syllea said, “Most mid-range mages have a handful of spells that they use all the time; somewhere between four to ten. Not counting all the utility spells, of course. We can make three spells today, or maybe just get started on them. First, you need to be able to use Mercy… Which is a problem for some, but likely not for you. Now…” Slightly intrigued, but withholding judgment, Syllea held out a hand, palm up, and said, “I’ve heard that you can hear the mana?”

A prominence of thick air, like a mirage, bent the light around Syllea’s hand as the sound of reaching out and touching the world combined with some other, subdued sound. Erick readily identified [Force Bolt]. The second part must have been Mana Altering for Mercy. It was kinda hard to understand, but it was definitely the sound of something held back.

Erick said, “I hear [Force Bolt] and Mercy, I’m guessing. Never played around with Mercy before. I have read about it in that book you told me to get. Esoteric Elements. That’s a good book, by the way. Really helped me along in more than a few ways.” While he spoke, he had the Ophiel on his shoulder listen, tease out the [Force Bolt] from Syllea’s mana, and focus on the other sound present.

Soon, Ophiel sang a song of restraint; muted, and yet full, like background noise turned into a flat surface. Like the stripping of defenses, and a laying low of the opposition. A knife that would never fall all the way. Erick had not heard the full sound of Mercy at first, but he did once Ophiel had sussed it out from the whole.

Erick continued, “And Ophiel helps me with the more difficult sounds.”

Ophiel stopped singing Mercy, and instead trilled in violins.

Syllea smiled. She lifted her left hand toward the center of the open space. A burst of mana conjured a block of crystal from the ground that quickly grew to the size of an orcol. She said, “There’s a target.”

Erick combined Ophiel’s song with his own power, and cast.

A bolt of gold-flecked white slammed into the crystal. A blue box appeared.

--

Mercy Bolt, instant, long range, 10 mana.

A bolt of mercy inexorably strikes a target for 15 + WIL.

--

Erick frowned a little.

Syllea said, “That one looked good. What were the numbers?”

Erick showed her the box, saying, “Mercy element. Inexorable. 15 plus Willpower.”

Syllea read the box, her eyes briefly going wide before she settled with a slight smile on her lips. She said, “That’s pretty great for your first time.” A bit more serious, she asked, “Do you have experience with Ethereal? And Blood Magic, for the multi-Variable costs?”

And there was the source of Erick’s current frown. “I do have experience with those.” He said, “I was trying all of that… But… I only got inexorable.”

“I do have [True Sight], Erick. Don’t worry too much about getting any of this all right now.” With kindness, Syllea said, “That you were able to do this much with the current damage to your soul shows a lot of talent and skill. Just don’t try for anything beyond tier two until your soul is better.”

Erick looked away as he felt a flush of something nice inside of his chest. Syllea was a great person. This was why she was the ‘darling of the Wyrmrest Tribe’, as Teressa had once called her. Syllea was actually 45, though, which was pretty close to his own 48. Erick had found that out when—

Erick banished those thoughts, and said, “It is true that I don’t feel so great, but I don’t need strict bed rest yet. Thank you for your concern, though. But back to the magic:” He asked, “[True Sight]?”

Syllea rattled off, “[Witness], [Blood Sight], [Soul Sight], [Mana Sight], and [Future Sight]. You can achieve all of those through accomplishments with mana sense and various personal shifts in perception. All of those are base tier spells you have to buy. You have to buy [True Sight], too. Can’t make any of those yourself, or Remake Quest them —I’ve tried— so I hope you have points saved up.”

“I do.” Erick said, “I just need to work on [Witness] and [Future Sight], then.”

“Good.” Syllea said, “I almost fucked myself out of that one, but eventually Bayth and I and a few others managed to secure some high-level kills inside a particularly nasty Twisted Vision of the Forest. [True Sight] was my goal with those latest levels, and that cost has never been better spent.”

“What is a Twisted Vision of the Forest? I’ve heard that twice now.”

“They’re high-level monsters that are more environmental hazards than actual monsters, but make no mistake; they’re one of the most deadly things in the Forest. Twisted Visions cultivate monsters like the Arbors cultivate civilization.” Syllea said, “We’ll probably see at least one when we go out into the Forest to find Gates. You’ll know one of them is near when you see a bunch of the exact same monster. And I mean exact.”

“… Oh. That doesn’t sound good.”

“They never are. You’ll find Twisted Visions in Deep Forests all over Veird, but the ones up here like to take in wyrms and spawn hundreds of copies. I usually deal with about three wyrm-spawners every year.”

And that was another topic that Erick wanted to broach with another archmage, and Syllea was right here. So.

Erick asked, “How valid and good would it be to cast rolling monster-killing spells? Super large? Wipes out a good ten-kilometers of monsters as it lasts hours, or more? Covers thousands of kilometers before it ends?” He clarified, “I mean: Why don’t more archmages do this? Or— Why don’t we all do more of this?” He added, “I really wanted to ask this of a Poison Archmage down in the Wasteland about organizing widespread monster kills when I saw her during the clearing of the mimics out of the Wasteland, but she didn’t seem to want to talk. I think her name was Orenza. She had this Decay magic that covered a diameter of at least 25 kilometers.” Erick said, “Her and Peatrice Shallowhammer, their Stone Archmage, would be a great addition to any plan to clear the Crystal Forest of Crystal Mimics. You said you wanted to talk about that, back at Oceanside, right?”

“Orenza is about as caustic as her magic, so that doesn’t surprise me.” Syllea frowned a little, and said, “When I was younger, I, too, wished to be able to unleash my monster-only variant [Starlight Fall] upon the lands outside of Treehome. To clear out hundreds of kilometers of land. To free us of the monsters. But every time we do that, it means that the others who live here will never grow stronger. They will never know of the actual dangers out there in the Forest.” She stated, “And we orcols are a people who cannot afford to grow complacent.”

“Fair enough. But… Not everyone is an orcol. Not everyone can regrow their heads.”

Syllea said, “They do widespread monster control in the Greensoil Republic. The archmages there— They’re not real archmages. Every single one of them purchases their way to that rank. Anyway. The archmages there all have [Weaken Monsters]. It’s a massive spell of suppression, turning every monster in a hundred square kilometers into something weaker than it was before.” She said, “All this does is ensure that their people never know personal strength.”

Erick was getting real close to saying that Syllea’s words sounds strangely close to Melemizargo’s. But that would be extremely rude. So he said, “But this wouldn’t be weakening the monsters and allowing them to go berserk when the spell lapses. I mean actually killing them.”

“Same problems. One day, you won’t be around, Erick.” Syllea said, “And the exact same thing will happen on those days that you’re not there to support your people, that happens in the Greensoil Republic when [Weaken Monsters] lapses, and a monster goes berserk and kills a dozen people before it’s stopped— By yet another person who actually fights the monsters, I might add. The farmers and the merchants of that place know nothing of monsters, and it shows in their dependency on [Weaken Monsters].”

“… That’s fair, too.”

Syllea said, “But with all that said, the Crystal Forest is a blight upon the world that needs to eventually be culled and reseeded with actual green growth. I have absolutely nothing against rolling magics through that land, killing everything that lives, and then reseeding the whole place afterward.” She added, “And now that the Shades are dead, maybe we could look into that decade-long plan.”

Erick’s face broke into a wide smile. “Sounds good to me.”

And then another thought occurred. Would turning the Crystal Forest into a real forest be a good thing, if it became a forest like the Forest surrounding Treehome?

It was something to think about, anyway.

“Anyway!” Syllea said, “I think you should try for some Air-based workings. Here are some spells I’ve already made, that you might like to make yourself.” She popped out a few boxes.

--

Wind Cutter, instant, medium range, 10 mana

Ten wide bands of sharp wind slice forward, each dealing 25 + WIL

May cause suffocation.

--

Air Decay, instant, medium range, 50 mana

The air around a medium-sized target begins to rot, dealing WIL per second.

High chance to suffocate the target.

--

Triple Air Bomb, instant, long range, 150 mana

Launch a quick ball of air that explodes on contact, dealing 50 + 2x WIL damage in a medium area, and then again, and again.

May cause suffocation.

--

Syllea popped out a few more blue boxes, saying, “And here’s some more ideas.”

--

Merciful Purge, instant, medium range, 500 mana

Inflict ongoing 5x WIL False Damage to a medium-sized target. Lasts 1 minute.

--

Merciful Ooze, instant, medium range, 50 mana

Summon a Merciful Ooze under your command that will trap and stifle a target, dealing False Damage for 1 minute.

--

Merciful Ooze Mothertree, instant, long range, 2500 mana

Summon an ethereal Merciful Ooze Mothertree under your control. The Mothertree constantly and consistently spawns and shoots inexorable Merciful Oozes at designated targets. Lasts 1 minute.

Attacks which destroy the Mothertree will release all Merciful Oozes at once.

--

Erick read those boxes, and saw a few good ways to proceed.

“This [Merciful Purge] is nice.” He said, “[Merciful Ooze Mothertree] seems pretty amazing, too.”

“The first is a [Force Bolt] strung through Blood Magic for the multiplier and then switched over to Mercy. Blood and Mercy are closely related, so this works rather well, but maybe don’t try that one till your soul heals.” Syllea said, “I mostly use [Merciful Ooze] when I need to subjugate a lot of people. Haven’t killed someone with that one, yet! The base spell is [Force Bolt] then Mana Altered for Ooze and Mercy. To get the Mothertree, you have to Alter again for Tree. You can throw in some Blood Magic, too, if you want higher multipliers on that one, but I found that high multipliers on Oozes tend to be too deadly to use for subjugation.” She stressed, “But while Mercy is good for not-killing people, if you use it against monsters you’re asking for a bad time. Monsters don’t really care about Health, headaches make them mad, and monsters like wyrms will not even care at all about your Mercy.”

“I have a question about suffocation.” Erick asked, “Is that as deadly as I think it is?”

“Suffocation is the weaker version of asphyxiation.” Syllea said, “Certain spells have a way of getting into the body more than others. Air is one of these. Most living things breathe the same way, via sacs of blood in the lungs, and when you use Air spells you have a tendency to rip up those tender sacs inside the lungs. Suffocation is one of the ways Elemental damage can get through the natural shielding of Health and Shield, but it's a very superficial thing. Like how cold slows, and lightning paralyzes. In the case of Air Magic, we’re talking about how pressure waves propagate around corners.

“The only time you’re going to actually kill a person with low-grade Air magic is when they take your spell head-on, breathing in the whole time.” She added, “Birds and other hardy beasts also aren’t affected much by Air Magic’s generalized ‘chance to suffocate’. Mostly, an Air spell will just inflict a bit of extra damage and stagger a person when they realize they can’t breathe, but it usually goes away based on the duration of the spell.” She hastily added, “All of this only works against stuff that breathes based on lung physiology, anyway.”

Erick frowned a little at the viciousness of suffocating someone with a spell. But this was life on Veird, wasn’t it?

And yet… There was still something distasteful about denying something the ability to breathe. Sure, Erick had killed monsters by ripping out all their water, or frying them, or blasting them, but to make them suffocate? To make them suffer?

No.

Or maybe… He could at least try it out on some monsters, right?

And that gave him another idea.

“What about poison that puts things to sleep?”

“Alchemy can do this…” Syllea said, “I don’t do alchemy. Or much Decay magic, for that matter. Those two go hand-in-hand quite often. Here’s your problem with a [Sleepy Cloud]— It wouldn’t be called that, since you aren’t using the [Sleep] spell, for without using the [Sleep] spell, you’d have to make a different magic for different people. There’s flowers in Nelboor, Wild Calm Roses, that puts orcols to sleep, but does nothing against anyone else. There’s calming tea made from Townhouse Tree roots that knocks out humans, but does nothing to anyone else. This is the problem with weaponizing sleeping poison; it might not work on the person you’re using it against.”

Erick considered generalized anesthesia, and filed that idea away under ‘possible Particle Magic’. Syllea wasn’t well versed in alchemy, so maybe she just didn’t know? That was possible. It was also possible that anesthesia just didn’t work on Veird how he thought it could work.

… He could still try to make Diethyl Ether, anyway.

What was that again? Ah! Right! (C2 H5)2 O2.

Ohh. Intelligence was kinda scary. When did he even read about that? Huh.

Syllea raised an eyebrow at Erick’s trailing words. “Are you thinking of manually putting the brain into a sleep-state?”

Well now he was. “I am.” But where to even begin? There was the hypothalamus and the pineal gland that controlled melatonin… Which was another thing Erick could see about recreating with Particle Magic. But as for controlling the brain directly? Erick decided, “I don’t know enough to mess with that and I’m not willing to experiment.”

Syllea smiled. “I would have been surprised if you did. I’ve read old books about people committing atrocities in order to create spells like [Induce Rest] to get around the Mind Mage control over [Sleep]. But in the end, almost all of those people have just found out how to make [Sleep], and then the Mind Mages move in and that knowledge is taken from them.”

Erick almost asked her if she had a problem with Mind Mages, but he left that door closed, as he asked, “Got any suggestions for keeping a low profile? I feel I am likely missing some rather obvious things.”

“You are,” Syllea said, with a smirk. “You should look into some permanent alchemical or Blood Magic options to change the color of your eyes to something less white-white-black. Maybe change your hair, too. Don’t do any temporary spells; those just light up for anyone with a Sight to see. Your eyes are one of the most noticeable things about you, so fix that and you should be good. That, and your clothes, I suppose. Those are definitely the robes of a well-off man. Put on some shabbier shoes. I have a whole room for outfits for undercover work and that’s usually enough, as long as I don’t draw the attention of anyone who would know me for me. I hardly ever use the eye dyes, but they’re decent.” She added, “You also need to find or think of a way to hide Ophiel, but you already knew that. Other than those few things, you should be good for walking anonymously through most human towns.” She shrugged. “Or you could try your hand at what sort of Polymorph you might have? Do you feel like you’d rather be some other race than human? If so, and since you’ve lived in Spur for a while, perhaps you have a different form just sitting there, waiting to be found.”

“I’ll go with the alchemical dyes.” He glanced to Poi. “I can probably find someone to sell me that stuff back home.”

Poi nodded.

Erick turned back to Syllea, saying, “Thank you for this. I still haven’t gotten around to making any buff spells, but I might need to make some of those, too.”

“Don’t go wandering back home, yet.” Syllea said, “We still haven’t gotten the basics of what we just talked about, and you shouldn’t try to make a buff in your condition, or any difficult spells. But if you make some less-than-ideal mid-range spells, then I’ll at least know you know what you’re doing.” She rapidly added, “Not that I don’t think you don’t know what you’re doing! Ah. That came out wrong.”

Erick smiled at Syllea’s unexpected, small contrition. “I’ve only been at this for a year. I’m completely sure that I only have the barest idea that I know what I’m doing.”

“You do seem to be doing alright for yourself, but there’s always more.” With a conspiratorial eye, Syllea asked, “Have you ever experimented with Elemental Destruction?”

Erick paused. “I have. It’s useful for creating specific counterspells. I was warned away from using it in actual spells, though.”

“Oh, drat. Here I was hoping to let you in on a big secret.” Syllea added, “And yeah. You don’t want to make actual Destruction spells. On the spectrum between Order and Chaos, Destruction is wildly chaotic. I lost limbs and otherwise on five separate occasions before I finally decided that I was done with Destruction.”

Erick smiled, and asked, “Have you tried experimenting with [Healing Word]?”

“Bah. That damn thing.” Syllea asked, “You talking about the [Quick Spell]?”

“Yes!” Delighted, but tempered by Syllea’s reaction, Erick asked, “But it seems you dislike it?”

“The problem with [Quick Spell] is that it naturally decreases the power of the resulting spell by a factor between 10 to 5, while multiplying costs to somewhere between the original spell’s cost, to three times the original cost.” Syllea said, “[Quick Spell] is a very hard spell to get right. How good is yours?”

Erick showed her, asking, “About that good?”

Syllea dismissed the spell box, saying, “Not a good way to judge. Did you make a spell from it?”

Erick showed her [Quick Wall], saying, “A tenth as good as the original.”

“Rip it up and try again.” She added, “Working magic with a damaged soul is difficult. Maybe wait on that one, too.”

While Erick mourned his failure to correctly make [Quick Spell], he was glad to finally get confirmation that he had screwed up. With a mental tug he ripped [Quick Spell] apart, feeling something shift in his soul…

Two things shifted.

Erick winced, as [Quick Wall] broke, too. A cascading failure. That was new. Erick had heard of what would happen if he ever tore apart a ‘building block’ spell, and now he finally got to experience it for himself. It wasn’t as bad as creating new magic, though, and it certainly wasn’t as bad as an Error.

Syllea still noticed. She asked, “Did you make a lot of magic with that one?”

“Just [Quick Wall].”

Syllea hummed. She said, “Maybe… Maybe you should try for an Air Element spell, so that I can see that you’ve got it, and then we stop here. A mage doesn’t normally get cascading Deletion Fatigue like that unless they destroy the basis of a large branch of their magic. Ten spells or more.”

“That’s…” Erick felt something like heartburn in his chest, and then it was gone. “We can stop after another spell. That sounds like a good idea.”

Syllea held out her hand, channeling an airy [Force Bolt], saying, “Here. This is [Air Bolt].”

Erick listened, but Ophiel teased out the sound of ‘air’ better than he could at the moment. With a concentrated Mana Altering and a mixing of possibility, Erick cast at the summoned crystal, five meters away. A bolt of swirling white air struck the crystal with a blast of wind, and a blue box appeared.

--

Air Bolt, instant, long range, 10 mana.

A bolt of air inexorably strikes a target for 15 + WIL. May cause suffocation.

--

Erick flashed the box toward Syllea, saying, “I know I messed that up a little, but it’s close enough. Thank you.” He winced.

Syllea looked down at Erick, and frowned. “Yeah… We’re stopping here. When you’re feeling better, Alter for Air, then Shape as needed, as with all Esoteric Elements. The specific Element Shape spells, like [Air Shape], work better than the generalized Mana Shaping, but working with the more Esoteric Elements, like Lightning, requires specialized Element Shaping that you need to make yourself. You could probably make a very good [Lightning Shape] if you tried. But you don’t need those specific Shapings quite yet, and you probably shouldn’t try too hard for them, either.”

“Heard and understood.” Erick felt another odd thing flex inside of himself, and also not. “Ow— Okay. That was a weird stitch in my side.”

With kindness, Syllea asked, “What did you do to yourself?”

“Oh… A lot of things.” Erick stood up straight and tried to stand strong, but a triplicate stitch ran up his right side. He bent over as nausea rolled through his chest. The nausea vanished, quick as it came. He stood up; a bit less straight this time, but more or less okay. “I’m fine.” He breathed hard, then said, “Okay! Yes. We can cut this early. I think I need a nap again.”

“How about some tea?” Syllea said, “Have you tried Soul Palm Balm tea? I have some. It should help your soul better than sleep. It’s pretty rare, but I know some people.”

That was the stuff Jane got in the Headmaster’s hospital. She only got a few doses of it to get her out of the worst of her Dragon Essence sickness, for Soul Palm Balm was supposed to be incredibly expensive. Erick said, “No thank you, I couldn’t possibly impose more than I already have—”

“You aren’t imposing!” Syllea said, with perhaps a bit too much fervor. She paused. She looked away and walked toward her house, saying, “They take the sap of the tree and pack it into little cubes. You have to do a special preparation, which I can show you, and then you can take a decagram with you.” She stopped and turned around at the doorway, saying, “I insist.”

“… That would be great.” Erick decided, “I would appreciate that.”

He followed her into her house, while Bayth and Poi followed him.

Within a minute, Erick had a nice little paper package of cubed tree sap, with each cube glowing with faint flickering embers. It reminded him of the broken Shroud around his own soul.

Syllea sent him off, saying, “I’m going to get you some better blueweed, too. Someone will deliver it to your room.” She added, “Get some rest, Erick.”

Erick felt a warmth of kindness bloom in his chest. He said, “Thank you, Syllea. I will.”

- - - -

Poi sent, ‘He made Syllea’s tea, then drank it. Half of a blueweed cigarette put him right to sleep. Before he crashed, he said not to wait for him if the Hunt starts, and that he wishes you luck.’

Sitting on a bench just outside of the Celebration House, Jane sighed. ‘Thank you, Poi.’

Poi signed off with a telepathic nod; severing their connection.

Jane sat back on the bench, and looked up.

Steel-Branch loomed high above, like a collection of steel tubing in the shape of a massive, oversized tree. Those steel tubes vanished into the permanent thunderhead that was Steel-Branch’s canopy, where electrical discharges constantly zapped out of sight. The Arbor was a thing of lightning and steel, and he was amazing.

Everything in Treehome was amazing.

While her father slept yesterday, Jane had explored the city, from the Adventurer’s Guildhouse, where she spotted no less than four quests in the Forest that she wanted to pursue, to Arbor Heral-ken Healer’s House, which was basically a giant spa. All three of them, Teressa, Kiri, and Jane, had readily taken to a full spa treatment, which was not called a ‘spa treatment’, but instead a ‘bath day’. Just those two trips had eaten up several hours, and they had gotten to Steel-Branch’s Celebration Hunt House way too late. Today, she had visited Arbor Steel-Branch’s Celebration House first, signed up, and then took a trip over to Arbor Ikabobbi’s ‘Polymorph Emporium’. She wasn’t rich enough or involved enough in the right circles to merit getting into the actual auction, but she did manage to see listings for several of the rarer monsters out there. Jane almost spoke up about who her father was in order to secure a spot at the exclusive auction, but after having that thought, she instantly recoiled from herself.

She would not be that kind of person!

What a weird thought to have, anyway.

So instead of bidding on new [Polymorph] forms, she was having fun at the Celebration House, at the very Forest Edge of Steel-Branch’s District, waiting for the night to start. The houses of this place were steel-walled, and the Celebration House was no exception. Jane thought that calling it a ‘house’ was rather generous, though, as it was basically just a steel circus tent in a vast clearing, with seven of eight sides open, where several bonfires raged around the interior, and people signed up for the Celebration Hunt and other activities. Jane, Kiri, and Teressa were all outside the House, sitting on a bench, killing time.

They might have just been killing time, but being here was the most fun Jane had had in awhile, because while people waited for the Celebration Hunt, they also—

“You! Human girl!”

Kiri, sitting to Jane’s left, said, “Oh gods, here we go again.”

“Oh you like it!” Jane whispered right at Kiri.

Teressa murmured, “I certainly enjoy it.”

Kiri hummed.

Jane didn’t give Kiri another thought. Instead, she regarded her newest best friend. He was a male orcol, three meters tall and wearing the typical kilt and boots a lot of guys around here wore. He was a bit on the brawny side, but there was definitely some magic going on around him and his two friends. Jane wore nothing but her conjured armor, which was like wearing conjured rocks that moved like liquid across her skin. Currently, her helmet was down, but Jane could flex her armor aura and put it right back up, if she needed. But she didn’t. It probably would have helped to hide her smile, though.

Jane stood up and played at being an offended person, “What the fuck you want, little boy!”

“Little!” The man chuckled darkly, spreading his arms wide as he said, “Little girl in weak armor calls me little? You have no eyes to see! Or maybe you conjured your armor wrong. You’re obviously incompetent.”

Jane almost retorted.

But the man stepped closer, to tower over her, as he said, “Another obvious thing is that I won’t be dying to you fucking up while we’re out there, so how about you let me take that leaf from your chest and we can all save ourselves the duty of informing your parents of your death.”

Jane barely felt the weight of the wooden leaf on her armored chest as she stared up into the unknown man’s eyes. She raised her voice loud enough for everyone on every other nearby bench to hear her, and said, “Anyone need to use the bathroom or go for a snack before I put this dude on the ground? Well too bad! We’re getting close to go-time!”

One pair of women on another nearby bench, called back, “We already got our snacks!”

The other woman of that pair held up some caramel apples.

… Caramel apples?! Where were they selling those? As Jane looked around, her eyes searching for the caramel apple vendor, she only found the candied nut and meat-stick vendors, and the eyes of people watching her confrontation with her newest friend.

The challenger spoke loud enough for the audience, as he practically yelled at Jane, “They won’t save you now! You picked up the leaf, you owe the Forest blood.”

Jane stared him straight in the eyes, saying, “And when I win, you owe me some caramel apples.” She called out to the pair of women, “Where’d you get those?”

“Down that street there, girl!”

Jane gestured the way the woman had pointed, saying to the man, and the man’s friend, “If you want to save yourself some embarrassment, you can have your little friend go get them apples now. I didn’t know they had caramel apples here.”

The other man with the challenger, who was slightly taller than the challenger, smiled, saying, “I want some apples.”

The challenger frowned at his friend, and with a theater voice, demanded “What is this betrayal?”

The friend whispered, “You don’t come to a Hunt without knowing your shit, and that goes triple for non-orcols. She’s gonna pound you good, mate.”

“Enough talk!” The challenger ignored his friend, and said to Jane, “I challenge you for the right to Hunt.”

“Accepted!” Jane loudly said, “Three offensive magics, three rises!” She quietly added, “I’m Jane.”

Loudly, the challenger said, “Accepted!” He softly added, “Kordon.”

Jane happily added, “Just so you know, I have [Greater Treat Wounds], so we’re gonna have some good fun.”

Chuckles and laughter erupted from almost everyone listening in to the conversation, but instead of paling like the last two guys, Kordon chuckled, too, looking like a tiger ready to devour a goat.

Oh. That was good.

Jane smiled, looking forward to the coming fight.

- - - -

Jane stood on one side of a 20 meter diameter flat circle of land, well outside of the challenging zone, but before the Forest began. Kordon stood on the other side. All around them were other dueling rings, where people fought for the right to Hunt, and most of the audience, who watched as people bled and fought on the hard-packed sand. All of the rings had been full when Jane and Kordon showed, but they only had to wait two minutes for a ring to open up. In that wait, the ringmaster for the current area welcomed Jane back to the battlefield, asked her to heal a few people if she could, which she did, and gave Kordon a pitying look.

Kordon didn’t like that.

Jane almost laughed as she stepped up to the line in the sand that was her starting point.

Kordon stepped up to his own line.

The announcer stepped between them, while people in the audience looked their way. More looked Jane’s way this time than the first three times she had done this, filling her with a happy feeling in her gut.

For just the two of them, the announcer said, “No lethal Skills or Spells.” Then he spoke for all who cared to hear, “In this ring, we have Jane on one side, and Kordon on the other. A usual fight with the usual limit of three offensive skills, and an end when someone gets up three times!” He stepped away. When he reached the edge, he shouted, “Begin!”

For the first time of the day, Jane’s opponent surprised her. Kordon activated an Elemental Body. That was her shtick! Jane couldn’t help but chuckle while the towering orcol began to flake apart, like falling, burning leaves.

Now a mass of burning ash vaguely in the shape of a four meter tall orcol, Kordon whispered, “I had heard that there was a human girl with a few different Elemental Bodies hanging around, looking to get her ass whooped. I hope I didn’t pick the wrong one.”

Jane shifted to shadow, happily saying, “You’re the first one I get to use Shadow against!”

The air burst with brilliant fire, crashing into Jane’s shadow form, turning her solid and dispersing the smaller shadows across the small battlefield. Ash rolled forward, turning brilliant. Hot. Radiant… Actually radiant, too, now that Jane had a second look. His Elemental Body wasn’t just Ash. He had a Lightform in there, too.

Ah. Maybe she shouldn’t have called out what form she was using.

Jane moved, shadowstepping, but only getting half as far as she expected.

Briefly, she thought back to her father’s words. She saw weakness in her own steps, and considered a Domain. If she had a [Shadow Domain], then Kordon’s little lightshow wouldn’t have done shit.

And then she got her head back in the game.

Superheated Ash, or maybe just Radiance, consumed the spot where Jane had once stood. Kordon rolled her way, barely needing a second to shift direction.

In any other scenario, Jane would have shifted elemental bodies. If this were a violent scenario, she would have gone for the kill with Water and Wind, while also turning on her Frost Owl’s [Freezing Aura], becoming a gale force sleet storm, to turn Kordon into a pile of frozen ash. But that would have harmed him a lot more than she was willing to harm. This was a fun-time feel-good duel. Not a duel to the death.

So Jane flicked a cast of [Shadoward] into the air. Ribbons of shadow scattered throughout the whole arena. Jane dove into those shadows. Kordon rolled through the battlefield, searching for Jane, sending radiant ash into the shadowed pathways, and yet accomplishing nothing. He wouldn’t find her that way, for Jane had already cast [Erase Presence]. That was her third offensive spell, and though it was likely that no one saw it, or understood that she had used up her allotment of abilities for the fight, she would know. Besides that, [Greater Shadowalk], [Shadoward], and [Erase Presence] were game-enders for any normal fight, for she had been practicing with her [Greater Shadowalk] ever since her father had shown her how to remake a few of the basic tier spells.

Jane emerged five meters behind Kordon’s flaming tumbleweed form.

Kordon [Blink]ed right on top of her. That was his second magic, then. He probably used something like [Hunter’s Instincts], too. He was rather very quick, after all.

But he had made a mistake. He landed on something that only looked like Jane. Kordon tore up one of Jane’s shadow clones, and Jane watched from the shadowed pathways in the air. She hadn’t been able to make [Shadow Clone]; not yet, anyway. But a bit of shadow in the shape of herself was a great distraction.

Jane barely poked out of the [Shadoward] in three different locations around the battlefield. From each one, she flexed her [Greater Shadowalk]. [Shadow Bolt]s peppered Kordon like splashes of dark water, breaking up the glows of his radiant tumbleweed form. With a second concentration, [Shadow Beam]s splashed against the man, carving ashy edges off of his body.

Kordon shifted again, this time back into something closer to his orcol form. Jane aimed her blue-grey beams at him for just a second, but he had expert Elemental Body control; he ‘dodged’ her beams by pulling his ashy self out of their way. Jane aimed her beams to the side; the guy was obviously done fighting. That’s why he stopped, right?

She dropped out of her [Shadoward] to the right of where Kordon was searching. “What’s happening here?”

“If you’re gonna cheat using more abilities, at least have the decency to make it less obvious.”

Some people in the gathered crowd boo’d the lack of blood on the arena flood. Others told Kordon to suck it up and let the human do what she wanted.

Wait.

‘Let the human do what she wanted’?

Jane zeroed in on the audience members who said that last thing. “What is that supposed to mean?!”

The guy in the audience shrugged. “It’s just for fun, anyway.”

“You think I’m cheating!” And now Jane was mad. She exclaimed, “I’ve only used three!” She tapped the shadowed pathways above her with a shadowy tendril. “One! [Shadoward]!” She extended her immaterial hands. “[Shadowalk].” And now that Kordon was staring right at her and his light was off, she shadowstepped to the right. Kordon briefly lost track of her. Jane said, “[Erase Presence].”

Kordon held out a few floating, ashy fingers, saying, “[Shadowbolt]. [Shadowbeam]. [Shadowstep]. [Hunter’s Instincts].”

Jane scoffed. “So we’re back to trash talking now, huh? Is my natural hunting so much that you have to call it a Skill?”

Kordon smiled rather meanly, saying, “If you want to go all out, we can take this into the Forest.”

The audience bemoaned, “Nooo!” and, “Aww!”

Jane held her hand to the side, saying, “Look. Dude. Just because you can’t do it, doesn’t mean other people can’t. Watch.” Jane concentrated on the shadowed pathways in the air, focusing her [Greater Shadowalk], concentrating on what she had learned. She hadn’t ever done this for an audience, but she had done it in practice a few times.

Her concentration clicked.

A dozen [Shadow Beam]s and a good fifty [Shadow Bolt]s descended from the shadowed air. Dust flew up, as a wash of Shadow Magic impacted hard dirt, making a noise like a sudden storm on a tin roof; there and gone. Jane cut her [Shadow Beam]s short; no need to let them go their full duration.

Jane watched as Kordon lost his smile, then said, “See? Just learn your Elemental Body better.” She waited for him to say something, and when he continued to stare with floating, ashy eyes, she turned to the audience. “Did you guys really think I was cheating this whole time?”

“It’s not a big deal.” “Yes.” “Well yeah.” “Yes.”

One man’s jaw dropped as his eyes bugged out at his fellow audience members. He shouted, “She didn’t cheat! Of all the ignorant—”

Everyone looked the man’s way.

The man stood up. He was a normal enough looking orcol man, maybe in his sixties, and wearing normal clothes. He said, “She lied about the three abilities she’s using, but if you ignorant children can’t figure out which one, then you don’t deserve to know.”

Jane could accept that. She gestured to the guy, saying, “Thank you!”

The man sat back down. Two other audience members instantly bothered him with questions, but he waved them off and went back to eating his caramel apple.

How had she not seen those apples until now? Did the store just open?

Jane turned back to Kordon. “Done whining?”

He frowned. He lost his frown. He went, “Huh.” And then he regarded Jane again, saying, “I guess I am. Apologies.”

Jane instantly unloaded a good two hundred [Shadow Bolts] at him.

“Apology accepted.”

Kordon’s ashy body went sailing out of the ring from the force of the condensed attack. When he landed, he rolled, his body turning from ash, to bleeding, bloody flesh. For the briefest of moments, he was conscious, and sitting on his ass. He glanced to Jane, said, “I deserved that,” and then his eyes rolled backward. He smacked the ground with a thud.

Jane was already at his side, casting [Greater Treat Wounds].

He didn’t get up till ten minutes later and under the care of the other healers on stand by, but by that time a different pair of would-be hunters were already in the ring, duking it out with fire and water, and in a much more normal way than Jane and Kordon had fought. Jane could have had that! If only some less excitable guy had challenged her— Wait. Where did Kordon go? She only looked away for a minute.

Ah. Whatever!

- - - -

Jane sat upon her bench, waiting for another challenger, but doubting that she’d get one. By now, word of her prowess had gotten around, and the few people who came her way all ended up veering off at the last minute, because they saw that everyone on the nearby benches were watching, and waiting. Some of the would-be new-friends even had the audacity to bow and call her ma’am, before finding someone else to fight!

Of all the chicken shit things to do!

“What the fuck.” Jane asked, “Why no more challengers?”

Teressa said, “There’s holding back for a fun duel, and then there’s being a punching rock.”

“Dammit all.” What was she gonna do now? She leaned over to Kiri, asking, “Got anything you want to do?”

“I’m already doing what I want to do with Sunny, out in the Forest.” Kiri spoke seriously, “That place is dangerous. Sunny’s already been popped a good ten times already.” The little ‘couatl’ on Kiri’s shoulders glittered green in response to her name. Kiri patted her, eliciting a minor riot of rainbow colors from the feathered snake.

Jane turned to her other side, to Teressa, asking, “How about you?”

“I’m already doing it, too.” Teressa said, “I’m [Scry]ing… I’m doing whatever. Don’t worry about me.”

For all her even tone, Jane could tell Teressa was hurting.

Jane asked no more; not wanting to get pulled into the slightly older woman’s tragedy. Sure, she could be there for her if Teressa asked, but she was not comfortable with putting herself out there like her father had when they first got to the hotel room. Even thinking back to what she overheard yesterday…

Jane cringed.

She knew it was silly. She knew Teressa had done right by her father, and therefore she should do right by Teressa. But Jane just couldn’t be that emotional kind of person. It wasn’t happening—

Kordon stepped into sight, looking contrite, with his tall friend at his side. But even better than knowing the guy was actually okay, was the fact that he had a bunch of caramel apples on sticks in one hand.

Jane whispered to herself, “Oh oh oh. What’s this?”

Kiri and Teressa whipped around to see what Jane was seeing.

Kordon and his friend walked toward Jane.

Jane smiled as he approached, saying, “You’re not dead of internal injuries somewhere, so that’s good!”

Kordon dispersed his subdued look, turning back into the hothead he was before, saying, “Of course not! I have healing spells too!”

Jane teased, “Are you sure you’re using them right? Don’t want to end up with accidental bones in your body, or an extra spleen.”

Kiri mumbled, “Honestly, Jane.”

Teressa smiled.

The very second he got close enough, Kordon shoved the caramel apples toward Jane, saying, “Here! As agreed!”

Teressa teased, “You should [Cleanse] those. He could be trying to poison you before a rematch.”

“I would never!” Kordon squeaked.

Kiri got into the spirit, saying, “You stopped the fight halfway through because of suspected cheating. Could just be a strategy.”

“That’s right!” Teressa added, “You’re still technically in your first fight because that was only one ‘down’ out of three.”

Jane laughed.

Kordon shoved the caramel apples at her, again. “You won, alright! Take your prize!”

Jane happily took the apples, saying, “Thank you very much, Kordon.”

Kordon instantly turned demure. Standing there wearing just a kilt and some boots and being three meters tall and with enough muscles to put human bodybuilders lessened the effect, a bit. But Jane was sure she saw the man blush. And then Kordon steeled himself, and asked, “Would you three ladies like to Hunt together, tonight? So far it’s just me and my friend Gweko here.”

Jane asked the other ‘ladies’, “I’m game if you two are.”

Kiri said, “I don’t want to actually hunt.”

“I’m going!” Teressa happily said, “Sounds great.”

Jane had been hoping that she could get Teressa to come out to the hunt, but until this moment, the woman had been waffling on actually joining the Celebration Hunt. Her newfound enthusiasm was welcomed, though. Jane might not have been willing to be there when the woman went to visit the graves of her family, but this? Jane could be there for this.

Jane happily said, “We two would love to go on a hunt with you two.” She flicked a [Cleanse] at the apples. Nothing happened, except Kordon frowned, and his friend, Gweko, laughed. Jane said, “So let’s have fun, okay!” as she handed the caramel apples out to Kiri, Teressa, and back to Kordon and his friend, saving one for herself, of course.

She bit into it—

Ohhh. She had been right! They looked good, and they were good.

Kiri spoke up, “But what’s happening until the hunt?”

Kordon’s friend said, “Beer?”

Jane agreed, “Beer.”

“Then this is where I sign off.” Kiri got up from the bench, saying, “I’m going back to the hotel room to take a nap. See you kids later!”

Teressa scoffed, “You’re the youngest one here.”

“Coulda fooled me!” Kiri said, walking away, waving her caramel apple as she went.

- - - -

Kiri tossed the caramel apple stick into the trashcan on the street corner, and then she paused. To the right was the road leading back to the Holy O’kabil. To the left…

She looked to the left, toward Arbor Redarrow. The massive tree loomed above a district of volcanic-rock buildings, looking like a copse of grey-barked trees, fifteen in all, with a shared canopy of red clouds, atop a land of black. It was quite an elegant sight, in Kiri’s mind, which was appropriate, since Redarrow’s District was home to the Old Dragonkin Expedition Center. The largest repository of ancient dragonkin knowledge anywhere on Veird.

It would also be appropriate to say that the ODEC was the largest repository of Old Dragonkin history anywhere in the known universe.

… And wasn’t that a thought. ‘In the known universe’. Wow.

Kiri sharpened a talon against a talon, absentmindedly, as her thoughts drifted.

And then she headed left, toward Redarrow’s District.

- - - -

Giant black buildings reminded Kiri of what she had seen of Candlepoint, and gave her ideas of what Candlepoint might look like if given a few undisturbed centuries to grow. But everything here was sized for orcols, and orcol-heritage dragonkin, like that son of Erick’s friend, Al… Savral! That was his name. That guy was huge. As Kiri looked around, she mentally added, ‘Not as big as these guys, though.’

Kiri didn’t know what she expected, walking into this district, but she certainly didn’t expect to continue to feel small.

… Maybe it was just nerves, making her feel small.

Ever since Erick had walked out of Ar’Kendrithyst, Kiri had felt odd. Half the time, she felt as though a weight she didn’t know she had been holding, was suddenly gone. The other half of the time she considered the Absolute Vacuum of the Void Beyond the Script, and wasn’t that just terrifying in a whole new way. The AV and the VBS were just sometimes-frights, though. There were many others beyond that one. Like the fact that every shadow on Veird contained Melemizargo. Or that without a Domain she could and likely would be crushed in an instant, considering what Erick got up to when he wasn’t changing how the world viewed magic.

The Holy O’kabil had just walked into Erick’s [Prismatic Ward], without a care. Now that was an interesting expression of a Domain’s power. And then there was the fact that the Holy O’kabil was able to project a body outside of her own body, which was interesting enough to make Kiri reevaluate what she knew about [Familiar]s and magic. As thoughts turned into more thoughts, and Kiri felt on the precipice of a descent into Underworld madness…

She found herself at the Old Dragonkin Expedition Center well before she was ready to walk in. So she sat down across the street at a public garden full of lights and smaller red trees to watch the crowd, and to think.

The ODEC was a primary part of Redarrow’s District, situated directly below the outer boughs of the Arbor’s main grove, and composing over half of the center buildings. The other half of those central buildings were private spaces which were blocked to the public, but which housed the people who worked here at the ODEC, and the people in charge of the Redarrow Tribe.

Chieftains? Was that what they had? Kiri couldn’t quite remember.

It was either Chieftains or Patriarchs (or Matriarchs), one of the two.

The Old Dragonkin Expedition Center was a massive edifice of black stone that looked as though it had been chipped out of obsidian, with hard edges everywhere and shiny surfaces between. Kiri knew that most of that was just lightward coloring and one-way glass, but the effect was beautiful to see. The main archway of the building led directly to the main museum, and Kiri wanted to go in, but then she saw the sign hanging over the door, and everything changed.

The time and tragedy of Ika-lan! A land of revived gods and nascent imperialism!

On loan from Tower Town.

Now on display in the traveling wing!

She didn’t want to go in.

Bad memories surfaced, and it was suddenly as though all the growth she had done as a person was laid low, and all her old hatreds resurfaced. She thought of the nobility of Tower Town, and the institutional bullying, and the boot on the neck of every dragonkin back home. How that one idiot shitstain of a noble’s son used to talk about how ‘all dragonkin are good for is wyrm food’. Kiri didn’t even want to think of his name, but it came to her anyway. Teddric Watfield.

Fuck that guy.

Fuck the Greensoil Republic, too.

And fuck her ancestors for dying and leaving this world a mess for all the dragonkin to come.

She was having irrational thoughts again. Her ‘ancestors’ were not the Old Dragonkin. Those assholes weren’t responsible for their own deaths. Kiri’s ‘ancestors’ were the bastard sons and daughters of dragons that couldn’t keep their dicks and cunts to themselves, after the Old Dragonkin were all dead.

Fucking dragons! Those ‘people’ are the real problem. They spawned children the world over, then left their ‘weak’ halfbreeds behind when they ‘couldn’t keep up’ with their fathers or mothers! It was their actions that forced their abandoned children to live like second class citizens the world over, because not only could they not keep their genitals in their pants, but they couldn’t keep from going to war with one another if they ever met another dragon on the street, either!

All the problems of dragonkin were connected. But one of the main one was that there was no ‘dragonkin country’ on Veird, for the only times anyone had tried to make one, it was out of the children of other nations, and those other nations always got involved to destroy those nascent dragonkin countries from the inside out, or through total war. The rest of the time those dragon parents came along, and then they met other dragons, and proceeded to do what dragons did: cause destruction.

Fucking city states dying to fucking terrible shit…

That was another problem!

Kiri was pissed at her parents and her family for staying in Odaali. They were helping those idiot humans retake their land, and rebuild their homes, but after everything was said and done, they might get a knighthood out of it, but some idiot human who was rebuild-adjacent would likely get blessed with a barony. Or better! It had happened before, it would happen again.

Kiri looked around her at all the orcols, and at all the dragonkin, and wondered if this place was any better. It wasn’t, she was sure. If it was, she would have heard of it. From what little she remembered from her self-studies, there wasn’t a damn place on this damn planet for damn dragonkin, except living under someone else’s damn rules.

Even when they had had their own home—

And it had been a nation unlike any other! The most technomagically advanced on Veird, with a [Gate] network, automatic [Grow]ing machines, the wealth and knowledge of an entire universe, and a hundred cities in the Forest, before all the monsters came! A billion dragonkin! All living in one nation! All working together, to bring Veird together!

—even when they had their own home at the beginning of the Script, it had been taken from them with the flip of a few switches; the Death of all Halves. An atrocity of the highest order, committed by the Old Demons in the early years of the Script, just because they wanted to harm the Angels.

Kiri was glad the Old Demons were long dead. More old immortals should join them in the grave. Kiri thought back to her small brushes with the radicals back when she was living in Tower Town. They had the right of it: Kill all godlings! Kill all immortals!

… There was always the caveat to leave the wrought alone, but that caveat was usually just understood. Those metal people stayed down below, doing nothing but staying out of everyone’s business, unless provoked. Course that never stopped the rumor mills from—

Kiri wrenched her thoughts back to the moment, trying to calm herself. She was getting worked up over nothing but a flapping sign about a traveling exhibit, and also that exhibit itself, of course... But...

She must have been thinking too loud, or looking too conspicuous. A greyscale woman, dressed about as good as anyone else on the street, was walking her way, coming from the vendor on that street corner, holding a bag of hot candied nuts like many others leaving that same vendor. The woman was little, just like Kiri. Maybe a bit smaller. An immigrant to this town, perhaps? The old woman wasn’t the only small dragonkin in the area, but the greyscale was the only one walking right at Kiri.

The old woman sat down on the bench next to Kiri, saying, “I see you staring, but not going in. Having deep thoughts instead of light action. Want to talk about it?”

Kiri thought for a moment. Then she jumped right in, asking, “Why even have this place if we can’t ever have our own home? Is it to torture the rest of us? The New Dragonkin?” She pointed at the hanging tapestry fluttering across the museum’s front, saying, “And now there’s an Ika-lan exhibit on loan from Tower Academy in there. That’s just more salt in the wound.”

The woman listened, then she silently offered Kiri the candied nuts. Kiri eyed the bag, then shook her head.

The woman casually asked, “What do you have against Ika-lan?” then popped a candied nut into her mouth.

Kiri instantly said, “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not in the mood for this.”

“I have a lot against that awful place, too.” As Kiri regarded her unwanted bench-neighbor, the old woman continued, “Mainly that they’d be so inept as to fall to mountain monsters.”

Kiri frowned. She couldn’t help herself. She said, “They fell to a lot more than that.”

“Oh?”

Kiri waved it off, saying, “It was half a millennium ago ago, though. So who really knows? The dragons? Pbthhh! Who would believe them?” She asked, “And who would believe historical records dug up by the very people who helped to cause Ika-lan’s downfall, anyway?”

“Every nation hunts each other,” the old woman said. “The human lands back then were no better than Hunters, in that regard, preying upon each other and going for the throat more often than not. The reforms of the Greensoil Republic were still a pair of centuries away. Which means...”

“Yes yes.” Kiri frowned, recalling her history, then said, “Ika-lan rose and fell well before the Greensoil Republic came along and the Greensoil Republic was not the fall of Ika-lan. But the Viridian King can link his bloodline all the way back to pre-Sundering, drawing a line through several different noble houses of the pre-Republic days, four of which took part in the destruction of Ika-lan, one of which was based in Tower Town. So to cut a long list of links short, forgive me if I don’t believe that the excavation of a former enemy state was done in any honorable or historically accurate manner.” Kiri let some of her real anger show, as she said, “I know the people of Tower Town, I was born and raised there, and even went to the Arcanaeum there. Anything that showed dragonkin in positions of power was always decried by the humans in power, in any way that they could.” She gazed up at the exhibition banner, saying, “Anything from there that has to do with us… I don’t trust it.”

“Those are all very salient points.” The old woman countered, “But have you actually been to the exhibit, yet?”

“…”

The old woman stood up, saying, “I have a season pass to the museum. I was going in for my usual stroll but then I saw you just staring at the place. Want to come with me? No charge for guests.” She added, “I’d love to hear your take on what we see.”

“… Yes.” Kiri stood, not quite knowing why she was going along with this old lady, but it was as good as doing anything else. So why not? She said, “I’m Kiri.” She held out her hand for a shake.

The old woman smiled, saying, “I’m Orta,” as she grasped Kiri’s hand with her own. “Nice to meet you.” She offered the candied nuts again. “Want some?”

This time, Kiri did.

- - - -

A large painting, seven meters across and three tall, hung in the front room of the first part of the exhibit. It was of the mountains that would become Ika-lan. Three mountains, lower than most of the surrounding mountains, and situated in the center of the Mondariska mountain range, Ika-lan had been a fertile land full of razorwings and gorge goats and poison trees and a hundred other monsters, as well as a temple to some then-forgotten god. It wouldn’t be till the first decade into Ika-lan that they would uncover the name of that forgotten god, rededicate the temple to Ikaronal, and formally change the growing city’s name from Kin Land to Ika-lan; the Land of Ikaronal. The change was done in a bid to get a guardian deity for the growing city.

It had worked. Partially. Ikaronal revived, barely. That act was enough to shift the future of the land from that of a struggling city, barely able to survive in the mountains (next to what would eventually become the Greensoil Republic), into a threat.

“Bah!” Orta softly decried, “A threat? You can’t dumb down Ikaronal’s revivification that much and still be right.”

“How was Ika-lan not a threat?” Kiri asked, dumbfounded on how her analysis could have been wrong. “All the scholars agree that Ikaronal’s revivification was a threat to their neighbors.”

“I’m not disagreeing with you on the fact that Ikaronal’s revival was an act of war. Gods seek power, and though some are better about it than others, Ikaronal was not.” Orta said, “But the people of that city could have changed Ikaronal. They could have done any number of things to hone their imperialistic godling into embarking upon a conquest of the mountains. Or a conquest of the Forest, as the Orcols have done, though we could do better in that regard, if you ask me. Or maybe Ikaronal could have gone on a conquest of magic, as the Old Dragonkin had done, before their untimely demise at the hand of the Old Demons. But they let Ikaronal run rampant over their society. They became imperialists, for that was the easy way out; that was how Ikaronal was able to grant them so much more power than they should otherwise have had.”

“… I meant all that.”

“Maybe you did.” Orta said, “But a small story might as well be another type of lie.”

“Eh. I hit the important parts.”

Orta did not seem to agree.

- - - -

A whole room was dedicated to the small artifacts of normal, Script-assisted make, as was the norm for almost all new cities. The ones of pre-Ika-lan were made for people with claws, though. They didn’t have all those flat, soft surfaces that the utensils of other races had. If a human picked up that wine glass there, they would have cut themselves.

- - - -

The painting now was of the three mountains, but the surrounding mountains had been carved up, too. Farmland checkered the valleys, while gold-colored buildings rose up upon each peak, each decorated with the motif of the sun, for Ikaronal was a sun god. But beyond that, it was all basic architecture.

Orta said, “The middle-period of Ika-lan was rather normal for any imperialistic culture. The laws in the beginning were enough to hold off the terrible parts of society, and they hadn’t yet truly started up their war machines. They had conquered the nearby mountains, though.”

Kiri said, “They were also pushing into the Crystal Forest. They cut a line of walls from the edge of the Eastern Jut, northwest, all the way to the Mondariska Mountains, and then began a full-scale invasion of the Crystal Mimics. This was the start of their imperialism.”

“The infantry needed levels and the hierarchy needed to hone themselves against a so-called ‘easy enemy’. What better way to learn how to fight than by trying to cull the uncullable Crystals?” Orta said, “It was a small enough spot of land, too. Only 150,000 square kilometers.”

“And they succeeded.” Kiri said, “One of the only incursions into the Crystal Forest that actually managed to get somewhere.”

Orta smiled as she gazed upon the painting. She said, “It’s not widely believed, but I think there were humans and incani and all the rest inside Ika-lan.”

Kiri looked at Orta like she was crazy. “But all the historical records…?”

“And everyone has mothers and fathers that weren’t dragonkin.” Orta said, “There had to be other races inside that supposedly ‘dragonkin only empire’.”

- - - -

Cups with sun motifs, of both the stone variety, and the porcelain variety, were present in this next room. The chairs were luxurious things that could have been in any high-class place anywhere in the modern-day world, except for the sun motifs on them. Those sun motifs were the mark of Ika-lan, and they had never been popular in dragonkin culture, if there could even be called a ‘dragonkin culture’, ever since Ika-lan ended how it did.

“We have a culture.” Orta frowned, saying, “It just comes from everyone else, and gets remade in our own ways. We’re very cosmopolitan in that way.” She asked, “And do you see the sharp edges of the cups and plates are gone? Not just talons gripping these dishes, no way!”

“That’s a weak argument for the other races being a part of Ika-lan, and… I don’t consider ‘cosmopolitan’ to be a culture. Where I’m from, dragonkin aspire to be knights to work and die under the human nobility. I don’t like it, but that’s a culture. What about you, and the orcols? Is it much different here?”

“Why yes!” Orta’s eyes went wide. “You need to get out of that place, Kiri, and you need to force your family to move, too. Treehome is wonderful, but unless you want to marry into the Tribe, you can’t live here. But you’re smart enough…” Orta offered, “I have a grandson about your age—”

Kiri couldn’t help but laugh. “No!”

Orta shrugged. “No flesh off my bones. You’re probably too good for Grosh, but you should move, anyway. I’ve heard good things about Vindin. Have you ever been there? I’d recommend Spur, but who knows what’s going to happen now that the Shades are dead.”

“… Yeah. I don’t really want to think about the Shades right now. I’ve been thinking about them non-stop for a while now.”

Orta nodded, and let the topic drop.

Kiri’s eyes washed over the sun-crested swords, cannons, and other weapons, as she and Orta continued onto the next room.

- - - -

A hallway led to the final exhibition room. On one side, the painting of Ika-lan showed that the three-mountain city had become a metropolis. But the sun was setting in the background. This was right before the fall, at the height of Ika-lan’s power.

On the other side of the hallway, was the painting of Ika-lan’s End.

The city was overrun by a horde of beasts, while dragons fought in the background; one red, another white, the last one silver. Flames scorched the farms. Bodies piled in red rivers. An invading army picked off the stragglers while setting fire to everything that wasn’t already burning.

Kiri said, “It took a hundred years, but they killed Ika-lan for reaching too far, for trying to make a home.”

“And for threatening to make war upon the green lands.” Orta said, “They were not without fault, Kiri.”

“You really believe that?” Kiri said, “It wasn’t five years later that these very same invaders would break the wall that Ika-lan had built between the Eastern Jut and the Mondariska Wall, in order to genocide the last remnants of Ika-lan, hiding out in that desolate spit of desert they were halfway to reviving. They did that in order to kill a people who were already beaten.”

“Some would say they did that to stop an enemy who was not willing to let a 90% cull end them.”

“Even if that were the case…” Kiri didn’t know where she was going with that, so she said, “Whatever. The world would have been better off if Ika-lan had been the winner.” Kiri pointed to the dragons hovering above the painting. “But everything was arrayed against it.” She gestured to the army, then the monsters, pointing to a specific monster in particular. It looked like a Moon Reacher, all long limbed and soft central body, but done up in gold. “The Shades made that monster there, the Sun Eater, just to fuck over Ika-lan. If this place would have survived, maybe Ar’Kendrithyst would have been killed well before now.”

Orta glanced from the painting to Kiri, saying, “I don’t think you understand enough about Melemizargo’s Clergy to say that. I heard they only died because their God told them to die. If all it took was an empire to end them, they would have been destroyed long before now.”

“… Maybe so.” Kiri looked to the last room, and saw the treasures of Ika-lan, but no guards. Fake treasures, then. “Let’s see what’s left of what could have been.”

Orta walked on, beside Kiri, commenting, “This never would have been. Ikaronal was much too much of an imperial to allow other societies to flourish. I still maintain that his infectious desire to enslave and control killed Ika-lan just as much as outside forces.” She added, “Just look at what happened with the Shades. Same story there, surprisingly. I never would have guessed they would have died to their own hubris.”

Kiri hummed, seeing the parallel, but not willing to concede the point, because, “Ikaronal stood by his people till the end, didn’t he? Therefore the parallel is not the same.”

“Mm.” Orta said, “That much is true.”

Kiri couldn’t help but walk up to the main part of this last room.

It was a giant, gold-colored statue of Ikaronal, as a dragonkin, at least five meters from foot to face. Behind him was the sun, his hands gripped two swords, one in each hand, for there was no greater defense than a good offense. He would have been magnificent, except for the eleven iron spears that had been driven into and through the metallic body, each splashing away yellow metal. It was a symbolic killing of the god, for each of those spears belonged to one of the people who allied against Ika-lan.

Ikaronal’s face was partially destroyed. His arms hung on by the barest bits of ‘gold’. One leg was gone, three spears having blown all of it away except for the lonely foot still clinging to the pedestal. That foot also had a spear driven through it.

Kiri said, “The conquerors killed him, but the Sun Eaters made sure he stayed dead.”

Orta asked, “What do you think happens to gods when they die?”

“You’re asking me?”

“Sure. Why not?” Orta studied Ikaronal, saying, “You’re here, and it’s not often that I have a notion to ask this question… of anyone. It’s an odd question, isn’t it? How does an idea die? You and I are here, and we are talking about Ikaronal—” She pointed at the Revivification of Ikaronal hanging on the wall to the side. It was a beaten-gold scroll inscribed with the Holy Rite of the Sun, which was purported to have been the ritual that the people of Ika-lan used to worship and eventually revive their patron deity. “And that’s written in Ancient Script. We could perform the Rite, right now, and it would theoretically give power back to him. If enough of us do it, maybe he could try building an empire again, but with a different set of dragonkin who have the benefit of history behind them.”

Kiri would have laughed, if it weren’t so sad. “This exhibition hasn’t changed much since the last time I saw it when I was fifteen, and when I was fifteen, I tried that Rite for a summer, along with a few brothers and sisters.” She waved off the Revivification of Ikaronal, saying, “That’s why I came in here saying it was all propaganda. If all it took were the right words and the right stances and incense, then Ikaronal would be alive again today, because I know for a fact that I wasn’t the only stupid kid doing that Rite, every morning, praying for a way out of the hell I was born into.”

“There are always ways out of hell.” Orta said, “But not all of them are in the light.”

Orta smiled softly, and flashed her white eyes at Kiri.

Her fully white eyes.

Ah. She was a Shade.

Shit. Kiri had known that this might happen to her. She should have stayed with Jane and Teressa.

Ah. Shit.

Kiri’s world turned tiny, as her heart beat hard, and a spotlight shone down on just her, and a person who was certainly not ‘Orta’.

She blinked, and the Shade pulled a kendrithyst staff out of the air. Her scales fell away, revealing human skin, and frizzy, white hair.

Fallopolis said, “You’re right that the Rite on that wall is propaganda, as is much of this entire exhibit. These sorts of things often are. But the real Rite would work, if My God ever released Ikaronal. We did make the Sun Eaters, after all.” She smiled. “But maaaaybe he’s looking for someone he can entrust with divinity, and Empire. The right person could gain a lot, for both themselves and for a lot of people. But who is the right person? Someone who wants something bad enough to go out and take it, for sure. Someone smart, of course. Someone clever, too, for brains are nothing without wisdom. But most of all, someone in the right place, at the right time.” The Shade spoke a deadly demand, “Tell me, Kiri. Are you in the right place at the right time?”

“I am not.”

The words left her throat and bubbled out her mouth before she could form a coherent thought, but as her impetuous answer hung in the air, a darker thought came forth.

Kiri successfully managed to strangle that thought before it could make itself known.

Fallopolis frowned in disappointment. “A pity.” She added, “Tell Erick that we’re all doing fine, though Treant is likely going to stir up some shit in Treehome before he takes the next step of his Worldly Path.” She shrugged. “Or don’t tell him, and just think for a while. Melemizargo can disable the mental reading of this conversation, if you wish.”

Kiri instantly said, “I do not wish.”

“… A pity.” Then I guess it’s a temporary memory wipe for you.” Fallopolis apologized, “I truly hate messing with autonomy, but needs must, and all that shit. For what it’s worth, I enjoyed our little chat. Erick certainly did luck out with you. What are you, like 19?”

Kiri didn’t get to answer. Not that she wanted to, anyway.

- - - -

Kiri walked out of the Ika-lan exhibition, steaming mad and hating her circumstances even more. She had almost forgotten about that stupid Holy Rite of the Sun, but then she saw that beaten gold scroll on the wall, and the sudden memory of praising the sun with her siblings was like an assault on her mind. She vividly recalled getting her butt tanned by her father over being ‘too uppity for your own good’ and ‘don’t you let the nobles see you doing that!’. Fury at the past wrapped around Kiri like an old, nasty blanket, too comfortable to throw away, too far gone to be [Mend]ed whole, and too much loved to be burned to ash like it deserved.

Why did she go into that stupid museum?

Why did she come to this stupid ‘dragonkin district’? It was all just another ploy to keep her people as second class citizens. At least the orcols were better about it than the humans. You could probably marry into the Redarrow tribe, at least.

Ahhh… Kiri liked Spur, anyway. It was better than most places the world over, even if it was run by an immortal. Silverite wasn’t so bad. There were no odd racial laws under her watch, aside from every race having their own districts, and that was a normal enough situation the world over. Killzone was a nice commander to have, too.

And as soon as Kiri unlocked and accepted Particle Mage as her Class, more doors would open up for her.

Turning the Crystal Forest into an actual forest.

Piloting ‘space ships’ to new worlds.

Making her own town! Kiri could do it, too, if she had [Call Lightning]. Then she could make [Exalted Rain], and change her fate, and the fates of many others. All it took was being in the right place, at the right time. And the right time was certainly coming, soon enough.

Kiri headed back to the hotel, trying to think better thoughts.

- - - -

The sun set over the Forest.

Celebration fires reached high into the air, lit upon bonfires stacked twenty meters high.

The drums played a thrumming beat that pounded into Teressa’s heart with the sound of a world ending and beginning, all at once. Her grey armor clung to her chest and around her waist; a binder to keep mounds of flesh in place, and a kilt as was appropriate. No boots; this was a Forest Hunt, after all. Her hands were free to do as they needed to do. Her mind was free, so she could do what needed to be done.

Setting aside her worries had taken more effort than she would have liked, but she had drunk deep of the Celebration Wine, and all thoughts paled in comparison to what would come. There was no tragedy. There was no pain. There was no dead family. There was only the Hunt, and she was the huntress. She, and her three companions. Would have been four, but Kiri had elected not to Hunt, and that was probably for the best.

But Jane practically vibrated in her own conjured armor, her bloodlust another flavor to the air, her presence welcomed by the other hunters all around. She was the smallest one of the horde, though, so Teressa silently vowed to watch out for her, if only a little. Jane could take care of herself, but if Erick found out that Jane got hurt while she was out here with his daughter and she hadn’t thought to watch out for Jane...

Teressa shook her head, dissipating those awful thoughts.

The drummers drummed their final notes. Arbor Steel-Branch crackled high above, blue lightning discharging between metallic branches. The night seemed to pause.

And then!

Thunder rolled, a final boom, followed instantly by whooping and roaring and running.

And then a mad dash into the dark treeline. A hundred pairs of feet pounded on loam, which soon became the sound of nothing but the wind as every single person of the group activated [Hunter’s Instincts]. Five minutes passed in silence. Five, too-short minutes. Teressa reveled in the feeling of a proper hunt, but the sound of some animal sliced in half and dying on the northern flank put her back in the bloody moment. The brief run had covered five kilometers already; they had passed the edge of the Steel-Branch’s protection two kilometers ago. Monsters started showing.

As their squad leader, Jane opened a telepathic connection to the four of them. Silently, Teressa knew the locations of her people better than just ‘Jane was at her left’, ‘Kordon was on the right’, and ‘Kordon’s friend Gweko was further right’.

In the deep Forest, where the moons were barely visible crescents and the knifing light that filtered down through the canopy was barely enough to see anything at all, the full hunting party began to split. The goal was to kill any threat they came across, and Teressa was thrilled with that clear-cut purpose.

Ten minutes in, their team found their first monster. It was a prowler beast; a chimera of cat and frog and snake. Teressa was closest. She summoned a grey-steel mallet that would only ever be picked up once, and slammed it down atop the monster, caving in the beast and lodging her mallet deep into the tree the monster had failed to hide against. Blood splattered, like red rain across the hunting party, and the run continued. Behind them, the mallet dissipated. In a week, that damaged tree would have repaired itself, or been replaced by some stronger greenery of the Forest. It was monster-eat-monster out here, and that included the plants.

They all took part in slaying the next monsters; a group of wild silk spiders that was twenty kilometers into their run. It was their first real effort. And yet, it only took ten seconds to kill them all. Korgon laughed as he turned the nest into ash. Jane smiled as she sliced apart the barely-queen spider. It was a young one, but it had to have moved into the area just this day, since there was no way that the Celebration Hunt yesterday would have missed these spiders.

The monsters and the monstrous trees would move in and regrow, as they always did, but it was still necessary to kill the worst of them whenever they showed. With that thought holding up her world, Teressa laughed as Jane ran on, and the rest of them followed their fearless, tiny leader. They would all be covered by blood and monster guts well before the night was through.

And that was a good thing.

- - - -

Erick sipped tea while he watched his daughter and Teressa and their two new friends rush through the Forest, killing monsters. Well. ‘Watched’ was perhaps not correct. He had an Ophiel throw up a [Cascade Imaging] far out in the Forest, then switched the search as necessary from Jane, to Teressa. Jane sometimes vanished into shadows and also from the map, but Teressa was always on the map.

He also searched out ‘rads’ and ‘grand rads’. Their hunting party was headed straight for a trio of ‘grand rad’ monsters, and Erick might have Ophiel move in closer, but he knew he shouldn’t. That trio of grand rad monsters were just some large frogs. Large, toothy monsters, with very long, grabbing tongues, but…

Jane was FINE. Teressa was FINE.

Stop hovering, Erick told himself.

He had searched out ‘Moon Reacher’ and ‘Wyrm’, though, and after a quick check in with O’kabil, he ended those threats before they could become much of a danger to anyone in any of the hunts on this night. Jane and Teressa’s Celebration Hunt was only one of a thousand Hunts going on all around Treehome, and while a good ten-thousand monsters would fall to the raging horde, no one wanted the more dangerous monsters to upset anyone’s lives.

Erick allowed himself this much hovering.

O’kabil, in her aristocrat-ish orcol form, frowned, as she spoke from her seat beside Erick, “I did not imagine that we had Moon Reachers that close to the city.”

Erick sipped his tea, savoring the flavor of Soul Palm Balm, then said, “Want me to scan all of the Forest for them? If you have some agents up to the task, we could exterminate them tonight.”

“… Though I want to say ‘yes’, I am hesitant, for though the Moon Reachers are a terrible monster, they also kill other terrible monsters, and removing predators from an ecosystem can cause vast and unknown harm.” O’kabil paused. She thought, then she said, “I and my fellow Arbors will consider your offer and give you an answer in a day, after we have had a chance to speak to experts in the field that might offer useful perspectives. I suspect that our answer will be ‘yes’.”

Erick admitted, “It would likely take several days to find and cull them all, anyway, and my daughter would want to be involved.”

O’kabil sat straight, her eyes falling upon Erick like a merchant deciding whether or not to buy the offered goods. Erick sipped his tea, and waited for her to speak.

Eventually, she asked, “How much will this service cost us?”

“Room and board for a week.”

O’kabil narrowed her eyes. “Again, you ask too little. Do you not value yourself? Or do you think us paupers?”

“Oh please.” Erick mocked her expression with one of his own that was decidedly more sarcastic. “I want them dead, too. If they’re gone, then that would make the Forest that much easier to explore when I decide to get out there and find those old Gates.”

“If you think Moon Reachers are one of the more dangerous monsters out there, then you are in for a dangerous awaking.” O’kabil said, “There’s Twisted Visions. Deathsoul shrooms. Dragons.”

Erick shrugged. “I can’t solve all the problems in the world, but I can help to solve some of them.” Again, Erick considered a particular magic that he first thought of back during Shadow’s Feast. Again, he banished that thought without giving it much thought, saying, “And I shouldn’t solve all the problems in this world, either. No one person should, for that is nothing short of tyranny.” He added, “I won’t be going forward with this Moon Reacher extermination unless you, the beings in charge around here and the people you work with, decide to move forward. And if you want to kill all the Deathsoul Shrooms instead, I would need some help with that. I never heard of those monsters.”

O’kabil looked away, turning to face the windows, to watch the night and the northern Forest. She said, “You have no problem with eradicating a whole species, do you.”

Erick almost exploded in anger at the implication of her words. And then he calmed, before he spoke words he did not want to speak. He considered another direction. He asked, “Would you eradicate a particular parasite, if you could? Snap your fingers; destroy a plague.”

O’kabil didn’t speak. She certainly looked to be thinking, though.

Erick sipped his tea, feeling something inside of him slip back together with each sip. Soon, he finished his second cup of the day of soul healing tea. Syllea had given him enough for ten days, which should be more than enough. His first one had gone down smooth and his resulting nap had been wonderful. But he wasn’t tired, now. He was ready to relax even more! He reached over and opened a small wooden box; another gift from Syllea. He pulled out a blueweed blunt, lit the end, and took a puff.

He held the blunt out to O’kabil.

She easily took the blunt, and this time, she didn’t inhale the whole thing in seconds. She just took an easy drag, then handed the blunt back to Erick.

Erick took a drag.

O’kabil blew out a small cloud of blue smoke, and said, “Your earlier words have merit, but I would not personally snap my fingers and kill a parasite the world over. I would instead put that power into the hands of a committee of individuals concerned with many different and acceptable goals.”

Erick nodded. “Would you accept a partial vote for eradication?”

“No.” O’kabil said, “A full consensus would be needed.”

“Then the Moon Reachers probably won’t be eradicated by this time next week.”

“… Probably not.”

They passed the cigarette between them both, while Erick watched Jane and Teressa from afar, and O’kabil did the same for her own people.

- - - -

“Oh yeah!” Erick jokingly asked, “Where’s my Mist Rabbit comforter?”

O’kabil slowly turned to him. “It’s not here?” With a glance around, she answered her own question. “It’s not here.” She looked away, blue smoke trailing from her lips as she crushed the roach of the last blunt in her fingers, turning it to thick air. “The crafters are sleeping at the moment. I’ll figure something out tomorrow.”

Erick smiled, saying, “I’m just teasing.”

“Even if you are, you should have had the agreed upon exchange paid in full hours ago.”

Erick lit a second blunt and handed it to her, saying, “Want something to drink?”

O’kabil took the blunt, saying, “This body needs no sustenance.”

“I’m gonna make myself a drink, then.”