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The Palace of the Eternal Court was as ostentatious on the inside as it was on the outside. Massive hallways. Vaulted ceilings. White and gold everywhere. One addition made this place different from the rest of the capital city of Holorulo; stone statues of people here and there in the hallways that were not what they appeared to be.

Erick didn’t see the statues himself, for he was in a side hallway following Ari and her guards to some location upstairs. Those ‘sculptures’ were on display for the public, over in the main hallway and in those side hallways, where people waited in line for numbers to then wait in chairs to eventually talk to people behind counters.

They were not simple stone statues, though.

The insides contained gold-gilded bones, while the outsides were white stone. Almost all of them had plaques nearby. Erick could barely read some of those plaques, for reading through mana sense was a little difficult, but he noticed High Clan names on most of them, and lists of deeds under those names. In death, each ‘grave’ held symbols of what the interred person did in life. Some had scrolls in their hands, or weapons, or flourishes of magic hinted at through wardlight sculptures.

As the public passed those dead people, some stopped to read what was written, others continued onward to do what they came here to do. Erick noticed that a great many of the visitors carried urns with them. Looking inside those urns, he saw skulls nestled into powdered bone.

Those urns were in use all around Erick, in smallish rooms located all over the Palace of the Eternal Court. Erick glanced to the nearest room, since the ceremony was starting. He also glanced to Teressa, who, wide-eyed, likely saw a lot more around her than he did.

A family of three stood to the side of the room, each person wearing their best clothing. An altar stood before them. A summoner stood behind the altar, wearing robes that draped across the ground like a dozen perfectly placed tendrils. It was ceremonial garb, for sure.

Upon the altar, was their urn.

The summoner twisted magic around the altar, pouring power into the urn as the family watched. The urn’s cap came off then gently sat to the side. A white skull floated up from within, followed by a trail of bone dust. The dust gently drifted into the air in front of the family, in the center of the room, directly above an inlaid design of gold and Ancient Script, followed by the skull which floated to head-height. Dust became a flickering green substance. The skull turned bright under the ministrations of the summoner.

In a flashing moment, a translucent green person stood where the skull and dust had floated, standing atop the Ancient Script runes. They wore a simple tunic and pants. In other rooms, other spirits wore expensive robes. Some wore armor. Some wore cheap robes.

And then, in that room, just like in all the other summoning rooms all around the Palace of the Eternal Court, the family started talking to their deceased. None of the living touched the dead. None of the dead touched the living. No one crossed the circular barrier in the floor, made of Ancient Script and gold.

But that wasn’t the only outcome of a summoning.

In some rooms, the summoning failed.

In some rooms, the summoning went wrong, and the summoner had to banish the spirit before it attacked either the summoner, or the people requesting the summon.

In some rooms, tears flowed from the living and the dead.

In some rooms, the living and the dead argued and railed against each other. Sometimes, arbiters came in to adjudicate whatever mess was happening. Sometimes, the arbiters were already there, on site, for the living knew in advance that there would be troubles.

Erick followed Ari for five minutes, watching the world around him, and also Ari, but mostly the world around him.

Ari’s voice brought Erick back to the moment, “We are here, Archmage Flatt.”

And they were.

They stood before a pair of ornate, double doors that were already under guard.

The guards opened the doors, and Erick followed Ari inside. Their people followed close behind, but every one of them stuck to the back of the room while Erick and Ari walked forward.

The room was larger than most, but contained all the trappings that existed in all the other summoning rooms, everywhere else in the Palace. The altar was bigger, though, like a full stone table, and the Ancient Script barrier to contain summoned spirits was on that table; not in the center of the room.

A spirit had already been summoned, too.

The translucent red spirit floated in a fetal position, above the ornate altar. Erick ignored the spirit for a moment.

Erick was able to tell that the formations on the altar were much different than the smaller binding zones in the other rooms. The altar was crisscrossed with gold and designs and words that Erick had never seen before. Only some of the designs were written in Ancient Script. There were the words for ‘Summon’ and ‘Recreate’ and ‘Stasis’ and ‘Clarity of Thought’ and ‘Clarity of Soul’, and a hundred or more other small instructions. There was no ‘Clarity of Body’ or ‘Clarity of Aura’, which would seem necessary for a true [Resurrection], but then again they weren’t trying for [Resurrection]. This space was merely for questioning the dead, and then letting them go.

But they wouldn’t be letting this red spirit go. Raidu was destined for other Ends.

Scion Raidu Terror Peaks wore the garb of a ruler, with a ceremonial robe giving him flared shoulders, trailing sleeves, and a long skirt that all curled up as though he was inside a gentle vortex as he floated there, ethereal and dead.

There was another person in the room, too. A few, actually.

Hangzi stood to the side, with his own pair of guards standing behind him. He looked resolute, and ready to move on. He also looked somehow stronger than the last time Erick had seen him.

Erick turned to the Patriarch of Devouring Nightmare, and said, “Greetings, Patriarch Hangzi Devouring Nightmare. I did not expect to see you here, but I can imagine that you wish to get this over with as soon as possible.” He asked, “How is Warzi doing?”

Hangzi breathed, then said, “When I was informed that you would be questioning him today, I made the time; Yes, I wish to put this dread affair into the past.” He added, “Warzi is doing better. The loss of Yorza has been difficult for him, as it has been for us all, but he is a strong boy, and he will be stronger in the future.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Erick turned to the floating form of Raidu, saying, “Elder Arilitilo has given me a good overview of the questions and answers Raidu has already provided, but I had hoped to get the full notes before we started the actual questioning. But this room is empty.” He asked Ari and Hangzi, “Where are those notes?”

Hangzi lifted his head, then turned to one of his guards. The guard stepped away in a flash of black, as Hangzi turned back to Erick, saying, “They are not kept on site, but they will be here momentarily.”

Ari stepped to the side, toward Raidu, as she spoke to Erick, “Since you will be reading, would you like to adjourn to a side room? Tea is available.” She gestured to a side door.

Beyond was a simple room; likely a place to talk without being in the presence of the contained spirit.

“That would be acceptable,” Erick said.

Hangzi had a disagreeable look for a moment, then he banished that look, and took the lead, saying, “We have hours of discourse with the man. Allow me to answer whatever questions you have while you read, but do not overtax our time. I wish this man gone from this reality, forthwith.”

“Agreeable.” Erick said, “So you know, I am not opposed to whatever ruling you pull, here, but I have heard that soul sundering is a fate worse than death.”

The unspoken question was, did Hangzi want that on his conscience?

“It is what he deserves for sending so many of our people to their deaths.”

Ah. Okay then.

Like.

If anyone deserved a sundering, Raidu probably did.

Erick let Hangzi’s desire remain unchallenged, as Hangzi’s guard blipped back into the hallway beyond the double doors, then walked in with a folder-full of papers. Hangzi took them from his man, and handed them to Erick.

Soon, Erick was inside the side room and drinking tea as he read, alone, and Hangzi remained in the summoning room with Raidu, glaring at the sleeping spirit. It wasn’t an unproductive time for the boy-Patriarch, either; he merely spoke to others outside the space through [Telepathy].

Erick could have gotten these notes earlier, but he was always planning on getting these notes while Raidu was in the other room. He needed to get in the right headspace for talking to the spirit, and these notes were going to be how he got there. It wasn’t his fault that Hangzi chose to be here when he hadn’t been invited.

Erick had a passing thought, wondering how he would have gotten these notes if Hangzi hadn’t been here. That might have been awkward for someone, somewhere. Good thing that didn’t happen.

… Erick wouldn’t make the man wait overlong.

So Erick read about questions and answers and half answers, trying to understand, for himself, the reasons for the war with Terror Peaks, and for the shift from normal warfare, to terrorism and civilian killing.

Reading Raidu’s answers was a bit maddening, for the reasons for war was a line of simple causality.

It started with overpopulation, over twenty years in the making, and worsening.

Overpopulation was a particularly disastrous event for Patriarch Xangu, because for the last five years he had been losing absolute political power to the Pacifist Faction. That faction wanted to concentrate on war with the monsters, only, while Xangu rose to power by being ruthless with nearby warlord clans, chasing them away and securing the safety of Terror Peaks. But without the problem of those warlord clans, pacifism started to look rather nice to the population. Who wanted to fight with other people when there were monsters to kill? There was even talk of allying with Songli once again.

And so, Xangu had all of the pacifists killed in a small-scale purge he had instituted five months ago.

From there, things spiraled out of control for dozens of different reasons, not the least of which was that Xangu had been found out by many, and so, Xangu needed a scapegoat.

But then a miracle occurred.

Ar’Kendrithyst fell to Erick, in the Last Shadow’s Feast.

Xangu and Raidu and all of the Main House were poised for a massive, sweeping change to come across the world, and so they capitalized on the fervor of the people. As everyone was wondering what would happen, Xangu directed the narrative toward there being some massive Wizard/Melemizargo/Shade plot, unfolding across the world. A war would be the perfect reason to kill off all of the opposition, and make the Main House strong again, so they worked toward that goal.

With that, Raidu helped his father to talk to friendly, nearby clans, to formulate responses in case of large-scale problems.

When the Converter Angel’s taint was uncovered, much of Terror Peak’s base solidified. There would be a war now; it was only a matter of when, and against who.

When Erick purged the Forest of two ancient monsters, and looked to be able to purge the world of more, the narrative shifted hard against Xangu. Xangu was on the verge of losing his legitimacy. So Raidu had to assassinate a few opposition leaders to keep in power, which he did.

When Goldie, the Shade of Assassination, started leaving notes on people’s pillows, it was another indication that war was coming. A war that the Main House would win. A war to end all wars.

When news of Songli’s anti-antirhine treatment broke, it fit the narrative of war, and of Shade plots.

And then Erick appeared on Songli’s side.

Peace was never an option.

Those were the major points and the minor points, strung together into a whole that Erick had not seen written down until this moment, and that Ari had not told him when they spoke around this topic. Erick didn’t blame Ari for that; she likely didn’t want to be the one to tell him all of this shit.

He felt a pit in his stomach as he read, as he saw how the last year played out for Terror Peaks.

He moved on.

Erick read more on the soul spear, but Raidu hadn’t been involved in that, so there wasn’t much. All he knew was that one day, Warchanter Farloa, their Elder of Enchantments, acquired the soul spears from an unknown source. Farloa was the name of the woman who had appeared on Patriarch Xangu’s side, when he gave his declaration on those [Viewing Screen]s that appeared over the bombed temples of Koyabez. Farloa had been responsible for those destructions, as well as the [Gate] attack on the Alluvial District. She was the one who cast those [Gate]s, and who created the bombs to push through those [Gate]s.

Farloa was dead; killed in action in the breach of Terror Peaks’ enchanting houses.

Erick had killed her with a [Luminous Beam]. He remembered doing that. He remembered all the people he had erased from the wor—

Erick’s mind recoiled like he had touched a hot burner on a stove.

After a moment...

He moved on.

All of the questions about angelic interference were in the back of the reading. About twenty four pages had been filled with text about angelic and demonic presences inside Terror Peaks, spanning much of the last year, but going further than that, to twenty years ago.

And there was nothing in any of that reading aside from Raidu leading the charge against this angelic force or that demonic force, cleaving the Quiet War in twain before it had a chance to erupt in Terror Peaks’ backyard. Terror Peaks wanted a war, but they did not want to get involved in the Forever War.

Erick closed the folder. He had spent twenty minutes reading.

This had been more than enough time for another person to show for Raidu’s final questioning and execution. A red incani waited in the room beyond, wearing white robes but looking more like a mercenary than a diplomat, because that’s what she was.

Erick left the side room and stepped back into the main room, greeting the newcomer, “Hello again, Tyli.”

Tyli was an Elite who worked for the Headmaster. She had also come to Spur to help with the Messalina problem, and before that, she guarded Erick’s house when it seemed like something was going to happen to him while he was developing [Cascade Imaging]. She was exactly the same bright red incani who Erick remembered, though she looked more formal in her current outfit.

Tyli stood straight, saying, “Greetings, Archmage Flatt. If you do not mind, I have a message of congratulations from the Headmaster. It is nothing that needs be private, unless you wish it to be.”

Erick almost flinched. He had expected the Headmaster to attempt contact through whatever Elite he sent to poke around at the soul spears, which had to be [Duplicate]d. But already? Now? Here? The Headmaster was getting right to the point, then. What did he want? For Erick to come to Oceanside right now? That seemed like a bad idea, for Erick had heard lots about dragons recently, and he did not want to be accidentally responsible for causing a dragon fight. And also…

If he saw the Headmaster right now…

If he got anywhere near the Headmaster, Erick was going to ask about Kirginatharp’s brother, Idyrvamikor, and the causes of the Dragon Curse.

As well as a ton of questions about Last Shadow’s Feast.

But the problem with asking those questions was that Erick was scared of the old dragon. Before Last Shadow’s Feast… Before Candlepoint, even, Erick hadn’t been too scared of Kirginatharp. But now, knowing how bad it could be to face someone of the Headmaster’s power in his own lair…

Erick didn’t want to put himself or his people in danger.

For Erick was a Wizard, and Wizards could break dragons from the Dragon Curse, and that put a big fucking target on his soul. Even if the Headmaster didn’t know what Rozeta, his mother, or Melemizargo, his grandfather knew, he could probably figure that Erick was a Wizard now, if he hadn’t already.

And yet...

The Headmaster was the Headmaster.

He was the greatest force of ‘good’ in the world. He routinely sent Elites out to hunt the most dangerous monsters on the planet, helping communities who couldn’t help themselves...

But he also taught everyone magic! That was another thing.

If Erick saw the man again, he would rail at him about how fucked up it was that he was teaching magic improperly.

And so, suddenly facing down this Elite sent by the Headmaster, even if she was a ‘friendly’ face, Erick had a lot of thoughts that he didn’t want to have.

So Erick did what he could, which was to nod, then say, “Please relay your message.”

If it was a public statement, then it couldn’t be that bad, right?

Tyli nodded, then said, “The Headmaster sends his eternal appreciation for the execution of Ar’Kendrithyst, and for the business with the Forest of Glaquin. He wishes to bestow upon you worldly treasures as befitting of your path of destruction against all the Evil upon Veird. But on a more pressing note: he wishes for you to come to Oceanside at your earliest convenience to solve this Converter Angel problem before it turns into a true war. He hopes to solve this Quiet War issue with words, using avenues of discourse he has open to both sides. As for right now, with the revelation that someone has been using [Duplicate] to create soul spears, it is my duty to inform you that as per previous bargains of trade we have a few dozen people that we must request for that you search for, to see that they are not doing things that they should not be doing.” She relaxed a fraction, and said, “Thus ends the entirety of the message. What say you?”

Erick felt a twinge of relief. The message hadn’t been that bad. There was definite coding that the Headmaster knew that Erick was on his Worldly Path, so it was very concerning that the Headmaster wanted Erick to come to Oceanside while he was still on the Path!

But then again, the Headmaster likely knew more about that than Erick did.

Anyway.

Erick decided a few things, then said, “Please tell him this: Regarding Ar’Kendrithyst, I merely made the best of a bad situation, but thank you for your words. I am interested in journeying to Oceanside to speak of matters great and small, but nothing that requires me to journey there right away. I am trying to be on vacation, but stuff keeps happening; that’s all. As for the angel, I heard she's on the dark side of Celes, but if this should change, please let me know. And I will work with Tyli here in order to scout out whatever samples of whatever Book Binders have gone missing in this part of the world, or whatever may have happened.”

Tyli nodded, her eyes briefly flickering from their normal red to gold—

Ah.

Erick didn’t notice the magic until the Headmaster wanted it to be noticed. The Headmaster had been here all along, in mind if not in body, and now he was coming to the forefront.

The Headmaster spoke through his Elite, as he had done many other times, in other places, “You have done much for this world, Archmage Flatt, and you deserve to be honored for it, not forced into wars; forced to defend yourself from small-minded warlords. Please come to Oceanside at your earliest convenience, but enjoy your vacation wherever it may take you. As for the Book Binders, Tyli can direct that search. I understand you are staying in Holorulo upon First Devouring Nightmare Mountain.” Tyli turned to Hangzi. “Please make arrangements for Tyli to take up residence near Archmage Flatt.”

Hangzi was already pale, but he went half a shade whiter. His voice was strong, though. “As you wish, Headmaster Kirginatharp.”

The Headmaster added, “I am sorry about your father. Patriarch Dularo was a good man. We held many bargains of trade that had yet to be fulfilled on my part. Now, these bargains are your bounty. We should speak more, soon. Perhaps whenever you are done with these final matters of state, regarding the former Scion Raidu?”

It had been asked as a question, but it was practically an order.

Hangzi seemed strengthened by the Headmaster’s words, though. He replied, “Thank you for your benevolence in bequeathing my father’s bargains of trade to myself. I will make an appointment through your people to talk more. Devouring Nightmare looks forward to continued cooperation with Oceanside.”

The Headmaster nodded, then released Tyli back to herself. The woman sagged for half a moment, then stood straight again, her eyes turning from gold back to red. She said, “Archmage,” to Erick, then, “Patriarch,’ to Hangzi. Then she stepped back to the edge of the room, to stand in line with the other guards.

Now that that unexpected ambush was over—

Erick turned his attention back to Ari, Hangzi, and the floating spirit of Raidu. He said, “I have few questions of the man, and then we can get on with the final judgment.”

Hangzi glared up at the floating spirit, his eyes turning hard. He said, “Court Necromancer Arilitilo. You may wake him.”

Ari stepped to the side of the gold-lined altar, under Raidu. With a red spell touching upon the gold lines, an invisible envelope around Raidu turned visible, briefly, then vanished into motes of light. Raidu gasped, stretching out his arms and legs as he looked around—

Raidu caught sight of Erick. And of Hangzi. And then he sighed, a bone-weary sound that echoed in the mana, rippling outward to touch upon some invisible barrier that extended upward from the altar, fully encasing Raidu, blocking the spirit from fully interacting with the world.

Erick waited for the man to speak.

Raidu did not make him wait long, saying, “I apologize for my actions, Archmage Flatt. I did not see what I was doing till after… I never should have driven Terror Peaks to war. Please forgive me.”

Erick gave no outward emotion.

He wanted to forgive the man, though. He wanted to, so badly. But he knew he couldn’t.

And yet!

He had let Omaz go; Archmage Syllea’s brother was somewhere out there, under the same Blessing that he had put Raidu under. Omaz had killed thousands, too. He had attacked Treehome with spells that spanned the sky, which would have killed hundreds of thousands. Omaz had plotted and schemed to kill and kill again. He was a cultist of Melemizargo, and he had done dark deeds in the shadows, for Shadow and for the Darkness.

But Raidu had killed millions with both his words and his actions.

So… Yes. There was a difference. A difference of scale.

But the Shades had done worse than either of them! And Erick had Blessed them and told them to make something good of themselves, didn’t he?

Ah.

His feelings were messing him up. They got in the way all too often, didn’t they?

Erick steeled himself, and asked, “What sort of afterlife are you hoping for?”

“I will struggle forever to resist the call of the End, but I know it will come for me no matter what I do.” Raidu said, “So being here isn’t too bad.” He laughed, then looked to Hangzi, and winced. “Ah. But I suspect Young Master Hangzi wants to put me in a torture doll for eternity for what I did to his family. I’m sorry about that, too.”

Hangzi remained stoic, standing there, listening while giving nothing away.

Erick asked, “What was your goal in appearing before me and getting captured like this?”

Raidu’s face scrunched as his red body misted out in tiny spots along the hem of his robes, and in his ears and fingertips. He seemed to be trying to recall something that was no longer there to recall. He said, “I don’t remember how I was captured or killed.”

“This was at least a full day before you died.” Erick frowned. “You should know the answers to this question.”

“I… I do not…” Raidu’s voice trailed off. And then he brightened. “I could guess… I guess that I had only two options.” He stared into nothing, looking beyond Erick, and then he suddenly focused on him, and said, “Ah. I remember.” He smiled. “It was either get you onto the proper side of Light, or we would all die in darkness, and so, I did as anyone of Terror Peaks would have done and took a chance with my life. I— I failed…” Erick saw a shift in Raidu, as the joy of remembering how he died became the pain of knowing how he died. And then Raidu banished that emotion, forcing himself to strength as he said, “Songli is full of Darkness, Erick. And I don’t mean the Darkness of Melemizargo. I mean the Darkness of Rozeta.”

Well that was a damning sentence.

Erick forced himself to remain impassive, but through the eyes of Ophiel on his shoulder, he saw guards turn inquisitive or incredulous before banishing those slight looks from their faces. Teressa didn’t bother to hide the wide-opened expression on her face, though; Erick could practically read her mind as she thought ‘what the fuck is this fuckers fuckup?’. Or maybe Erick was projecting his own need to spout profanity at Raidu’s stupid fucking words.

Erick saw Tyli's eyes flicker gold.

So the Headmaster was still here? Well okay then.

Raidu continued, “My fight is over. I am dead. But Songli has always been a Dark Alliance founded by Shadow, created in order to support people like they were cattle; for there is no mana without people to constantly create it, and that is the goal of all the gods. They’re all Dark Gods, Erick. Every single one. Even Rozeta. Even Sumtir, the God of Righteous War is an Evil God. I won’t go to a single one of those charlatans and their fake afterlives, for if I could, I would do whatever it took to keep their divine fire from consuming my Self like it was kindling, all to keep their own fires burning for just that much longer. For that’s what they are, Erick; parasites.” He looked to Erick. “I know how magic is made and where it comes from and the manaminer in the souls of every person on Veird, ensuring that mana flows to Rozeta before all others. I lied before about not knowing how magic worked before, in order to suss you out. At the end of my existence, I tell you the full truth now.

“The Script is a chain, but it is the only chain we have, and it only keeps us all alive because there needs to be mana for the monsters and for the gods and for all the other unnatural life all around us. And thus, Songli was one of many such nations born from that need. Look around you! See what the gods do for us! Nothing but trinkets and charms they give us, while they hold back the movement of the world into a new Era! You know what Sininindi plans to do to you if she ever gets a chance, do you not? You do; I see it in your eyes. You brought forth a new era into this world, but you are not the first. You bring us destruction, but not how you think.

“For you would not be the first to cause the world to fall to the gods!

“There are records of mass purges all throughout Veird’s history! Go down deep enough in the underworld, and you will see what I have seen! Do you truly believe that Veird is only 1450 years old? No! Our estimates put it at 8500 years of age. For all the gods’ power, for all the power of the Script, their controls were imperfect several times before. Just look at what you did with Particle Magic! This era might be coming to an end soon because of what you did, and none of our children will ever know what has come before.

“All the gods are evil for what they and the Mind Mages and the Wrought have done to us, time and time again. All is Darkness. Even the Demons and the Angels are a part of this trap for humanity, to keep us in a cage and raise us as livestock.” He relaxed, his magnum opus given. Then he said, “Terror Peaks is the only civilization of True Light. So if there was any chance at all that you could be brought into the Light, I had to take that chance. This is why I let myself be captured by you. These are the circumstances in which we fight. Not some petty war with Songli, but with all the gods and all the powers that seek to milk us for all we are.

“This is the world that we live in.”

Silence filled the room. Raidu’s form had become even more misty at the edges. He had given up some deep part of himself in order to give that speech.

Erick said, “Maybe you’re right.”

Everyone in the room startled to a varying degree except for Tyli-as-Headmaster, and Poi.

Raidu laughed. “Maybe one can talk to Wizards, after all!”

“Maybe. But you’re dead, and I have no one else to confirm what you’ve said.” Erick said, “And besides that: I will never believe the words of a dead man, especially one who says he doesn’t want to rejoin the war he left behind, and then goes on to talk about why I need to join his war.”

“Is there a way to convince you properly?”

“Where is Patriarch Xangu?”

Raidu opened his mouth to speak, but then nothing came out, and he looked perplexed. “Er. Maybe he’s…” Raidu frowned. “I don’t know. He’s in the Underworld somewhere… Right? I think he is?”

Erick gave Raidu a moment more to collect himself, to maybe come up with a lead.

Raidu just frowned, more disappointed in himself than in Erick, and said, “I thought I knew. Apologies, Archmage Flatt. My father could tell you more, but I know not where he is.”

“Then I am sorry we couldn’t work things out, Raidu.”

Raidu sadly said, “My time is over, but you still have options, Erick.”

“It’s over. I am done.” Erick said to Hangzi, “Pass your judgment.”

Raidu looked about to say something else, but then he realized what Erick had said, and his eyebrows furrowed. He frowned, his gaze shifting from Erick to Hangzi.

Hangzi startled a fraction at Erick’s words. He recovered quickly; a tiny smile appeared upon his face. Then he dropped that smile, and proclaimed, “This Patriarch Ha—”

“Patriarch?!” Raidu laughed. “What the fuck happened to Yorza! Oh! That’s right! I happened, you shadow sucking twat.”

Hangzi let the world pass him by, then he came back to the moment, and with a beatific smile said, “The judgment is thus: a Sundering for the man who tried to sunder Songli. To be carried out—”

Raidu’s face contorted into madness. “SUNDERING! YOU IMMORAL FOOL!”

“—while I watch; right now.”

Raidu’s body contorted into hard edges and hateful eyes. His face turned into three as one pair of eyes locked to Hangzi, another turned to Erick, and the third face turned to Ari, who stepped away from the side of the altar. Raidu screamed in fury, about the gods taking joy from his death, and about how Songli was playing the part of kitchen servant to Rozeta, serving up souls; farming for the gods.

The overall calm discussion had turned into a one-sided rant.

Erick ignored the rants.

Instead, he watched as Ari went to the edge of the room and opened up a small panel. Erick had already seen the object therein, but now he saw it with his eyes. The overall shape was that of a globe with a diamond-cut gem on top, but the gem was inverted to hold above the globe like a pointed hat, while the whole thing was also a swirl of curling, curved metal and stone. The ‘globe’ at the center of the object was actually a mostly perfectly spherical grand core; bright white and glowing. Now that he focused on it, the gem could actually be glass, and it probably was. Or maybe it was crystal glass; yeah, it was crystal glass (probably wasn’t made crystalline through the addition of lead, though). The whole thing was a work of art. If Ari hadn’t brought it out to commit a sundering, and if she, and Tyli, and Hangzi, and Ari’s guards didn’t look so concerned about it—

Ah. Poi knew what the object was, too.

Everyone else, including him, looked at the object like it wasn’t a heinous torture device, but they were all quickly making the obvious leap of logic necessary to understand what they were seeing. Raidu’s rant increased tenfold when the object came out, so he obviously knew what it was.

Ari stood behind the altar, holding the sundering object in her hands but also in some telekinetic grip, no doubt, for it looked quite heavy with all that gold and stone spun around the thing.

Raidu banged against the invisible cage that stretched up from the altar to the ceiling. In a flashing, angry moment, the Scion of Terror Peaks became a storm of red gasses that filled his cage. His fists and face and feet appeared out of the mist as he struck the surrounding invisible walls with all his ethereal might. Raidu screamed.

Erick watched.

Ari moved the sunderer into the altar’s space, and Raidu’s ghastly form suddenly crashed up, back to something somewhat human as he held against the ceiling, trying to get away from the object down below. As Ari took her arms out of the space, she twisted a knob on the side of the contraption, and the inverted diamond ‘hat’ slipped downward, to touch the spherical core.

And that was all it took to make a magical object.

The air above the altar began to move.

Pulling at Raidu.

He cursed the world and everyone in it and especially the Wizards and the pawns of Darkness that led him here. He cursed Erick. He cursed Songli. He cursed Rozeta.

With Raidu’s voice roaring over hers, Ari calmly spoke as though reading from a script, “The judgment of sundering has been initiated in accordance with the laws of Songli. Raidu Terror Peaks will become nothing, giving us everything in return.”

Almost clinically, Erick dissected what he saw.

Grand cores had this ability to sustain themselves that was unique to them. They could only grow when inside a living monster, though. Thanks to what he knew about the shadelings of Candlepoint, and other monsters, normal, small cores could not sustain themselves forever without being inside a living being.

Shadelings had to cycle their mana in order to sustain their cores, otherwise they would degrade, and even with proper cycling, they still had to ‘eat’ the cores of other monsters every so often, or else their own core would degrade. There was a lot of maintenance to being a shadeling that went above and beyond what it took to live a life as a normal person. There were some bonuses, too, but Erick felt it would be a hassle to be a shadeling, and many agreed with him. Back in Candlepoint, many chanced getting back their human body through communion with Melemizargo; through attempting to undo their [Reincarnation] that made them shadelings in the first place.

Erick suspected that if a shadeling ever developed a grand core, that would make them a Shade.

For grand cores had this ability to pull mana into themselves. Grand cores didn’t grow when outside a physical form, but they could certainly sustain their own existence. If you dropped off a depleted rod of [Whatever Spell] next to a grand core, that grand core would even help to stabilize and [Renew] (ha!) the spellwork inside those rods of [Whatever Spell]s. You couldn’t put too many depleted rods next to the grand cores, or else the grand core would eventually dim and die just like normal cores, for the rods next to it would suck up the mana instead of it. Eventually, this would break the grand core.

There was a way around that, though.

Erick had once seen an arrangement inside Brightwater, inside the Temple District, where some mana-focusing arrays had been laid down on the ground in a small room, and grand rads had been piled into the middle, and the walls of the room were full of cubbyholes, each absolutely filled with magic wands. That particular arrangement caused the grand rads to act as the tiny motor in an inducement array, causing so much more mana to flow through the space than would otherwise happen naturally.

With that increased flow, those grand rads could sustain themselves as well as refill the power of every nearby wand with all of their cast-off mana.

What Erick saw now, was sort of like that, except there were no wands to fill with power.

The mana draw was a simple draw, but it was also filled with teeth.

The sunderer stood below the misty, raging Raidu, as the spirit of the man struggled to not be pulled into the object. He was failing.

Tiny mists of his soul had filled the entire trapping space above the altar, no matter how much he tried to keep himself away from the object of his demise. Before Ari had placed the sunderer, those tiny bits had nowhere to go. Now they had a destination.

The glass focuser had a few white glows; trace magics from the white grand core in the base, no doubt. Now, though, there were red glows. Now, Raidu’s misty form flowed downward, pulled by the inexorable power of the grand core.

Erick watched with his mana sense.

A critical reaction took place inside the glass diamond.

Red light turned iridescent white, and then, like the breaking of a dam, new mana flowed into the world from every part of the glass, like light, like air, like water, and like none of those things at all. Only a tiny bit of Raidu had been consumed; practically nothing at all. But what came out was a tsunami of thick air. The room was somehow designed for this, though, and the walls directed the thick air up and out of the building, instead of washing through all the nearby rooms, alerting everyone that a sundering was taking place.

Erick pulled his mana sense away from the sunderer itself as he felt himself get pulled inside; cycled into the mana like Raidu’s spirit was being cycled. As he metaphorically stepped back, he noticed his own clothes were rippling as thick air fluttered past them in inordinate quantity. It was the same sort of tsunami that happened when he [Cleanse]d the Shades that one time, except it wasn’t a flow that took an instant to travel, and then was over. It was a flow that only grew stronger, and stronger. A roil of power, a flow of mana.

And in that turmoil, Erick caught memories that were not his own.

He saw the first stab of a sword into a monster at age 7, killing the mist stone glutton and receiving the praise of his uncle.

He saw Raidu, at age 23, killing his uncle for being a Pacifist and siding against his father, Patriarch Xangu.

He saw Raidu bed his first woman.

He saw Raidu single-handedly save people he didn’t care about from monsters that they should have been able to kill themselves. And then Raidu went back a year later, at the same yearly monster surge, and watched as those same people died to the same problem they could have prepared against, listening to them cry out for help and calling them worthless in turn. He told them to save themselves, and they could not.

Erick saw too much.

He saw a life being sundered, after all. Every path taken. Every choice, or time of rest, and even every path not taken, converted into possibility, into mana. He saw Raidu kill his father and side with his uncle. He saw Raidu bed his first man. He saw Raidu save people who he had chosen to leave to die.

A sundering wasn’t a simple death. It was the conversion of everything a person was, or could ever be, into pure possibility.

People naturally exuded these possibilities every moment of existence. Every moment the soul existed, it filled the world with chance and option, with thoughts and feelings and logic, and when tied to a body, souls filled the world with action, and influence, and more. Souls made mana.

People made a lot of mana.

Raidu wasn’t even a smidgen gone. His nearly-full spirit still clung to the roof of his cage, but his unguarded self, the bits that had drifted down and away, had been sucked into the sunderer. Those bits pulled on what remained, like a thread pulling from an afghan eventually pulling apart the entire blanket.

The bits that had already gone into the sunder, pulled in the rest of Raidu.

Ah

Yes.

Erick saw it now.

This is why the Headmaster called this a fate worse than death.

He still watched, though, as the thinner parts of Raidu pulled at the larger parts of him, and it wasn’t long till thready mists pulled in a hem, and then a hand, and then the final sundering came as the remaining half of Raidu couldn’t hold himself away anymore. He snapped into the sunderer like the closing of a trap.

A storm of thick air billowed away from the sunderer, filling the room with a wash of rainbow light.

The lightshow passed; directed upward and out of the building.

The air above the sunderer was clear.

Raidu was gone.

Ari reached into the altar space and cranked a mechanism on the sunderer, disconnecting the surface of the glass diamond from the spherical core. As she took the sunderer back to its hidden alcove, Erick was surprised that the core was still white. Erick expected it to be pink, or something. But no; Raidu’s soul was not trapped in there. His soul was gone forever; made into mana.

Pulled apart into potential.

A year ago, Erick would have puked out his guts. Now, he just said, “It is over.” He said to Hangzi, “I approve of the paddy house you’ve placed the other Blessed in. I did not know such a location existed, where people cared for the mental health of those who have been broken by this life.”

His words might have seemed out of place, but Erick had a reason for the distraction. He had needed to get Hangzi’s mind onto something better than what he had just seen, for he could tell that Hangzi had not expected to see what he had seen.

At Erick’s words, Hangzi came out of a disturbed fugue like a man coming out of a horror movie. He had obviously never sundered someone before. He had heard of it, for sure, and he knew the basics, no doubt, but the sight and the sounds of it… It was a good thing these rooms were somewhat soundproof.

Hangzi said, “Ah.” He elaborated, “Ah. Yes. Severing Crescent’s paddy houses are good for soldiers suffering from War Response and other maladies of the mind. We had to shuffle some people around to get all of the Blessed in one location, but they seem to be showing progress already.” He rapidly went back to Raidu’s final rant, half-desperately asking, “What was that part about ‘manaminers’? What was that, and…” His words trailed off, as desperation for answers turned to realization that he shouldn't be demanding anything of Erick, for various reasons. And then, another realization came upon Hangzi; he needed to speak his words for he was the Patriarch. He stared Erick in the eyes, saying, “None of Raidu’s words were a surprise to you.”

Erick was incredulous for half a moment at the hidden accusations in Hangzi’s words, wondering what sort of implications were going through the man’s mind. Then he calmed his own odd emotions.

Erick simply said, “If Raidu had said anything about war or angels or coordination— Anything at all about actionable intelligence, then I would have given his final rants some thought. But all that? He likely suspected that you would let him exist in some form or another, and was therefore planting seeds for a future harvest. Those words were merely twisted versions of the truth. If you want to know about the darker parts of magic, you should consult your Elders of Lore. But in the case of manaminers, knowing what they are is like knowing that Veird revolves around the sun, and the moons revolve around Veird; interesting, but not useful for daily life. And very much not how Raidu described them.” Erick added, “As far as I know.” He added, “And I have no idea what the fuck that was about Rozeta being a Dark God. Another ploy, no doubt.”

“But why did you say Raidu was right?”

At that, Erick was surprised, and then a little pissed off. Could Hangzi not see why he did that?

Really?

No, no, Erick. He’s still a kid at 19, no matter that he’s the Patriarch of a High Clan. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. But he should know this! Maybe he’s just upset. Yes. That must be it.

Erick decided to go with the diplomatic response. “That was me trying to get him to reveal his knowledge of Xangu. It almost worked, too, but then his memory blanked.”

Hangzi looked like he had been slapped, but then his royal mien returned. “Right. Of course.” He looked to the altar. Not even bones remained. The surface was pristine, with gold runes glittering in the white stone. Hangzi declared, “The sentence has passed. Justice is done. There’s still a lot of rebuilding to do, so it’s time to get back to work.” He turned to Erick and bowed his head only, then said, “Your expertise is appreciated. Please send to Elder Varo if you have time for a dinner while you are staying with us. I would like to consult with you about various needs and wants. Good day, Archmage Flatt.”

Erick bowed in turn. “Good day, Patriarch Hangzi.”

Hangzi and his guards walked out the door, and away.

Tyli looked to Erick, asking, “Will you be able to search for our suspects, now?”

Erick said, “Please see me at my house on First Devouring Nightmare Mountain in an hour with everything you need searched for. We’re going to have a small talk before we do that, but I don’t foresee any problems.” He dismissed her, saying, “It was nice to meet you again, Tyli. I need to talk to Elder Arilitilo, now.”

Tyli stood straight, then bowed, saying, “Archmage.” She walked away.

Somewhere in the last minutes, the Headmaster had turned his sight away from here, but Erick did not know when, exactly, that had happened.

Ari waited with her guards at her back.

Erick turned to Ari, saying, “Thank you for this, Ari. I was not aware what a sundering entailed, and I can honestly say that I hope to never see it again. I will be staying in Holorulo for a while because my daughter is still contracted to work for Star Song. I am still interested in the lessons we had planned, if you have time to give them. Would you be available for such?”

Ari said, “Unfortunately, I will not be able to assist you with Blood Magic at this time. Elder Xue should be able to—”

“I insist.” Erick said, “Please find a way to make time.”

The guards behind Ari did not flinch. They didn’t do much of anything, except to look at Erick, then look away, straight ahead.

So Ari was a prisoner, eh?

Erick had suspected, but that confirmed it.

Ari did not frown, but only because she was holding that emotion back. “I have a great many duties to attend to now that the majority of our high ranking Court Necromancers are dead and dispersed due to the actions of Terror Peaks. If I may, I will look to make time for your needs, Archmage Flatt, but as of right now I cannot. I ask you instead, to seek out Elder Xue, and ask of him what you would ask of me.”

“… I see.” Erick said, “Then I will be doing that.”

Ari bowed, and held there.

Erick looked down at the woman, and then turned and walked away. When he was out of the room, Ari stood straight. When Erick had reached a further hallway, Ari was exiting the room they were just in, with one guard walking in front of her, and another guard walking behind. They were guiding her elsewhere; somewhere out of sight.

And in every other summoning room with a summoner, the summoner had two guards with them; not directly with them, in a lot of cases, but positioned outside of the rooms, or in the corners of rooms, or nearby. Every summoner had a prominent gold necklace around their neck, too; they were easy to pick out of a crowd.

And what was stranger still, was that Erick had tried to telepathically connect with Ari a few times this whole time, but Ari had gently denied every connection. She hadn’t even tried to subvocalize her concerns to him. Her guards would definitely see if she had a tendril of thought hanging around her head, too, so that was probably why she didn’t return his calls.

Erick almost asked Poi what was going on, but he had no doubt that people were mana sensing him, too, just as much as he was mana sensing everyone else. Only a few people gave away that particular game in their glances and their flinching tells; they must have been new at this. But there were quite a few people capable of mana sensing in this Palace of the Eternal Court.

That made sense, since you needed that skill to be able to purchase [Soul Sight], which seemed absolutely necessary for any potential necromancer, and particularly for the jailers of the necromancers.

There was something deeply disturbing about this house of souls, and Erick was going to get to the bottom of it.

Sooner or later.

Ari had saved his life; he would be damned if he couldn’t do the same.

- - - -

In a flash of light, Erick, Poi, and Teressa reappeared in the front room of their temporary apartment.

Erick immediately asked Poi, “So what the fuck was that about with Ari?”

Poi looked a bit bluer around the face—

And then he turned and puked out watery bile onto the floor.

Teressa gave a nervous, terrified laugh as she patted Poi’s back, saying, “You’re good, Poi. It was just— Just a person getting torn to shreds.” She cast a [Cleanse] upon them all, dispersing thick air from all of her, and from all of Poi; the results of sweat turning to mana. Only the barest bit escaped from Erick. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Poi groaned and spat up more bile. After a moment more, he stood straight, and cast another [Cleanse]. He looked at no one as he said, “Soul magic is terrifying.”

“I didn’t know you could sunder a soul that easily!” Teressa said, “That was the scariest part! Just a fucking—! Just a damned grand rad and a glass diamond! That’s all it takes? HOLY SHIT!”

“Ah,” Erick said, realizing that he had perhaps glossed over some of the abominable acts of magic that they had witnessed. Was he becoming inured to the horror show? Or was he breaking in odd ways? Probably a bit of both. Teressa not having a grip on what she had seen was understandable, though, but Poi reacting like this? That was a bit odd. He said to both of them, “Sorry. I didn’t think it would be like that. I didn’t know that it would affect… any of us like it did.”

Poi breathed out, forcing himself to calm, his eyes half lidded as he looked away, saying, “I knew it would be bad, but not that… At least I managed to hold off my reaction until now.” He fully opened his eyes, and said, “This was unprofessional of me. I apologize. It will not happen again.”

“Well shit!” Teressa said, “If I have to walk into that place again, I might piss myself, and that surely won’t be professional! Gods damn! That place was like walking in a part of the Forest covered in Deathsoul Shrooms!” She exclaimed, “Souls crying out, everywhere! Holy damn.”

Erick decided that he was definitely becoming numb to the horror shows of the world, and to the suffering of others. He hadn’t seen any of what Teressa had seen. He said, “All I saw were souls summoned for one last talk with their surviving relatives, or otherwise. It seemed kinda nice.” To the dismayed look of both Teressa and Poi, Erick rapidly added, “Except for the soul sundering, of course. I could go without seeing that ever again.”

Teressa’s words failed her. She wanted to tell him how he was fucked up, but her words did not seem to work right.

Poi’s words did not fail him. “Summoning souls is like ripping out a hunk of memories from your loved ones in order to talk to them one last time. You saw how Raidu wasn’t all there, right? You wouldn’t want someone doing that to you, would you? You could still have an afterlife in the realm of a god, or with the angels or demons. But if you’re summoned back, then you might not make it to your destination without forgetting who you were before.”

Teressa exclaimed, “Yes! That! I’ve heard it told different, but yeah. That’s the lot of it.” She said, “Watching all of that in there… All I could see was the pure greed in the eyes of those who summoned their fathers or mothers in order to ask where the casks of gold were buried in the Tribulations. Or the men with the lawyers, and the necromancers working on behalf of the living instead of the dead!” Teressa said, “That was immoral. The entire institution.” She added, “No wonder Elder Arilitilo didn’t want to be there! Holy gods.”

Erick frowned, saying, “Ah… Well. All good points.”

Teressa added, “And the pure disdain for the desires of the summoned! Half of those ghosts were writhing in pain while they were trapped on this plane!”

Poi shivered. “They were losing parts of themselves every moment they were here, so yeah; pain.”

Teressa blurted a nonsensical, “Eethaaghuuu,” also giving a shiver. “I have to walk around a bit.” And then she did, walking down the room, and then pacing the hallway, remaining in earshot.

Erick let them get a grip; he could wait.

Poi relaxed, then said to Erick, “Anyway.” He breathed deep, then exhaled, and said, “Arilitilo is under heavy guard right now because she was an unknown Soul Mage working in the government of Eralis for so long. She’s under a lot of scrutiny from the Palace of the Eternal Court, and she wants you to know that she cannot talk openly, for they question her all the time, and she wants to be able to be truthful with them, to be able to say that she has not spoken to anyone outside of approved meetings. Her talk with you last time was meant to be her break from politics, but she was uncomfortable with the heavy questioning she received afterward. She doesn’t want a repeat of that event. In a few years, she might get something of her life back, but for now, she’s content with what is happening to her.”

That was a disappointment.

Erick said, “She told you to say that, but that’s not what she was truly thinking, was it?”

Poi faltered. “Not... totally correct. She only had those thoughts in her head, this is true, but without telepathically sending them out, she could truthfully say that she had no knowing contact with you. Some of her thoughts were along the lines of ‘Ah… How it vexes me that I cannot tell him about this scrutiny of being a Soul Mage in Songli’, and the like. No doubt they will question her about her thoughts around me, as well, but the Palace of the Eternal Court cannot sanction her because they allowed her into the presence of a known Mind Mage.” He added, “She was only there because she was your contact, and they wanted to make you happy to know that she was okay. And she is okay. She says she’s okay, for now. She will let you know if that changes.”

Erick relaxed a little, and then declared, “This is fucked up,” Erick decided. “Well. If she ever wants a rescue, or asylum, and you hear of it, let me know. I’ll take her to Candlepoint, or Spur, or something. I’m sure Silverite would be fine with her around.”

Poi’s lips scrunched.

Teressa stopped her pacing at the mention of ‘Silverite would be fine with her around’, her eyebrows narrowed in thought as she came back into the room.

Erick asked the two of them, “… Would she not be welcome in Spur?”

Poi and Teressa shared a look. Teressa shrugged. Poi hummed.

Poi said, “Maybe. Silverite has killed her fair share of rogue necromancers, and all necromancers in Spur are rogue necromancers. If she was here and had power over this land, this Palace of the Eternal Court would be ash and mud with every necromancer either promised to never summon another soul again, or executed.”

“Yeah. Spur doesn’t allow necromancy.” Teressa said, “But Soul Mages aren’t always Necromancers. Ari ain’t a necromancer either… Eh.”

“Arilitilo would get a pass, though, right?” Erick asked.

Teressa shrugged.

Poi said, “I’ll ask her in case the situation goes that way. Elder Ari did save your life and I can vet that she’s exactly the stabilizing force she appears to be.”

Erick frowned, at himself as much as anything else. He said, “I think my sensibilities are getting eroded. I don’t see what the big deal is with Soul Magic.”

“A lot of Soul Magic seems fine; I agree.” Poi said, “But it’s like Blood Magic. It’s easily abused.”

“More so than [Force Beam]s to the face?” Erick countered.

“Yes.” Poi said, “As a Darker thought: If it weren’t for us knowing who you are as a person, and what to expect from you, Erick, and for my own ability to tell what is actually happening in the minds of all involved… This fascination of yours with helping Arilitilo could easily be attributed to soul mutilation caused by Arilitilo when she went inside of you and fixed you from the soul spear.”

Teressa paled a little as Poi’s dark words were trotted out into the light for all to see. She looked away, then looked back; she had these thoughts on her mind, too. But Poi was the only one to give them a voice.

Erick sighed out, and said, “Okay. I see that. I think… I think I need to go lay down for a while.”

Poi said, “Tyli is coming over soon.”

Erick winced. “… Dammit.”

Teressa asked, “I’ll make some coffee? Strong, too. I know I could use some.”

“Yes, please.” Erick said, “I would like that. Thank you.”

- - - -

Erick welcomed Tyli into his house. She carried with her a large wooden box, filled with vials filled with blood, while another two Elites walked at her side. Erick didn’t know the other two people, though Tyli did introduce them, so Erick welcomed them inside as well, and then set them up in the front room; the one without [Prismatic Ward]. He tried to be personable, and especially with the two new people, but seeing Raidu torn apart into mana had him remembering how he tore apart red soldiers with beams of light for the past week…

And it was getting to him.

Everything was getting to him.

He did ask one question, though, “I’m not searching for any dragons with this lot of blood, am I? I don’t want to be a part of that.”

Tyli assured him, “This is truly blood from the Book Binders. The Headmaster wouldn’t want to be involved with any draconic business outside of what happens at Oceanside. There are no surprises here, Archmage Flatt. I understand your man, Poi, is a Mind Mage. If you want I will subm—”

“No, no. That’s fine.” Erick said, “I just needed you to say the words. I can be mad later if they turn out to be a lie.”

Tyli seemed to take umbrage at his words, but she said nothing.

The four of them got to it.

With the use of the vials of blood, each of which was simply labeled with a number starting at #1, and going to #48, Erick erected [Cascade Imaging]s throughout the nearest 7000 kilometers, searching for wayward Book Binders. Teressa served tea and cookies while maps populated. Over the next few hours, twenty two of the forty eight searches returned matches, most of them in Eralis, in public spaces or in hotels. Some searches that Tyli had expected to find were not found, for some parts of Songli had been destroyed in the fighting. Several searches turned up sites well outside of Eralis and the nearby lands. All of the sites were mapped out by the elites at Tyli’s side, but Erick glanced at each one with an Ophiel.

Aside from the places in Eralis, one target got into Alaralti and the Tribulations. Two people got all the way to the Warlord Clans to the north, along the Wanzhi River.

One person got over to Terror Peaks.

The last one was concerning.

After they searched through all the vials, they went back to the one that had turned up results near the former nation of Terror Peaks. A bit closer of a search revealed DNA tracks nearby Warchanter Farloa’s former research castle. That place had been thoroughly blasted and was little more than rubble and a few scattered towers, but with a [Cascade Imaging] layered over the location, Erick revealed that the target’s DNA survived in some of the less-open spaces. Whoever the target was, they must have been there many times to get their DNA all over the place.

Tyli frowned, her eyes full of red light as she stared through the world, to a distant [Scry]. She came back to herself, saying, “That’s disappointing.” She looked to her people, who nodded, and started packing up. She turned back to Erick, saying, “The Headmaster thanks you for your assistance. I cannot tell you anything about that person right now, as not even I know who the numbers belong to, as I said, but if something untoward should be discovered, the final story will be disseminated through official channels to those who need to know. You count as one such person who needs to know. We might need your assistance for further scanning on the other ones discovered as problematic, such as the one in the pirate coves down south, and the one we found in Holorulo. Can we count on you for further assistance?”

“Of course.” Erick said, “Anytime.”

The other elites each gave their own farewells, with Tyli taking up the rear, leaving Erick’s house last.

When they were gone, he went to bed.

He woke up for an anemic dinner and to check in with Jane to see how everything was going with her. There was light conversation, but nothing too arduous or concerning, so Erick mentally checked out. He knew he was checking out on life at the moment, and he knew it was a sign of bad, unresolved mental stuff; he noticed that shit in other people all the time, so he could certainly see it happening to him, in real time. But, exactly like those people in the charred ruins of their homes in Eralis, or at the gravesites of their loved ones, with their empty eyes staring at nothing and their hearts beating only because that’s what they’ve always done… Erick lived. And that was all, right now.

The sundering of Raidu and the ‘imprisonment’ of Ari had affected him more than he had thought possible. Maybe it was the fact that he couldn’t do anything about either situation.

Whatever.

Erick went back to bed after dinner.

He slept fitfully; without any true rest.

- - - -

Erick woke up and could not get back to sleep. It was past noon.

He needed a distraction.

So he sat in bed for a while, sending his sight to the Ophiel flying around outside, checking out whatever caught their fancy. Some were interested in other birds, copying their form as they flew. Others delighted in the play of wind in the willows. Another Ophiel tracked a bloodied man from high above, as that man walked through a dim street of unremarkable buildings.

Erick sat up and devoted some concern to the bloody man.

He had Ophiel look around. The nearby buildings were unadorned, bare stone and wood, meaning that this was a recently fully-rebuilt neighborhood. There weren’t lightpaints on any of the walls, and those lightwards that survived had been shifted out of position from their normal place atop their lightpoles, or their sconces. Turning his sight further afield, Erick saw that the bloody man was somewhere in Alaralti, the central city of the Highlands. Looking from higher, Erick discovered that the man was on the east side of the city, beyond the river, outside of the Void Wall. He was bleeding from a dozen different wounds, as he shuffled toward a guard house far in the distance.

With a twitch of light, Ophiel checked out that guardhouse.

There was no one there.

This particular section of Alaralti must have been fully scoured from the surface of Veird, but the man didn’t know this until he had arrived. Maybe he wasn’t up on the current news? Obviously not.

Tracking the blood he had dropped on the ground took but a moment. The man had come from the Teleport Square a bit further east. No one was in that guard station near that Teleport Square, either. Not finding what he needed to find, the man had come inward, following roads that he must not have known that well, for his blood tracked several steps down two side roads that did not lead to the next guardhouse, which was his obvious destination. The man knew he had almost gone the wrong way several times, though, so he wasn’t fully out of it.

He had probably expected this city to still be standing, but the entire section of Alaralti he had blipped into was gone. He was likely out of mana, too, otherwise he would have moved onto the next location.

Discovering that information had only taken about twenty seconds. The guy wasn’t dying at that specific moment, for he had managed to walk a kilometer already. Erick had also taken the time to figure out what was happening because the guy looked different, aside from the blood all over him painting him as a possible [Luminous Beam] target, which was the main reason why Ophiel was tracking him.

Erick told Ophiel that the guy wasn’t a target; he was a victim of something. And yes, both types of people ‘wore all red’, but not everyone in red was a target. It’s okay, you’ll get it eventually, Ophiel.

Ophiel just twittered in unsure guitar twangs.

Anyway: the bloody man.

The man wore bloody furs and thick leather wrappings around his feet and a skirt of deer skin. Some of his pale violet skin was exposed, but only because his clothes had been shredded. He was demi, maybe, for there were no horns upon his head. He was also skinny, with his clothes hanging off of him as though suffering from too much healing, but he would need a lot more before the day was done.

Erick flickered Ophiel to the man’s front, staying five meters ahead. Ophiel took the form of Erick, except with a bit more feathers than usual, for that was the form that Erick had shown to Nelboor, over the skies of Terror Peaks, before they used that soul spear against him. Ophiel was still in sunform, though; ready to retreat into a marble-sized form and cover himself with [Animadversion] if needed.

The man took a while to recognize that something had appeared before him. Erick stepped back, so that the man did not bump into him. At the shuffle of Ophiel’s ‘feet’, the man’s shuffling gait halted, and he looked. He saw ‘Erick’.

The man whispered, “Are you a monster?”

“No; I am not. This is my [Familiar] standing before you.” Erick asked, “Are you in need of assistance?”

The man’s whole body relaxed, as he tried to report, “I am in need of assistance. Severing Crescent’s delegation to Warlord Niyazo has been replaced with face stealers. I have only been here once before so I don’t know where to…” He started to wobble as his voice faded in and out. “Where to… go...”

He collapsed to the ground.

… It was a risk to help the man.

But it was a risk Erick would always take.

Erick cast a quick [Greater Treat Wounds] and then a [Teleport Other] to plop the dude into a nearby guard house that was occupied. Erick had helped a lot of people in Alaralti, and a lot of people in this land knew what Ophiel looked like, so it wasn’t hard to get them to rally around their new problem in addition to all the other problems they were already having.

Everyone was having problems.

Erick decided there and then to get involved in this bloodied man’s problems, since this appeared to be something that he could actually solve. A guy needing help, collapsed in the center of the road? Solvable!

He could have picked any number of a thousand other distractions to get himself out of his own head, but this was the one that landed in his lap. So he got out of bed, and went to ask Poi about a talk with Matriarch Tipanri of Severing Crescent. She would want to know what this guy was saying.

- - - -

The [Viewing Screen] popped up in front of Erick while he was having a late lunch in the kitchen. He set down his sandwich.

Matriarch Tipanri of Severing Crescent appeared on the other end of the Screen, her white scales and red eyes seeming to shimmer like her green and pink robes. She glanced at the sandwich, and said, “I seem to have caught you at a bad time.”

For whatever reason, Tipanri seemed more proper than the other people Erick had met in positions of power in Songli, but that was fine. Or maybe she was subtly telling him that while she was perfectly poised, he had crumbs on his hands. Which was odd. In the course of working closely with her in order to rain over Alaralti, Erick had thought that they were acquainted enough to get past some of this formality.

Had something changed?

Whatever.

“My daughter insists that I eat more, so I am,” he said, giving himself an excuse for his appearance. “I apologize if I was the one that caught you at a bad time. I know you are busy, but this wounded man showed up out of nowhere, spinning a story about face stealers and a compromised delegation from Severing Crescent to some Warlord Clan up north. I didn’t know what the term ‘face stealer’ meant until minutes ago, when my guard informed me that it is a colloquial term for Hunter-who-[Polymorph]s-into-their-victims, so naturally I thought this might be a concern.”

Tipanri seemed to return to some of her former relaxed self, as she asked, “Could you verify his tracks?”

“Sure.” Erick flicked his senses to the Ophiel furthest north, and moved him to a better position in the direct center of the warlord lands. In the work of a moment, [Cascade Imaging] went up into the air, searching for the guy’s DNA. Erick came back to himself and conjured a tiny lightform map, with a blue dot on it, saying, “The map is here, near this bend in the Wanzhi River.”

Tipanri nodded, regally, then said, “We will take it from here. Thank you for your assistance, archmage.”

She dismissed the Screen.

Erick went back to eating his sandwich, but his eyes were focused on the Ophiels he had go north. While the [Scry] eyes of Severing Crescent appeared around his map, Erick was already poking around in the lands lit blue by his search, seeing if he could find out what was happening with the local ‘Hunter’ population.

He briefly considered offering his services to find and kill every single Hunter in the area.

… And then he considered offering his services to find and Bless every single Hunter all around Songli. Hunters were a systemic problem the world over, after all. People who killed others for Levels did not need to exist, and they had been a personal problem for him in the past, for Hunters were some of the only ones who would think to target him specifically for his levels.

This was a problem that Erick could solve for Songli with a method that Olariz, the overseer at the paddy house, had considered a miracle. According to him, the Blessing of Empathy was a wonderful alternative to the usual methods to contain problematic people, which were exile, killing, or the Antirhine Elixir.

There were other, somewhat productive things he could be doing, though.

Like finding Goldie or Queen and figuring out what the fuck was going on there. Or he could go back to Spur and recast Yggdrasil in the Lake. Or he could continue on to the next destination of the Worldly Path. He could go learn of metals from the renowned smiths in the Near Underworld, under the northern Tribulation Mountains of Nelboor, or he could go to the Deep Underworld, and visit the Core. There were level 90 monsters down there, apparently. If he wanted to gain a level, he could do that.

Ah. But Jane wanted to go down that deep, too, and she wasn’t ready to leave Songli…

Or Erick could go to Rozeta’s Orrery, and learn what makes the Script work, or at least whatever they’re allowed to tell petitioners. Or he could try his hand at the Fractured Citadels of Quintlan, to see what the undead civilization was all about over there, though maybe not before he learned more Soul Magic…

Which brought him back to the current situation in Songli; back to Ari’s predicament.

No… He could not move on from this land quite yet. Besides all the obvious reasons to stay, something was telling him that there was still some major event coming up. Something that he would play a part in, no doubt. Maybe this was that thing?

Hunters were a problem the world over.

A problem that didn’t need to exist.

Erick hummed to himself as he glanced around that blooded man’s usual stomping grounds, with Ophiel in an invisible sunform.

It didn’t take long till he found the site of the battle, and also the village that the man had been from. Both looked like normal villages, but it was easy to tell that something bad had happened at one location, and not the other.

Some of the people at the battle site were probably impostors.

Anyway. What was likely the man’s home village was located next to a small tributary of the Wanzhi River, with large yurts scattered on carts in the flat lands between the riverbanks and the tall grasses of the prairie. The yurts were made of wood and animal skin, while the carts underneath were twice as large as the houses themselves, with much of that extra space serving as a porch. Herds of large, shaggy blond cows munched on the prairie grasses, looking like a breed of animal that was fully capable of pulling those mobile yurts if you lined them up and harnessed them, which they probably did when it was time to move.

There were no roads out here in this vast, untamed land, so as long as there was empty space ahead, these people probably moved as they were wont, tugging their homes across the grass. None of the people here seemed worried about being outside of the walls of a city, either, which was a nice change.

Mothers had their children strapped to their backs in cow-skin baskets while they fished in the river, or magiced vegetables from small plots of land in the center of the village. Children played all about, but far away from the taller grasses where the cows grazed. Warriors on cow-back watched their herd, and watched the land around them, looking for potential monsters. The cows seemed to fill a myriad of functions; milk, meat, fabric, vehicle, and lawnmowers. Those cows ate a lot of grass, and with every meal, they expanded the land for the village to temporarily occupy.

The people here were dressed in the same manner as the bloody man, with thick furs and cloth; almost fully covered. The nights in Songli were already rather chilly, but a bit further north it got a lot colder.

It all looked perfectly normal, with people on guard at the edges, with eyes scanning the grass land around them, while children and elderly worked in the center, reasonably safe from possible monsters attacking from the outskirts. The elderly in the center had some near-invisible defensive spells going all across the village, but Ophiel didn’t trip any of them, and none of the casters noticed Ophiel, or at least they pretended not to.

The other place, the site of the recent battle, was the same sort of village, but different; a bit larger, for sure, but that wasn’t the only distinction.

All of the village yurts were situated around a central firepit in the middle of a vast grass field that looked no different than all the rest, but one of the yurts was twice as large as all the rest, and situated outside of the main ring. This yurt was sort of a meeting place with rising benches that circled a ceremonial central firepit, with lavish metalwork and a fire burning in the center.

The oddity about this place, though, was that the bloody man’s DNA was everywhere, according to the map in the sky not a hundred kilometers away, but there was no blood here, and the people in this space were of two kinds. Those who wore fancy furs, and those who wore white silk robes embroidered with the words ‘Severing Crescent’. A quick check in the past, with a [Witness], revealed that the delegation from Songli had only been in this room for the last ten minutes, while an hour ago, around the time that the blood man showed up in Alaralti, the manasphere had no history; someone had blanked it.

The delegation from Severing Crescent were the people who had been compromised, according to that bloody man. The leader of the fur-clad people, who Erick assumed was Niyazo, was talking to the delegation as though nothing too dangerous had recently happened.

Both sides had greeted each other as per normal customs, but those normal customs were quickly failing. While Ophiel watched from outside of the yurt, tempers rose inside, and Erick listened in, unwilling to show Ophiel yet, or to interrupt what was happening.

The leader of the delegation from Alaralti, a man of pink skin and horns, said, “Enough with the rounding; answer me or be barred from entering the Compact. Where have you hidden your man, Warlord Niyazo? Where is Amasar?”

Niyazo grit his teeth, and said, “If my nephew has given offense, then tell me why he has given offense, so that I may solve this on my own terms. That is what the Compact is about, is it not? Empowered Clans are allowed to police their own. Do you go against your own Compact so late in our talks, Ambassador Bai?”

“You are not part of the Compact yet.” Bai said, “Your man has killed three of my own. If you fail to produce him, then I will be forced to declare you an enemy of Songli. You could run, but you would not be able to hide from us. We are creating a backlog of miscreants for our new archmage to hunt, and unless you want your name added to that list, produce your nephew. Now.”

Erick felt a spike of dread lodge directly between his eyes and his breath catch in his lungs.

Songli was not doing that; He would have heard.

And another thing! If they ever asked him to do this!…

Okay. Well. He would consider it. He was already considering killing all the local Hunters, after all, but—

But no! Targeting ‘miscreants’? Fuck no. Erick would only search out for high crimes and dangerous people! He had made this much known already, hadn’t he? Yes, he did.

Ambassador Bai was lying; trying to pressure Niyazo into getting what he wanted.

Yes; that was what was happening there.

Niyazo glared. “You threaten with phantoms instead of honoring the same lawful processes that you championed not two years ago, when you first started coming to us. You bring dishonor to us all with these words of war. You bring dishonor to yourself by treating my Clan Pale Cow like we are simple commoners. You show your true self in this demand.” He stared. “Leave. Now. Before you ruin what you have tried to create.”

Niyazo stood. His three warriors stood with him.

On the other side of the meeting hut, Bai and the five person delegation from Songli stood in response.

Ambassador Bai said, “Bring us Amasar to answer for his crimes, or throw away all the good works we have achieved these last two years.” He added, “You are a power among your people because of us. You are the head of a Clan because of us. Do not [Cleanse] that away as though it means nothing.”

“I see now that all you ever wanted was a boy to whip, to make me achieve your demands.” Niyazo said, “You are breaking hospitality. I ask you to leave one more time.”

Bai glared. “I’m not leaving without justice. We’re not leaving without the head of the man who killed three of mine. Comply, or have your head removed.” Bai’s face fell, as his voice strained, “Comply, dammit, Niyazo. You are outnumbered a thousand to one. I am just one man, but Songli is millions. You will not win this confrontation.”

“It would be a million to one, and I would still resist this.” Niyazo said, “It was you that helped me to see that words are meaningful, Bai. That the Compact has value. Now, you threaten to ruin what we have because some of your men are dead and my nephew is supposedly the culprit. But he will not run forever. He has family here. I will take care of this problem when he eventually shows. Why are you pushing so hard?”

Bai breathed out, settling himself for combat as he put a hand on the sword at his belt. “Old friend. Please see reason.”

Niyazo placed a hand upon his own sword at his side. He resigned himself. “Apparently not friend enough.”

Every single person in the room moved—

And ran into solid panes of force. [Quick Wall]s had gone up absolutely everywhere, and though some of the people broke through some of those walls, they did not break through the hundreds Erick had placed between both sides. Some people had the wherewithal to stare at the walls around them, unsure what had happened, but others quickly realized that a third party was involved. Some people tried to blip here or there, but Erick had already filled the space with [Spatial Denial], so those people barely got meters from their starting location. And since [Quick Wall]s were absolutely everywhere, including above and below, those people merely blipped to the edge of the translucent white Force, and stopped; unable to blip any further. Rapidly, other spells filled the space, from [Unmoving Fire] to all the rest. Erick decided he needed to make the Prismatic Version of that spell sooner rather than later. He’d do that after he cleared up the problem here.

The final touch was a [Draining Void] cast across everyone.

Some of the people screamed in sudden pain, but the pain of extraction would stop when they had no more Mana or Health. It was a simple end to a simple—

Ah. Some of them stopped screaming. Not a lot of mana then. Losing Health was more palatable than losing mana, it seemed. Soon enough, the room was silent. The two main guys continued to stream drops of Health into the air, but soon enough, even that stopped. They didn’t stop staring at each other from across a room full of [Quick Wall]s, though. Soon enough, groans of pain turned to words, turned to muttered curses directed at the other side; accusations almost came out. But before the conversation could start up again, Erick had Ophiel blip into a space he had already shaped for Ophiel to go; a space devoid of the spells he had cast across the land on the other side of the firepit.

Ophiel became a third party to the discussion.

Everyone turned Ophiel’s way, as Ophiel shaped the unimpeded light into Erick’s partially-feathered form. The delegation turned scared, then hopeful; but Erick could tell that the ‘hopeful’ was a lie. They were truly terrified. Niyazo had a much more honest reaction. First came wary terror, then came anger.

Niyazo yelled, “You are not welcome here, Archmage! I give you no leave to exert your will on my people!”

Erick countered, “Amasar is healing and in custody in Alaralti. He had a fortuitous encounter with me, and so I am here now. Sorry about the unkindness of my actions, but I’m pretty sure that the delegation in front of you is full of face stealers, so your involvement is merely an unfortunate side effect of capturing them.”

As he spoke, the delegation paled, but the leader steeled himself for the lies that were about to come out of his mouth.

Niyazo surprised them all, saying, “I know what they are!”

Erick startled.

Everyone turned to Niyazo, as the man said, “Amasar contacted me and told me everything.”

One of Niyazo’s men startled behind him. “You accepted a [Telepa—”

“I did not. It was a [Viewing Screen] from High Clan Matriarch Tipanri herself.” Niyazo glared at the offending pretenders across the translucent barrier, saying, “I was not willing to accept that Bai was dead, but I see now that my friend is gone. Bai would never do as this man has done.” He glared at the offending man, saying, “I had to be sure. I was prepared to sound the retreat the second the battle started for I trusted my men to last that long. I know face stealers are too dangerous to fight when outnumbered.”

A lie.

But only the part about ‘sounding the retreat’. Niyazo trusted himself to kill ‘Bai’, at least. Maybe he would have succeeded… But probably not.

Erick came back to himself momentarily, as Poi cleared his throat.

Poi said, “Matriarch Tipanri thanks you for your assistance, but your distortion spell has prevented her people from coming in and handling the situation. She wishes to apprehend the Hunters alive.”

Erick almost felt a pang of shame and smallness, as though he had been doing something he shouldn’t have. And then he got over that damned emotion right quick. He said, “Please tell her that I personally dislike Hunters, and thus when the situation revealed itself to me, I became invested. If she sees a way for me to assist without stepping on her toes, then I am willing to help in whatever way she wants, but I saw no indication that anything except a slaughter was about to happen.” He added, “I’m recasting the spells; they should be able to appear within the village in ten seconds, but I will keep these specific people locked down. They’re already all drained of Mana and Health.”

Poi nodded, and glanced away as he relayed the message.

Erick went back to Ophiel and did as he said he would.

In twenty seconds, a new batch of people in white blipped into the grass outside of the large yurt.

By this time, Erick’s various spells had washed across the land, and then been retracted, but people still noticed when their water and air spells had stopped working. The village was a land of at least three hundred people, and the women at the [Grow] section of the mobile settlement had noticed the disruption first, when their water spells stopped drawing liquid up from a well. Not to mention the various guards on the perimeters or the old women and men in the center all seeing that something was happening.

Absolutely everyone noticed the itchy feeling of a Shade in their presence, too. Some even screamed as much, openly praying as they raced for shelter and for their children.

Okay. Well. The side effects of [Spatial Denial] were not great, but it would have to be as it was, for now. It was just a small bit of panic, anyway. After the panic passed, people rallied to defend themselves.

Anyway.

After that first [Spatial Denial] came down, then left, leaving a new Denial molded to the main yurt, twenty five newcomers in white, a whole platoon of them, started speaking —yelling, really— at the perimeter guard, which was on super high alert. The reshaped spells allowed Erick to [Teleport Other] Niyazo out in front of the meeting yurt, though, which he did. The casual maneuver of Ophiel’s [Animadversion] shield in front of the Warlord prevented one of the young men from accidentally skewering his leader with a [Force Beam].

Niyazo rapidly reoriented and then yelled at the offending young man.

If that spell would have hit, Niyazo would not have had the benefit of Health to mitigate that killing spell. So Erick tapped the Warlord with a [Greater Treat Wounds] to help speed along his recovery of Health.

Things calmed down after that, with Erick mostly watching from a distance as Niyazo rapidly took control of the situation. He glared at Ophiel, who appeared to be big and hovering above the main yurt, but it was just an illusion; Ophiel was still small and covered in [Animadversion] and hovering near the warlord.

Other people in the village openly stared at the lightward Ophiel, and at the events unfolding before them. Things calmed down a lot when the [Teleport Lock] feeling went away. Only a few had been scared by that, anyway; only some of the people here knew what a Shade Lock felt like, but all of them were rapidly able to organize around those who had called out the problem and the supposed threat.

Erick watched as Niyazo invited some captain of Severing Crescent away from his platoon and into the village. That captain and several other people walked in to the Yurt with a quintet of collars among them. Erick helped the captain by taking away the spells that impeded entry, as well as removing the [Draining Void] surrounding the new prisoners.

The former delegation did not resist. Mostly.

When the [Draining Void] went down, one guy behind ‘Bai’ covertly broke a vial of blue potion that he had sewn into the skin of his leg, on the inner thigh. That he had such a backup plan was exactly the same as that one hunter who Erick killed when they first came to Songli. Erick was prepared for the blip, so when the man tried it, a [Harmonic Counterspell] shut him down.

Erick moved Ophiel near that guy, holding him down with [Harmonic Counterspell] twice more, saying, “This guy just tried to [Teleport] away. The potion in his leg helped him get back the mana needed to do that. I’m rather sure he’s a Hunter. Not sure about the rest, but they all exhibit signs of being one.” As everyone went from high-strung, to calm, to rapidly collaring the man Erick had shut down, Erick continued, “He’s the only one with a potion in his leg, though. The rest have potions on their person. Please keep me informed of what happens here, as I do not like Hunters; thus, the personal interest.”

The captain, Xuloo, and his people told Erick what he wanted to hear, but Erick was pretty sure that they were terrified of him, too. Erick knew he would have to deal with Tipanri if he wanted to keep abreast of whatever this nonsense was happening in this village.

The soldiers outside were building a temporary shelter of stone and dirt outside of the village’s protective lines. As Xuloo frog-marched the pretenders to their new cells, Niyazo watched ‘Bai’ vanish into that stone building, bereft of something intrinsic inside, something that he had held in his heart before the confrontation with Bai. And then, like a man who saw the world for what it was, Niyazo slumped momentarily, and then straightened, and got on with it.

Niyazo went to his clan, who had been watching, and began talking.

Erick got the full story then, or at least the one the warlord chose to tell his people. All in all, it was rather straightforward.

Niyazo said, “Nephew Amasar was successful in getting help from our contacts in Alaralti. He found Archmage Flatt. And now, it is revealed that Ambassador Bai and his people have been replaced by face stealers. At least one is confirmed. We will know more later.” He gestured toward an old woman in the crowd, who had three young women warriors surrounding her. “Aunt Yorila will be breaking [Telepathy] Silence and confirming that we have no more face stealers in our midst. Allow her to message you to confirm who you are.”

Aunt Yorila nodded, while some people in the crowd scowled at the old woman.

Niyazo declared, “It’s over, for now. The soldiers of Songli will set up nearby, but they will be gone within a day; I have been assured. Aunt Yorila will be calling upon our allies and telling them what has happened here, so that the call may go out wide and far. That is all.”

Other people scowled at that, with more than a few muttering how [Telepathy] was as unnatural as [Polymorph].

One man called out, “What about talks with Alaralti? What about becoming a Clan of Songli?”

The crowd refocused.

Niyazo spoke to the crowd, “We will get a new ambassador. Talks will resume. We will not support incorporating into Songli without an understanding of all that has happened today.”

“It’s only going to get worse!” called out a middle-aged woman, about Niyazo’s age. “It probably wasn’t face stealers at all! This is what they do to each other. They invent reasons to harm, and this is somehow a harm; just you wait! The malice of Songli will show in the end.”

A few people agreed with her, nodding along.

Niyazo glared at the offender, then calmly said, “Ibahka could be correct; we do not know. We do know that the Clans of Songli try to outdo each other all the time. They can afford to do so, since their bounty is so vast. But this is the final race now. Before, this plan of incorporation didn’t look possible. And now it is possible! Now, Terror Peaks is gone; the largest impediment to Songli is no more.” His tone turned darker, saying, “Now, the Face Stealers and the Shadows come out to play in one final bid to prevent Empire; to prevent power from forming in our hands. Gain the Sight to see: Songli is destined to take all of Nelboor and we have a choice to be one of those who rise to the top and take control of our own fates, to be empowered by Empire, or to be crushed under the foot of our fellow grass travelers, as Songli raises them up instead.” As the crowd fell silent, Niyazo belted out, “We will lead our people! Us! We will not give up our rights as Clan. We will not allow others to control our Fate, for make no mistake: the Shadow War is here, so [Ward] your hearts, and let us do what must be done.”

Niyazo finished.

People looked to Ibahka, and the woman nodded; satisfied. She walked off, with several nearby people following her. With her departure, the crowds dispersed.

Erick came back to himself, thinking…

He didn’t need to think for long.

He slapped his leg, declaring, “Nope! No Shadow Wars are gonna happen here! No way; not on my watch.” He turned to Poi, and said, “We’re killing every single Hunter that Alaralti or Songli or whoever has on file. Send out the word to whoever you need to tell. I’m doing here what I did for the Crystal Forest. All of the Hunters are going to die.” As an afterthought, he said, “Or maybe I’ll Bless them. I’m not sure. Have Songli make a decision either way; I won’t do anything without their consent and assistance, and this isn’t going to be some half-assed ‘point me at who they want dead’-thing, either. Verified Hunters. Verified organizations that murder and kill. Any of those types; We’re getting rid of them, one way or the other.”

Erick thought for a moment, going over the words he had just said, and feeling their gravity. He mentally checked himself to make sure that this was what he wanted.

Organizations like the Cinnabar Hand, the Hunters had come after him and Spur at the behest of Caradogh Pogi, needed to not exist. Anyone who ate the brains and hearts of people, and then turned into those people in order to kill more, needed to be put down.

So.

Yes.

Yes; Erick wanted this.

Erick said, “Yes. This is what we’re doing now, if Songli wishes for this assistance. The parameters of my help are narrow, for I will not assist with every little problem, but if this land has a Hunter problem then I will make it vanish, with their help.”

Poi stood strong, his face resolute, as he sent out the message.

He was a little bit happy, too.

“Of course I’m happy.” Poi said, “This is a good thing, Erick; I’m all for the removal of Hunters. Everyone should be. But this is a land of millions. I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t tell you that this will make us a target.”

Erick nodded, saying, “I am aware, but I’m already a target, and if they come to me, then that makes taking care of them that much easier.” He added, “I plan to create better defenses, though, so we should be rather unassailable if they come here— Ah. Well. We’ll be harder to attack, anyway. An antirhine-missile could still get in anywhere, couldn’t it?”

“No one is ever as safe as they think they are.” Poi said, “But if Songli agrees to this, then they will be charged with keeping you safe, too. And by the way, though the Cinnabar Hand might have been destroyed, Hunter organizations exist all across the world. We’ll surely end up catching more than a few of them if this Purge happens here in Songli.”

Erick nodded, solemnly, and almost said something else, he stopped.

The weight of Poi’s words were upon him, and he saw a certain glee in Poi’s countenance that he had rarely ever seen before. Poi didn’t like Hunters, did he? How had Erick missed that before?

Wasn’t his sister murdered? By unknown, strong people? Or at least people that Poi wasn’t willing to tell Erick about…

… For Erick would have helped him solve whatever problem he had.

And Poi knew that Erick could help him to solve his long-standing hatred.

Thinking back, Poi had a rather strong reaction when the question came up over whether to execute or soul-warp the Hunters who attacked them when they first arrived in Songli. The man had to go out and get drunk afterward, too. It was a strong reaction indeed.

Erick guessed that Poi’s ability to [Mind Control] his problems away was very much like his own ability to [Blessing of Empathy] killers into becoming not-killers. Poi had likely battled with that concern on the daily, or at least every time he recognized a Hunter walking around in someone else’s skin.

Because that had to have happened at least once, right?

Mind Mages didn’t use what they knew against anyone, unless there was imminent personal harm about to be committed. So all a Hunter would have to do was plan their kills outside of imminent harm.

Which was kinda worse, in a deep way.

How many times has Poi subtly stopped a murder by pointing guards at the would-be killer? How many times has he not? But now that Erick was thinking about it, Poi probably hadn’t failed anyone that badly, or at least not in a long time. The guy routinely and subtly made muggers and other sorts of problematic people decide to not be problems when he and Erick were out on the town, shopping or whatever. No; Poi probably hadn’t failed anyone like that in a long time… which likely meant that he failed someone early on, by not preventing a foreseen problem in the correct way. Maybe he decided not to report something once, and found out two days later that someone had died because of his inaction.

… Which was not a fair thought. Just because someone could read a mind did not mean that they had all the answers when they were young.

As soon as he had these thoughts, Erick regretted having them. How awful must it have been for Poi to hear him think these unkind things, because according to the dragonkin man’s face, Erick might not have had all the particulars correct, but he had the broad strokes.

Erick forgot what he was going to say, and instead said, “I’m sorry, Poi.”

Poi went tense as he talked to other people, on the other side of telepathic tendrils. He said nothing. He looked away. He finished relaying the message, and then he turned back to face Erick. He still said nothing, likely because he was having trouble putting his thoughts into words.

And then Poi said, “It wasn’t Hunters, exactly. It was humans— No… That’s not the right place to start. It was the Dragon Stalkers from the Greensoil Republic and— Look. I don’t really want to talk about this, but I can’t have you imagining problems that I have already worked through— That I mostly worked through.” He paused. He said, “They found my mother raising two dragonkin in Kal’Duresh, and it was odd for them, and it was Quiet War shit, and they got her and tried to get me and my sister, but we moved, and then they got her a few years later, and I escaped. All in a bid to get my father.” Poi looked away, saying, “The Dragon Stalkers are a worldwide military and the main killers of dragons out in the open. Don’t get mixed up with them, Erick. They’re bad news, because usually, they’re accepted the world over. A lot of dragonkin know of and help them, too.”

Erick listened to Poi’s pain, and said, “I’m sorry that happened to you. That shouldn’t have happened to your mother, or to your sister, or to you.” He asked, “It’ll likely take days for the High Clan to make some decisions, so do you want to go out to a bar again tonight?”

A moment passed; unreal.

Poi huffed an unexpected laugh, then said, “No. Thank you. There’s not one we could go to anyway without being found out. Besides. Getting drunk that night was me being stupid; I don’t need to be drunk to…” He looked away. “I don’t need to be drunk to get through this problem, and we’ve got a lot more problems coming our way, anyway.” He looked back to Erick, saying, “We’ve got tentative confirmation from Patriarch Hangzi and Matriarch Tipanri, but Matriarch Lingxing wishes for more information as to the truth of your ability to search out people in [Polymorph]s.”

Erick let Poi’s history lay, as he turned his mind back to the new problem that he had made for himself. He said, “Don’t mention any of the finer points of what I’m actually searching for, but tell them that what I am about to tell them is a small bit of magical trivia that I would consider relatively classified, but not overmuch.” Erick explained, “[Cleanse] gets rid of a lot, but it is not enough. [Cascade Imaging] can track the tiny bits of a person that [Cleanse] leaves behind through cross contamination on clothes and traveling through a space and other such movements. But, tracking this way will be a lot harder to do than what we did to search out the terrorists of Terror Peaks. It will require samples of targets in whatever form they actively Hunt people with, otherwise, the search will be fruitless.

“In order to do this, we will need high-ranking people to make decisions about who we find, to see if they’re actually [Polymorph]ed Hunters, or just normal people in the wrong place at the wrong time. I suggest Sin Seekers to suss out guilt of killing, or whoever else you’d prefer to use to make these sorts of calls. I will not go along with this if the ‘commoner killing’ clause of Clan Law is used to solve the problem by simply putting everyone found to the sword.” Erick added, “And I don’t want to get involved with dragons, so if they think this search will head that way, we’re simply going to stop right here.”

Poi relayed Erick’s message through the appropriate channels.

Erick waited.

Poi reported, “They’re in conference, discussing your offer. They’ll get back to you later.”

Erick nodded.

He turned his attention back to the Ophiel overlooking Niyazo’s village, He had Ophiel move closer to the temporary stone building that Songli’s forces had set up. The suspected Hunters were being interrogated in small, hastily made stone rooms by newcomers that were not a part of the original 25 person platoon.

With a truthstone sitting on the table between her and him, a woman in white asked ‘Ambassador Bai’ about parts of his life that she said that he should know, while ‘Bai’ said nothing. He gave no response, for whatever reason. Others were much less stoic.

One of the for-sure Hunters, the one who had the vial in his leg, was unable to answer any questions because he was in a rage. He screamed and punched at the stone walls, chipping the rock and bloodying his fists in return, as he roared out profanities against Songli. He yelled about how their people would steal the faces of all they sent north, and how they would bring down every High Clan of Songli from the inside. They would finish what Terror Peaks started, erasing Songli from the world before they would ever let them take their hunting grounds.

The interrogator for that guy simply watched from the next room, taking notes, his eyes wide as he listened. He was unprepared to hear the plans pouring out of the raging killer’s mouth, but was good at his job, and he professionally took down notes. Songli would hear about the new threat allied against them.

Erick listened, all the while wondering how deep this Hunter rabbit hole went.