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The fight hadn’t started yet.

Erick was strangely calm. He hadn’t fought against a man like Sitnakov before; either against one of the strongest warriors on the planet, or against a wrought of any skill at all. It made Erick think of Killzone, and wondered if the orcol-shaped Sitnakov was anything like the orcol-shaped general of Spur’s Army. Maybe only superficially? Killzone used his fists, but Sitnakov used two straight swords, so there was a difference there, but maybe not much of one.

Sitnakov vanished, followed rapidly by Tasar and Kromolok, Erick’s [True Sight] and other methods failed to pierce whatever spellwork the three wrought used to hide, but according to the Imaging by Yggdrasil they were still there. Tasar was likely still laid out on the ground, mostly healed but not quite. Kromolok was likely still leaning over the downed Summoner—

The rocky ground where Sitnakov had been suddenly cratered, as though a massive weight launched into the air. In that same second, Tasar and Kromolok blipped away, but they were already [Super Invisible], or whatever fucking spell they had each cast, so Erick didn’t see them go.

The Imaging beside Erick followed the three combatants as they blipped in unison toward Erick’s location; toward Yggdrasil.

Erick took a moment to shift the Imaging to ‘wrought’, as he said to Yggdrasil, “I want you to lightly use [Physical Domain] but only on the wrought or the wrought’s spellwork, when they come into range. Use the map to find them if you can’t see them. Use the [Physical Domain] like I showed you; like you saw me use against Nirzir’s spellwork, to erase that spellwork. Don’t actually pressure any of them with the [Domain], okay? Only vibrate them, or the world around them. No killing; not yet.”

“Okay!” Yggdrasil said, brightly happy.

The air suddenly shifted as a deep power began to thrum the world—

“Pull back a bit, Yggdrasil. Normalize yourself. Amplify and Harmonize only the targets. Keep your Domain away from the land.”

The air shifted again, becoming calmer. Erick watched with Ophiel as Yggdrasil flickered Harmonize and Amplify in pockets of air all around himself. Pockets of vibration appeared next to pockets of stillness, as waves down below blew against the wind and bubbles formed underwater here and there. Yggdrasil’s power extended a dozen kilometers in every direction, skipping over the Wizard’s Tower and the rest of the nearby coastal kingdom, but he pulled his power back from those locations, too, ensuring that his destruction would only affect what he wanted to affect.

If he managed to help at all, then that was fine—

In three short seconds, Erick watched as Yggdrasil rapidly learned how to wield his power, forming a dozen rings and a hundred small pockets of vibrating space all around, prismatic light flickering back and forth inside those pocket spaces like controlled shockwaves. It would be a while till they turned into magenta explosions, but it would happen soon enough, for sure.

Erick let his small joy at Yggdrasil’s first success flow through their bond. “Good job, Yggdrasil. You’re getting the hang of it. When the wrought show, throw some explosions at them, but don’t go for the kill.”

“I understand, Father!”

Erick said, “I’m going to use you to cast this spell, now, okay?” He waited a bare second, feeling for Yggdrasil’s easily given reins, and then he cast a star into the sky.

The blue heavens turned dark, and then exploded in bright white light as radiance washed out across the blue ocean. An Abyss of Extreme Light swelled inside the darkness above Yggdrasil’s rainbow crown, growing fast to overwhelming proportions, unleashing tendrils of twisting shadow all across the land. Erick couldn’t see it himself up there, above Yggdrasil’s upper branches, but the [Undertow Star]’s power cast shadows even into the brightness of this central space.

Erick used Yggdrasil to cast another spell, filling the nearest ten kilometers with [Spatial Denial].

All the while, Erick resummoned his Ophiels, preparing for the confrontation, wondering just how far he had to go against these people to get them to stop, and if he needed to follow up today’s murders with genocide—

And wasn’t that a sobering thought! And yet! Sitnakov had threatened Jane, and Spur, and Poi, Kiri, Teressa! He had threatened all of them and more besides. Erick was ready for extreme solutions if necessary. He probably wouldn’t create his ‘kill everything’ spell… Probably.

Erick prepared himself with [Lodestar] and [Greater Lightwalk] as he stared down at the [Cascade Imaging] hovering in the air, just beyond Yggdrasil’s trunk. With resignation, he lightsteped into the air a hundred meters away from his sleeping space, to stand on the light, and wait.

Sitnakov was 50 kilometers away, over atop the ocean. Kromolok and Tasar were beside each other, about a kilometer away from Sitnakov. Erick couldn’t see them with his eyes, or with any of his other senses, even though he should have been able to at that range…

With another thought, Erick erased his own Imaging and had Yggdrasil cast another Imaging into the sky, using the big guy’s massive size multiplier to create something that was almost a new spell, but not quite. Below the [Undertow Star], directly inside Yggdrasil’s upper canopy, another star formed. The spells did not interfere with each other, thankfully.

A fog rolled in, lifting off from the ocean and inundating Yggdrasil’s entire kilometers-wide body and twenty kilometers in every direction beyond. This was a big [Cascade Imaging]. It would take a while to populate, but it was a 1-for-1 map overlaid atop Yggdrasil, and it should give rather precise targeting of the wrought when any of them showed in the space.

Barely 30 seconds had passed since hostilities seemed inevitable.

Erick wondered how long he would have to wait—

A blue rush appeared in the foggy air next to Erick, inside Yggdrasil’s airspace, coming in from Erick’s back right like a cosmically-fast blur. With half a thought, Erick designated the wroughts as ‘enemies’ and the Star above weaved a tendril of shadow through the space, aiming at the blue blur. Those shadows seemed to move in slow motion against the blue blur, like a ponderous giant moving against a speedy gnat. The gnat almost reached Erick but Erick lightstepped away, through the closest shadow tendril, hoping to draw the invisible Sitnakov into the Drain and Extreme Light.

But the blue blur continued on through where Erick had been, never appearing to any Sight, only half-seen by the glowing fog all around, moving fast through the mist get away from the ponderous [Undertow Star]—

A blue blur appeared in the fog right behind Erick. He barely had time to move, but he did. Another step through another shadow tendril took him out of harm’s way.

Where Erick had been, the blue blur half-materialized like something out of a fevered dream, arms swinging non-visible swords that sliced the air, filling the world with crashing, sonic booms. The blue blur vanished back into the glowing mist all around, moving fast to stay away from the crawling tendrils of [Undertow Star]. The shockwaves surely would have propagated far, but Yggdrasil saw the problem and locked those destructive waves down with Normalize.

Erick could have sworn he heard a ‘tsk’ out there in the glowing mists.

A moment of nothing passed, and Erick found himself thinking. If Sitnakov was attacking like this, it meant that either he discounted Erick’s power, or he had failed to [Strike] properly, or he wasn’t aiming for a kill. Erick discounted the third option right away. The first two meant that he should aim to kill, too… Unless he could overpower the man and force him to submit in a way that would last? Was such a thing pos—

This would require soul fuckery, probably. Was he willing to do that? Yes. He wa—

The Crystal Star felt suddenly heavy upon his chest—

“Yes, yes; no soul fuckery,” Erick complained at the thing. “I suppose we’ll cut off all his limbs again and lock him down. I can do that, too.”

The Crystal Star went inert.

While Erick spoke, nothing had tried to attack him again, which was odd. Erick had expected—

Sitnakov’s voice carried on the wind, “You can still surrender. We’ll have to strip [Duplicate] out of you, but that’s fine, right?”

“How about I strip off the arm I gave you? Eh? How about that?”Erick said, “And a punitive tax on both of your legs, as well!”

Erick watched his surroundings, but he also watched the sky. The mist all around Yggdrasil began to fade as [Cascade Imaging] worked overtime to clear the air. As vision increased, Erick could see great columns of twisting shadow chasing a rapidly moving and rapidly resolving blue blur about a kilometer away. Yggdrasil worked overtime, too, opening up pockets of flashing purple space into the blue blur’s path. Neither shadow nor explosion seemed able to reach the man, who danced around every obstacle and even through several, blasting right through every bit of spellwork that Yggdrasil managed to make hit, dissipating magenta vibrations like so many scattered explosions.

Yggdrasil seemed to be a lot better about hitting the man than [Undertow Star]. Erick was surprised at the pace of Yggdrasil’s learning, but shouldn’t have been; the big guy learned quickly, even if his speech was still odd. [Undertow Star] underperformed, though. That spell wasn’t exactly sentient so all it could do was chase the target with tendrils of shadow. It couldn’t aim where Sitnakov was going to be, and so Sitnakov took great advantage of this weakness.

Erick almost wanted to solve that weakness, but the spell already had ‘Summon the Undertow Star! All are the same; all are different.’ as it’s first line of spell description. If Erick increased the tier anymore, it might actually turn sentient, and that seemed like a bad idea.

Anyway.

Yggdrasil was doing very, very well. Erick was thoroughly impressed. It didn’t take the big guy long to figure out that he needed to ‘prime’ his magenta explosions before shoving them at Sitnakov, and so he was doing that, a thousand times over, all across the land. Growing magenta explosions hung around Yggdrasil like Christmas decorations, and when they were ready, Yggdrasil funneled those explosions directly into Sitnakov’s path, through tightly-controlled branch-sized tunnels of Harmonize/Amplify—

The blue blur appeared behind Erick again, throwing out a [Tether] instead of attacking.

Erick batted the [Tether] away with his sunform, feeling the weight of a supremely-honed Domain working overtime to connect; he almost failed. Direct confrontations with the man were not advised, apparently. Erick lightstepped away, directly across the path of a shadow tendril. He barely got a glance at Sitnakov before the man stepped away again. In that brief moment of contact the [Cascade Imaging] above revealed him as a blue, wispy hologram, with a mean smile.

Reminded Erick of Bulgan, actually.

That almost sent Erick over the edge into ‘kill right now’ territory, but he stopped himself. There would be no pulling back once he murdered a prince of Stratagold.

Erick called out as Sitnakov ran away, “I’m going to start using [Luminous Beam], soon! This is your last warning to stop this nonsen—!”

“Father. It hurts.” Yggdrasil said, “Left. Right.”

Concern flooded Erick as he rapidly looked around, using Ophiel to see—

Tasar held in the skies over the deeper ocean. The green adamantium archmage held her staff aloft, and the world around her transformed into a glittering expanse of tiny, bright lights, like an orange-yellow sunrise captured in a land of dew drops.

Each drop of whatever suddenly shimmered in sync, spreading—

In the other direction, over the coast, Kromolok stood over the beach and radiated waves of power into the air, like Erick’s own [Physical Domain] but vastly different. Those waves expanded and expanded, each one radiating further than the one before. He had likely been channeling his Domain aura for the last thirty seconds, but it was already a kilometer wide and growing fast, pressing up against Yggdrasil’s [Physical Domain] with each larger wave like an industrial wood chipper, gradually eating away at what Yggdrasil could not protect—

And then Tasar’s summons had glittered enough. A thousand packets of power streamed in every single direction, but the ones directly between Tasar and Yggdrasil reached the edge of his Domain much sooner than all the rest, crumpling the [Physical Domain] inward with great, vanishing explosions of Void, each glittering summon taking out massive swaths of power, causing a collapse of Domain.

Every part of Yggdrasil’s [Physical Domain] suffered damage as the collapsing Domain forced him to compensate from opposite directions at the same time. All of his control weakened, throwing off his careful pursuit of Sitnakov, sending magenta shockwaves wild.

Good news, Tasar’s summons hit the twisting shadows of the [Undertow Star] before they could reach Yggdrasil’s canopy, and were promptly erased by the Extreme Light Star. Bad news, the Star vanished; it had used all of itself to extinguish all of the remaining glitters, ending Tasar’s attack.

But Tasar began to glitter again, gearing up for the next salvo.

Sitnakov attempted another sideways attack, coming in at Erick’s upper left back.

The man was practically a blue ghost now, and he was also obviously itching to get a [Luminous Beam] to the face, which is exactly why Erick didn’t do that. Instead, he had seven Ophiel each cast their own spells at Sitnakov, near simultaneously but in order of most-to-least probable to work, while the others held in wait with [Harmonic Counterspell], but only after Sitnakov tried his [Tether]. Which he did.

Erick barely dodged the [Tether], slipping Sitnakov’s power up as Erick went down.

And in that moment, Ophiel cast.

[Air Breaker]. [Prismatic Breaker]. [Ward Destruction]. [Grand Dispel] for 7,500 mana. Another [Grand Dispel] for the same. [Force Breaker]. [Fulmination Aura].

[Air Breaker] was useless; the spell struck an absolute Domain, which made sense but Erick still had to try. [Prismatic Breaker] met the same resistance. [Ward Destruction] caught on something; Erick wasn’t sure what. [Grand Dispel] ripped away something else; again, no idea what. The second [Grand Dispel] ripped away Sitnakov’s [Super Invisibility], making him appear as a being of black wind. [Force Breaker] touched on something, breaking one of the man’s swords, but not the other.

[Fulmination Aura] skittered across the revealed man, but briefly, as Sitnakov’s eye went wide. The man had an [Air Domain] of some sort, as well as [Greater Air Body]. The guy had some sort of reflection active, too. Lightning skittered across his black metal body and did nothing.

Sitnakov tried to airstep away, though, and that’s when the [Harmonic Counterspell]s struck. It didn’t work completely for the man was thick with Domain, but the spell did stagger the man barely enough as he tried to get away. Erick had cast another [Undertow Star] into the sky, through Yggdrasil, just as [Fulmination Aura] started to reflect.

A new Star in the sky licked through Sitnakov’s body, twisting Mana and Health out of the man with a tiny, almost invisible Drain. Sitnakov had some sort of massive damage mitigation multiplier to be able to tank [Undertow Star] like that. Or else his Domain was simply that strong. It wasn’t a lot, but it could be the turn of the tide.

Erick was honestly surprised that any of his spells were working at all.

And yet, Erick knew that if he won…

Whatever. He would win and then sort out the fallout after this was over.

With a guiding hand, he propped up Yggdrasil’s [Physical Domain], linking deep with his largest [Familiar] to show him how it was done. Soon, massive tunnels of magenta shockwaves were rippling around the entirety of Yggdrasil like his rainbow crown, but larger, and more violent.

Erick sent those larger shockwaves at Tasar’s continued [Void Bird Summoning], or whatever it was she was doing. It was enough to obliterate much of her incoming power, but she was already weak from her run in with Melemizargo. Perhaps she was pulling her punches, though? Perhaps. Highly likely, even.

Kromolok was very much pulling his punches. His [Shredding Domain], or whatever it was, allowed him to get closer but he couldn’t keep on the pressure and he faltered, falling back.

And Erick discovered a fun fact about Yggdrasil that he should have realized earlier. Yggdrasil covered a large area and had a massive size multiplier, so anything under his branches was close enough to be considered ‘close range’, opening up quite a few fighting options.

Sitnakov might have dodged with kilometer-wide airsteps, but he was still within range since Erick could target anywhere within all of Yggdrasil’s branches like it was the spell’s origin point; he could cast three kilometers away from himself if he wanted, and he did, multiple times. Just small spells, mainly. Things to trip up Sitnakov.

A [Force Wall] here, directly at his shins. More [Grand Dispel]s to strip away more defenses.

Ophiel harassed the man with lightning and otherwise.

Erick opened up with a sudden, unexpected [Luminous Beam] cast in the very air directly in front of Sitnakov and aimed at the man’s feet. The result wasn’t as impressive as Erick hoped. Sitnakov retained his feet. They didn’t even look singed. But Erick had done damage, for sure. Maybe not much damage?

Erick called out to the man, “You’re a tough little shit, aren’t you?”

“And you’re a danger to the world!”

This was a war of attrition.

Tasar was out of it, though. Erick’s pressure with a magenta [Physical Domain] explosion had caused another internal break of some sort and Kromolok had taken her far away, down the coast. The Mind Mage was at her side, healing her again. Both of them were out of the fight, and Sitnakov didn’t even notice. Or perhaps he had?

Granted, Sitnakov was very, very busy at the moment. This was a war of attrition, sure, but Sitnakov was on a timer. Even with fantastic spell and ability efficiency, and the Stats to back up a lot of Regeneration, he was under the effects of [Undertow Star] and Yggdrasil was back to throwing more magenta explosions at Sitnakov. Yggdrasil had learned from Erick’s use of his power, and his skill at striking Sitnakov had tripled.

And yet... Maybe Sitnakov was on a timer?

He managed to escape the Star’s shadowy tendrils quite often, but he wasn’t fully evading them anymore. They clipped him now and again, drawing off more power in the form of white light out of Sitnakov’s black body.

Tasar was certainly on a timer; black blood seeped from all of her half-healed wounds as she lay on the sands of the beach, barely cognizant of her surroundings while Kromolok healed her as best he could. Tasar’s staff was gone, and so was all the extra adamantium that Erick had given to them. Erick wasn’t about to let them die, though, so he broke off some Ophiel from harassing Sitnakov to copy some more adamantium knives. He dropped those knives on the beach next to Tasar and Kromolok. The white wrought gave a worried ‘thanks’ before grabbing the adamantium and stringing it into Tasar’s wounds, healing the woman as best he could.

Erick checked his own mana and saw that he was fine; he was already pacing himself. He summoned Ophiel when they got low, and had Ophiel resummon all his own smaller defenses before sending him back out there to harass Sitnakov.

Sitnakov had started off strong but he was pacing himself now. Running through the sky, tanking magenta explosions, halfway-dodging shadow tendrils, he searched for openings, letting Erick’s spells take their toll and not caring too much. Erick’s spells might have injured him, but they had not done nearly enough. Sitnakov seemed to be enjoying this, like he was waiting for the perfect opening.

Which was exactly what he was doing.

Erick called out, “If you’re waiting for me to deploy my Domain wide enough for you to crack it, you should know that won’t happen. I had to walk through Domain-wielding monsters to get here, too. I know not to leave myself vulnerable like that.”

Sitnakov chuckled as he burst through another magenta explosion, his voice carrying on the wind, “With this level of power no wonder it took you so long to get down here!” He laughed. “How did you get past the guardians with this weakness? How did you evade our patrols? How did you kill even a single monster?”

“It took me three days and a thousand kilometers to get into this land.”

“What the fuck!” Sitnakov laughed. “Lies? Now, of all times! After we started off so well!”

He was obviously trying to bait Erick into making some sort of mistake.

Erick chose to taunt, instead, “Should have taken you at least four more days, but then Melemizargo had to help you! You had to accept the Darkness’s help! What sort of weak shit is that?”

Sitnakov stopped laughing. He never stopped racing around Yggdrasil’s boughs, evading spellwork as it came for him—

He flashed through the air, appearing directly at Erick’s front, already slashing.

Erick lightstepped away, saying, “I was having some very good talks with Rozeta but then you had to ruin my communion, slaging slagger.” He called out, “Ever think there was a reason Melemizargo suddenly decided to chase you in here, dumbshit!”

Sitnakov frowned, rapidly dodging everything with sudden expert control, weaving in and out and around all attacks, disappearing—

He reappeared in the sky ten kilometers away, across the ocean, standing still.

Only the barest bit of Yggdrasil’s [Physical Domain] could reach that far, so Erick had the big guy pull back, solidifying the spheres and rings of magenta explosions into even stronger power in case Sitnakov resumed his attack.

Erick spoke first, his voice booming across the ocean, “Apologize, or I’ll start blasting for real.”

Sitnakov frowned. His voice carried on the wind, “You’re not taking me seriously.”

“You’re a fucking asshole who needs a good slap upside the head and a few more punches after that, but no! How could I?” Erick said, “This fight doesn’t end with you. A win here means Stratagold would descend upon me and mine and I do not feel like going on a one-man genocide spree! Not again!”

“Abyss confound it— You’re like my slagging brother.” Sitnakov sighed. “I suppose there’s not going to be any true fight on either side since Stratagold wishes to recruit more than it wishes to destroy, and you apparently can’t handle a bit of banter to truly rile up the fighting spirit.”

Several things clicked.

Erick was incredulous, “You only fight for the sake of fighting?”

“Of course! What other —” Sitnakov scowled. “This speech would have been a lot easier with me standing over your crushed body, but I wasn’t gonna actually kill you or yours. You need some damned therapy, Flatt, but I suppose you do live on the Surface.” With his own incredulity, Sitnakov called out, “This is why we don’t deal with the surface, by the way! Everyone up there is fucked in the head!”

Erick almost [Luminous Beam]ed Sitnakov dead on, from ten directions at once—

He pulled back, and kept to yelling instead, “Don’t FUCKING banter about killing my family or my people!”

Sitnakov scowled as he spat, “Don’t you know who I am?”

“I KNOW YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE!” Only very slightly softer, Erick added, “And Rozeta told me that she told you guys not to kill me, which indicates that murder was a very real possibility.”

Sitnakov scoffed. “She told Kromolok not to kill you, but you won him over when you started revealing key abilities to save our lives.”

Erick glanced over toward the beach with the white wrought and the archmage. Kromolok was still leaning over Tasar, feeding strings of adamantium into her bleeding body.

Sitnakov called out, “All I ever wanted was a real fight but now Kromolok is telling me to pull back— Hey! Ya wanna know who the real asshole is? It’s him! High Inquisitor Head Priest Kromolok. He’s the one who would have actually killed you.” Sitnakov said, “You don’t know about me, but you know of the Forgotten Campaigns, yeah? He leads them. He’s the one you gotta watch out for.”

“All I know is that all of you are suspect.” Erick yelled, “You say the people on the Surface are fucked in the head, but what the fuck is your problem?”

Sitnakov smiled. “I guess I wasn’t born right.”

“… Am I supposed to know what that means?”

Sitnakov’s smile dropped. “Yes you slagging well should. It’s my saying. I’ve had plays made about me and—” He added, “I kill Ancients all the time! I spent a lot of time dragging Bards around behind me, too, ensuring that everyone knows who protects this damned world from these damned monsters.” He happily added, “I even managed to wound Melemizargo once! Sliced him across an eye, I did!”

And now, Erick was mad for completely new, old reasons. “Where were you when I was looking for people to go after Ar’Kendrithyst and kill all the Shades!”

“Look.” Sitnakov’s serious voice carried across the kilometers of air, “I’m a battleforged, but I ain’t a stupid battleforged. You walked into danger and lucked out. That’s all there was to that.”

Erick lost his words. They were out there, somewhere, but he couldn’t find them. Was this guy for real? Was he playing up a persona? Were his reasons for attacking truly ‘to have a good fight’?

Erick finally settled on, “… Are you a bit stupid?”

Sitnakov frowned, then he spoke with authority once again, “I had hoped to have you at my mercy ensuring that I could offer you a hand in friendship without there being this sort of distrust, because both of us would know who is on top. But apparently doing so would require methods that neither of us wish to utilize at this moment. And so, as you have said yourself: Even if you win, this fight doesn’t end here. So choose. Either Kromolok and the Mind Mages, or me the Adamantium of Stratagold.”

Erick scoffed. “What about Tasar’s offer?”

“She’s throwing in with me, which you would have found out later after I had crushed you into friendly compliance.”

“Fuck you. I’m not getting mind wiped and I’m not having you at my backside, ever.”

Sitnakov smirked. “You have abandoned the easy path.” He took an airy step and was suddenly by the beach, near Kromolok and Tasar. The Inquisitor was still healing the Summoner, but Tasar looked a lot better. Her eyes were open now, and glaring at the large man. Sitnakov stood above them both, and spoke across the ocean at Erick, “Now comes the hard sell.”

Kromolok sighed and tied off his healing of Tasar. Then he stood up and faced Yggdrasil and Erick in the far distance. His voice carried on the air, “Sitnakov should have given you the softer sell but in his eagerness to test himself against you, he overrepresented his option; he would not actually go after you or yours, Archmage Flatt. His was supposed to be the reasonable option. Seeing what I see now, you likely would have picked him if he had been less forceful—” Kromolok frowned a bit, then continued, “I would prefer not to threaten, or to have relations deteriorate any further. You already know where we would go from here if you look to endanger the world.”

“Yes. Forgotten Campaigns, or subtle assassinations in the night.” Erick said, “I gotta say that I didn’t expect quite this reaction from you people. I expected a lot more talk and a lot less attempted murder. And I’m still not hearing any apologies!”

Sitnakov scoffed, again. “Why should we apologize! You’re the one that invaded our holy land!”

“It’s not holy land.” Erick said, “Rozeta called it a warehouse for resources to keep on hand in case of emergency. Nothing more; nothing less. Besides! There are memorials here! You can’t have memorials without people to see and honor them. You’re—”

“Let us not talk of religion for we do not have the same Sight to see the same things.” Kromolok said, “I would prefer not to fight anymore in this sacred land. Our people have set up another space for Yggdrasil outside of Stratagold. Could we reconvene there? We can hold off on further discussions until you are ensconced inside Yggdrasil once again, outside of this land.”

Erick wanted to scoff again, but Kromolok seemed sincere. So Erick met his words with a sincerity of his own, “You threatened physically and then tried to fight when the threats didn’t work, all in order to force me to capitulate to your demands. This is the wrong way to attempt diplomacy. Your actions show a complete disregard for others, bordering on psychopathy. Especially Sitnakov over there. If there is to ever be any sort of actual cooperation here, you will go away, and come again tomorrow after we’ve all had time to cool down, and you’ve had time to properly heal.”

Kromolok instantly said, “Accepted. We’ll meet again tomorrow, Archmage Flatt.”

Sitnakov shouted, “What! No! We—”

Kromolok rounded on Sitnakov, but the effect was diminished since Kromolok was a meter shorter and at least an eighth of the weight of the larger man. Sitnakov still managed to look a bit scared as Kromolok told him, “We are done for today. We’re all hurt. If you fight him now, you fight on your own. You are smarter than this, Prince Sitnakov, so be smarter.” He turned to Tasar, who was still sprawled out on the ground but not bleeding anymore, saying, “Tell him.”

Tasar struggled to lean up, to get on her elbows, breathing hard the whole way. With strain in her face and all of her still-healing body, she looked toward Yggdrasil, saying, “I’m not lining up with Sitnakov. We can complete your Path with a different Wizard, but it might take years to find one. Melemizargo could get impatient before that happens.”

Sitnakov glared at everyone, but mostly at Tasar. He said, “You strain an opportunity which could be yours.”

Tasar spoke to Sitnakov, and also toward Yggdrasil, “Which is why I suggest an amendment, Sitnakov. You give us a year to find another Wizard, and if we can’t, then Erick promises to reevaluate at that time.”

Sitnakov declared, “No. Even another—”

“Shut the fuck up, Sitnakov,” Erick’s voice boomed across the waters. “All of you, go away. Come again tomorrow, or maybe even the next day. I don’t give a shit. But I’m not talking with any of you right now. Scram.”

Kromolok nodded, saying, “We’ll relocate to the horizon so you can keep an eye on us and we can keep an eye on you.” He pointed. “There, at that green city.” And then he grabbed Tasar and in a blip of white light, they were gone; he had taken the extra adamantium and his bit of aluminum with him.

Sitnakov remained on the beach. He narrowed his eyes in the direction of the green city, on an island in the far distance, almost invisible near the curve of the blue Inner Core. Then he turned back toward Erick, saying, “You—” He twisted off his words, then started again, “Gain the Sight to see: You are in the wrong here, Archmage Flatt…”

For a moment, Sitnakov looked as if he would say something else but then he decided silence was the better part of valor. He turned and vanished in a black blur, racing toward the green city in the distance, where Kromolok and Tasar had already gone.

For a long, lonely moment, Erick just breathed, letting his anger flow away as much as it could, like pus from an infected wound.

And then Erick restocked his defenses, put up a few more, and watched through Ophiel as the three wrought went about some very animated and completely silent discussions over in their city of emerald green crystal towers. Ophiel wasn’t near the wrought, but he was close enough to see from a distance, and that was good enough. While Erick did that he began practicing with Yggdrasil and his use of his [Physical Domain].

He stopped practicing after he saw Tasar punch Sitnakov in the nuts.

Erick learned a few more secrets in that instant. Apparently, wrought had genitals in the appropriate locations even though they made their skin look like clothes, and when punched, the results were appropriate to expectations. Also, as Sitnakov slowly slumped to his knees, Erick realized he was not fully defended all the time, which boded well for future confrontations. All he needed to do to fight the man was to assassinate him when he least expected it.

Simple.

In addition to that, while Erick had initially seen the three wrought as a united front but divided in their specifics, he now saw them as people with very different desires; different enough to throw massive rifts into an otherwise orderly trio.

Could have all been for show, though. But… Probably not.

Maybe their next encounter would go better.

Erick left an Ophiel stationed near, but not too near the crystal tower with the wrought trio. There was a reason the wrought had chosen this land to hole up. Based on the architecture of the place, this land had to have been specifically created for wrought. The emerald towers, the sky bridges, the waterfall and aqueducts all reminded Erick of the crystal tower apartments and communal spaces he had uncovered inside Ar’Kendrithyst, after he blasted away the shadows with a [Domain of Light]. From a few kilometers away, Erick watched as he wanted, listening in to what they decided to let him hear, gradually losing his anger as the wrought went through some… Stuff. Erick wasn’t sure, exactly, what was happening, but it was quite apparent that Tasar, Kromolok, and Sitnakov were rather high strung at the moment. He had some theories on that, but he chose to withhold judgment until tomorrow, until they had a chance to calm down and… Well. Erick would wait and see, and go from there.

But, for the sake of organizing his mind, Erick thought through what he was looking at. His impression was that Sitnakov had been deeply physically wounded by Melemizargo, leading to a deep emotional wound. The same held true for both Tasar and Kromolok, but to a lesser degree. In the wake of those wounds they had lashed out, with Sitnakov leading the way as a Prince of Stratagold and his people following his lead.

And with that thought a bit more of Erick’s anger flowed away.

- - - -

Inside one [Sealed Privacy Ward] out of hundreds scattered all around Yggdrasil’s branches, Erick hid, moving around occasionally and taking small naps here and there while keeping eyes and Imaging on the wrought. None of them had moved much in the last twelve hours. None of them had made moves to do anything but stand around and talk or yell at each other. Eventually, after Kromolok had healed them all, and after they had said their explosive words at each other, they had crashed and took turns sleeping.

Erick had never actually seen a wrought sleep before. Theoretically, he knew they did, but the subject had never really come up before, so he almost panicked when Tasar laid down in a large bathtub-like depression in a room and turned to liquid. But the ‘bed’ was placed in a room like a bed would have been, and no one else panicked when Tasar liquefied, and she had even loudly yelled at Sitnakov announcing that she was ‘going to sleep for a while’, and ‘Learn to slagging relax!’ along with other colorful swears that Erick had not heard before.

Soon, only Kromolok was awake. The High Inquisitor sat on an emerald bench and gazed at the world, his solid white eyes a bit unfocused, though it was hard to tell.

Erick turned to his own needs; he switched location three more times, through three different [Sealed Privacy Ward]s all around Yggdrasil’s branches, and then he stilled, and he tried to figure out what was wrong with him. He was angry, of course, and for good reason too. But… Things had almost gone very wrong back there. Luckily, he had pulled back from actually killing Sitnakov when he did, and thankfully they had chosen to leave, because Erick had been so very, very close to fucking up. For the last few hours he had been uncommonly angry, and while it seemed normal at the time, his anger wasn’t going away. If anything, it was compounding.

He needed to figure out if his newfound anger was a component of his new existence as a protean, for Wizardly Core reasons, or if he was angry for correct reasons. When it came to the Shades, Erick had been angry for the correct reasons, for sure. The wrought were a power on par with the Shades, but fully opposed to the Shades, so it was both right and wrong to approach them as some fundamentally unassailable force where fighting was necessary to save one’s own life, or the life of others, but not in any other situation. One didn’t just go to war with the whole world; not until the world went to war with oneself, first. And the wrought hadn’t gone to war with Erick; not yet, anyway.

But was this correct thinking?

As far as Erick knew, the wrought only came out of the Geodes for the specific reasons of ‘saving the world from specific disasters’. This was both grand of them, and deeply selfish. And yet, they were immortal, and immortals did not like mixing with mortals, for the pure reason that mortals aged and died and there was very little solution to that problem. So the immortal wrought only impinged upon the rest of civilization when problems arose.

And Erick had made himself a problem?

Yeah. He had. Maybe.

AND YET! THEY HADN’T SEEN ANYTHING YET!

… Erick was still furious. Okay. Thinking through his anger wasn’t working.

Maybe Sitnakov would come in with an apology—

No, no.

Erick tried to think about something else entirely, to see if his anger would go away.

Okay. The Headmaster? … Ehhh… The Headmaster had fucked and continued to fuck over the entire world with lessons in magic which weren’t true at all, and which actively hurt a lot of people. Gridwork and runes were two very specific things that should be taught to everyone so that—

Erick had to stop himself for he felt his blood spike and his fingernails leave deep half-moons in his palms. He uncurled his hand. His fingernails were the same size as before. He almost expected them to be sharper, but he had picked ‘protean’, not ‘werewolf’. His skin was unnaturally tough, too, so even with claws he probably couldn’t cut himself that easily.

… And his anger remained, even after he managed to pull himself away from thinking of Kirginatharp.

It was undirected—

Erick switched over to his Other Self, and watched as his soul vanished and a tiny fragment of brightness appeared beside his heart, like it had always been there. This monstrous form was fucked up in so many ways. The ethereal arteries and veins connecting this ‘second heart’ to the rest of him were strange. What did they do? He had never noticed them in monsters before now. He had never seen their like inside people, either.

But the reason to switch over to this Other Self was to try cycling his mana for a bit, to see if his anger went away. Rozeta had warned him about how forgoing cycling would have consequences, and shadelings got angry and violent when they didn’t eat more rads, so there might be something happening there.

And he couldn’t forget that his Other Self had started out from a place of anger.

But he didn’t have any rads. Luckily, Erick had already invented the solution to this problem. He took hold of his [Renew] and cast. White light erupted from his right hand in a sparkle of radiance, but then Erick shoved that radiance into his chest, and began pouring mana into himself.

Relief washed through him.

It was like being starved for food, and then eating a wonderful meal. Tiredness eroded under bouncy mana. Vigor filled his body. He had massages that had felt less relaxing. And his rad grew. Every single mana that found its way into Erick’s rad melded with that rad, adding facets to that central part of him, expanding the borders of it like he was growing a crystal. With a mere addition of 10 mana, his malformed marble-sized core became something stronger, transforming from the 5 mana rads that one found in slimes, into the more usual 10 mana rads that existed inside most monsters. His core had become a diamond-like marquis-cut marble.

He continued pouring mana into himself, into his core, and his mind wandered under the relaxation.

A question arose. Did he want to keep calling them cores? Or rads? Both were more regional dialect names for the thing inside his chest than any ‘True Name’ for the gem that now held his soul. He kinda preferred the simplicity of ‘core’, but then again, Wizards had ‘cores’. Erick didn’t want to out himself as a Wizard yet by calling his ‘core’ a ‘core’, so ‘rad’ was probably better, at least in that such a name could throw people off of his—

His mana bottomed out, violently shaking him out of his ruminations.

As Erick stood there on Yggdrasil’s branch, hidden from most views, he sighed. His anger was gone, so that was a plus. He had also gained several hundred Experience, both from leveling [Renew] and from ‘eating’ his own mana, so that was great’. He was now level 4, too, and he had 8 points to spend—

He rapidly went through some thoughts about the future, and how he wanted to spend his points. One decision came to him rather quickly. This form didn’t have a Scion, and so, Erick wanted Scion of Balance. To get that, every Stat had to be at 25. This meant he’d have to spend 100 points to get all of his now-lowered Stats up to 25 each… Or maybe he only needed to level the original 4 Stats to 25? Intelligence and otherwise could stay at 10.

He’d try that first, since that only required 40 points. Which meant level 20, for Erick would not be able to gain any extra points in this form.

With a bit of Wizardry he might even be able to get Scion of Balance in his Main Form, which was overall better than Scion of Focus in his specific case since he already had Immune to Health Fatigue from his Blessing from Rozeta, and his Boon of Recovery added his Health Regen and his Mana Regen together, giving the same amount of Regeneration to both…

Ah.

Wait.

“Ah. Dammit.” Erick felt his anger rise, but then fall back to sleep like a teenager failing to wake early on a weekend. “I should have asked Rozeta about stacking Immune to Mana Exhaustion.’

Eh… He was still going to go for Scion of Balance—

Oh yeah. ‘Immune to Health Fatigue’s ability to double his lifespan was also useless because he was immortal in his Other Form.

There were just so many little nuances to this most recent body horror, and so many more to come, because eventually he would start manually working on his own body, changing which parts of the Script affected him, and which he chose to leave behind. It wasn’t a ‘power spike’, as Jane had joked one time. But it was certainly an optimization.

Ahhh… And all the anger was gone; replaced with melancholy, for Jane would love this sort of optimization problem, for sure. ‘Which parts to keep, and which to discard’! Too bad he wouldn’t be able to tell her about this until the absolute last possible second, and probably only after other people started spreading the word, and then the world would come for him...

Erick transformed back into his Main Form and laid down on Yggdrasil’s bark, thinking about how everything was different. So much, and yet so little had happened in the last several hours. And so much was going to continue happening for the foreseeable future.

A trip to Oceanside, for one.

And then a trip to Ar’Cosmos.

Or maybe Oceanside was the final stop? Kirginatharp probably had all the answers to [Gate], too; he just chose not to share them with Erick for obvious reasons. Perhaps he was going to ask Erick to go to Ar’Cosmos and hunt down dragons for him…

Or maybe Erick would need to hunt down whoever [Duplicate]d that soul spear; whoever supplied Terror Peaks with all their extra tools to enable their conquest of Songli. How was that counter-Hunt going, anyway? Erick had no idea. He had stayed away from that, too—

Another thought.

When referencing Apogee, Rozeta had said that she couldn’t talk about other people or their paths through life, but then when talking about Fallopolis’ mother, Rozeta spoke rather openly. No names or dates or any other specifics, but the map of Fallopolis’ mother’s life was rather well laid out for Erick to see, and to try to understand.

… There were so, so many things that Erick still wanted to ask Rozeta. But not today, apparently. Not when other people were inside the Core with them. A flicker of anger returned, but Erick was of sound mind and body, and he kept his anger in check.

Erick stared at the white boughs of Yggdrasil and his bright green leaves for a while, and then his stomach got hungry for actual food. Feeding his core had been like eating a meal, but apparently that didn’t translate between forms. If Jane was here she would have commented how he probably just needed to eat even more mana in his Other Form, and he could forgo food entirely. And, if Teressa was here, she would have mentioned how that didn’t make any sense at all.

The fact remained that he was hungry.

He sent Ophiel skipping around to pick up something delicious from the white city, and soon, Erick was enjoying a meal taken from some noble’s house; a large steak, copiously buttered vegetables, and some mashed whiteroot. He preferred his own potatoes, but whiteroot had a certain almost-nice firmness when cooked that potatoes lacked. It was different, for sure, but that didn’t make it bad.

- - - -

After dinner and after all his defenses were back up, and while he stared across the land at these new interlopers… Erick realized that Yggdrasil had yet to speak like he usually did. The big guy hadn’t said a word since warning that he was in danger from multiple directions. Had the battle shaken him? It might have.

Erick softly asked, “Yggdrasil? Are you okay?”

“… I fail.”

Erick’s heart sank. With seriousness in his voice, he said, “Yggdrasil. You did very well today. You were wonderful. Without you, they would have won. They would have done whatever they wanted to me.”

“But I not stop them! They hurt me and you. And I fail.”

“They were stronger than us, this is true. This is not a failing. Sometimes people are stronger than you, or I. In this case, it’s probably better that neither of us won.” Erick said, “But you don’t have to worry about that right now. You were doing so well the entire fight. Was that the first time you tried to fight anyone? Or anything?”

“… I fight fishes. Scare them away. No kill because you said no kill.”

“And you were so good with that, Yggdrasil!” Erick put on a smile, saying, “When I handed off the [Physical Domain] to you, you started blasting exactly as well as I could have but even better because you helped me to survive Sitnakov. I do apologize for not realizing that Kromolok and Tasar were attacking from both sides. I should have been more attentive about that.”

“I did good?”

“Yes you did.” Erick said, “And Ophiel did good, too.”

Ophiel chirped here and there among the boughs of Yggdrasil.

Yggdrasil said, “They were tough. Metal tougher than flesh.”

“Yes, it is, Yggdrasil.” Erick said, “Metal is much tougher than flesh.”

Yggdrasil’s glowing white bark and bright fiery leaves shimmered a bit brighter, as he said, “I did good.” And then he dimmed. “But problem still here?”

“This is true.” Erick said, “Sitnakov and Kromolok seem like the problems, but Tasar is a wildcard. I’m not sure what she’s about. But what is most telling is that there’s only three of them. The wrought have whole armies that would make any city look small. They chose to send these people instead of a larger force, and that meant something. This is something I plan to talk about tomorrow when we all talk.”

“… We lose against big army.”

“Yes, we would have lost.” Erick said, “You did very, very well Yggdrasil, but against an entire society of immortals we would have lost. You and I both have a lot of power, but choosing not to fight the full war is sometimes the smarter decision.”

Yggdrasil’s glow returned to normal levels as he went silent. He was probably thinking, as he often did.

Erick did a few nonessential things here and there, like cleaning up his area to get ready to go and reading some of his books, guessing that he wasn’t going to be allowed to keep them. But mostly, he just watched for danger.

- - - -

Erick woke when Ophiel squawked at him and Yggdrasil swayed a bit, groaning all the branches all around and sending wild flashes of light through the bark and the canopy. In a flashing second Erick was back on his feet and fully aware of the Imaging hanging in the air in front of him.

The wrought were on the move.

[Personal Ward], cast not too long ago, so that’s fine... Probably didn’t matter though since they had [Ward Destruction]. Sunform active… But Sitnakov was a Domain piercer, for sure. The second Erick tried to actually go head-to-head against Sitnakov he would likely lose.

… Actually, going over his whole repertoire, and according to what he saw yesterday with Sitnakov brushing off all of his attacks, Erick didn’t see anything that great to use against the large black wrought. Would [Call Lightning] work? Maybe. It was a physical attack against a magical defense, and those were usually pretty effective. And yet, Erick didn’t want to kill the man. Not yet, anyway.

At least he wasn’t so angry right now. He had eaten his [Renew] for a few thousand more mana here and there before he settled down for a larger sleep. He also cycled his mana for a few thousand more Experience, gaining lots of levels in his Other Self and settling his anger down quite a bit. He still hadn’t used any points to buy anything in that Other Form, but he would, later, when he was in a more stable location. Right now, he was in the middle of battle, and this wasn’t the time to be learning new, complicated ways to exist.

Anyway!

Erick left his various [Sealed Privacy Ward]s everywhere, and began some other, final preparations, one of which was to have three small gift baskets of mana-soaked copied metals, one for each of the incoming wrought, with an extra large basket of knives for Sitnakov. It was a small gesture of kindness, and maybe they would take it as such, or maybe they would throw it back in Erick’s face and they could all be done with this charade of polite society.

… Hmm. Erick checked himself. He was not mad. He was merely thinking clearly.

Good.

Hopefully the wrought were similarly better, and ready to talk without making ultimatums. Maybe they could even move to friendly territory because Erick wanted to ask about how Kromolok and Sitnakov were able move adamantium around like they did; the stuff was supposed to be immutable after casting, but apparently wrought broke that rule. They kinda had to, of course, since some of them were made of adamantium, but it would be nice to know if this ability to manipulate forged adamantium was due to a specific ability, or a spell, or whatever.

… He also kinda wondered what would happen to the body of a wrought if they died. Tasar and Sitnakov were both in the process of turning into goop before Erick gave Kromolok fresh adamantium. Maybe the act of consuming metal turned that metal into something different than what it was, making it useless for further metalwork or enchanting purposes? Or maybe the dead bodies of wrought were the best material for enchanting?

Erick didn’t know, and he had never read anything about dead wrought in all his reading. This seemed by design, now that he thought of it.

Maybe he would get some hands-on experience, though, and soon.

- - - -

The white city stretched out into the first three islands of a five-island archipelago chain. The first, largest island, held the kingdom castle. The second, the Grand Wizard’s Tower. The third, a small cathedral dedicated to many lost gods. The fourth was a simple forested island, but the fifth was little more than twenty meters of barren, half-jagged rock sticking out of the gentle surf.

It was here that the wrought settled down. They had blipped nearby, and then flew the remaining dozen kilometers to come down atop this island and position themselves on the flat, open space to one side. Each of them had changed from yesterday. All of them were fully healed, but beyond that, they had ‘dressed’ up for the occasion.

Kromolok had shifted his white incani form to include official-looking robes with badges of office pinned to his chest that shimmered with divine fire. He shimmered with divine fire, too, but it was only visible inside his eyes. Tasar looked the most plain of them all, with her ‘clothing’ looking like simple black robes upon her human-shaped self, while she held her crystal staff in her offhand. Sitnakov was resplendent in leather-like-looking armor with embroidered finery everywhere upon those ‘leathers’. Was he showing off, for some reason? Or was that normal attire for him? Whatever the case, it made Erick feel angry for some reason which he chose not to investigate too deeply.

None of them were wearing actual clothes, though. All were wearing their flesh like it was fabric, as wrought usually did.

Whatever!

An Ophiel settled down on the other side of the small island, wrapped in protective spellwork. With a flicker of light, Erick’s hologram appeared before Ophiel.

Sitnakov frowned, saying, “You do us a disservice to not appear in person.”

“We did ourselves a disservice, Prince Sitnakov.” Kromolok turned back toward Erick’s form, saying, “Thank you for giving us the opportunity to pull back and reassess our battlefield diplomacy.”

Sitnakov rolled his eyes, but said nothing.

Erick said, “Thank you for accepting. It must have been difficult to be harried by Melemizargo like that. Anyone would be low on wits after such an event.”

“You have every right to be angry with us,” Kromolok said, “I would like to move past that, or at least try to begin to move past that.”

Erick decided to follow the obvious script Kromolok was setting down, asking, “How could I move past this, when you all attacked without warning, even after I revealed important strategic information in the form of [Duplicate] in order to ensure that none of you died? You even worked together, all three of you, attempting to attack from every angle in order to give Sitnakov an opportunity to murder me.”

Sitnakov scowled, saying, “It is always better to argue from a position of power and so that is what we sought to do, but I was never going to kill you. Not yet; not at this juncture.”

The man wasn’t lying as far as Erick could tell.

Kromolok calmly said, “Historically, Sitnakov is correct. We have both dealt with this exact scenario hundreds of times before. This would have been better for us to converse from a position where we are in power, since that is how it actually is, despite your personal strength. When these talks get like this, right here, this talking as equals when we very much are not equals, that’s when the escalation to actual injury and death occurs. I need you to understand: I am not being needlessly antagonistic. It would have been easier on all of us —and especially you— if you would have taken the loss, Archmage Flatt.”

Erick said, “All y’all are down here in the Underworld, keeping yourselves completely separate from the Surface world, until it’s time to come out and murder whatever or whoever threatens to upset everything, and I very much intend to upset everything.” He calmed himself, asking, “Why the fuck would I allow myself to be vulnerable around you? You should have come with an army, and you would have, if you actually held the full force of your society behind you. No. What you appear to be are vigilantes who wish for me to drop my guard, so that you can kill me at your leisure.”

Kromolok frowned a bit, then he wiped that away, saying, “We assumed that we would be enough. This was obviously a miscalculation, leading to this unfortunate state of affairs.”

“You know.” Sitnakov said, “We’re okay with the vast majority of those changes—”

“I don’t care if you’re okay with my changes or not.” Erick said to the large man, “You have no right to determine anything about my life, or my future. You have never been here for any of it, at all, and now that the danger has passed and the world is getting better because of my specific efforts you want to be a part of it? You want to decide how any of it goes down? At all? You want control with no investment? Fuck you.”

Tasar said, “Kirginatharp is willing to put in that investment, and he has been there from the beginning.”

For a long moment, no one said anything, for Erick was trying to process the complicated series of emotions displayed on the faces of everyone. From what Erick gathered, Tasar was a part of Stratagold, but a near-outcast.

Sitnakov gave a small frown at Tasar, then said to Erick, “Stratagold is willing to put forth an investment but you’ve problems in your foundation, and we must remove those problems before what you’re building is allowed to turn into yet another monster.” He added, “We’ve seen it happen too many times to count and we always have to come in and clean it up when it eventually turns bad.” He scowled, incredulous, and said, “And besides! You want to change everything! Of course we’re involved now! And it’s only been 6 months since your time in Ar’Kendrithyst! Have a little courtesy for the movements of entrenched immortals, please. And have a little more courtesy when it comes to tromping around in our Holy Land! Of course we’re involved when you come in here and defile our sacred spaces, while also threatening the security of the entire world. You are in the wrong, Erick. Admit that much and we can move on to actually solving the problems you have created.”

Erick swallowed his pride, and said, “I came in here wishing to learn of many great things, and I did. But I was not aware that this was a ‘holy land’ for your people. For that, I apologize—” He cut himself off there, for he had a lot more words besides an apology. Actually saying those words, though, would have been counterproductive no matter how true they were.

Sitnakov was prepared for Erick to say more but he had to pull his own response when Erick didn’t fight back. He didn’t lord his minor victory, though, which boded well. He even seemed to settle down; as though his world was starting to once again make sense. That part boded less well. Erick did not like this man thinking he was in control.

Kromolok remained impassive, saying, “Thank you. We also apologize for failing to approach you with a proper diplomatic response before your Worldly Path could take you this far into Veird, so that we could meet on better terms. That was an oversight on our part. We have had many oversights recently. Oftentimes, events on the Surface happen at a speed considerably quicker than we anticipate, and many of the usual threats against we wrought are not happening like they should. If it weren’t for this event right here, then I would likely be locked in a debate with any number of groups, discussing this missing attack or that cavern that is empty of monsters where it had once been filled to bursting. The world is changing, Erick, and you have made it happen, sending everything into an uncontrolled descent.”

Another silent moment passed as words sunk in.

Erick said, “I heard Melemizargo wasn’t attacking like usual.”

“Correct.” Kromolok said, “And the usual Dark Ancients are nowhere to be found, either.”

“Then it looks like I might actually be on the way to solving that second Ultimate Quest to make Melemizargo sane again. I’m already on my way toward the third; to open new worlds.” With a heavy seriousness, Erick asked, “So what is with these pathetic ultimatums?” He glanced toward Tasar, saying, “Hers is the only one close to being reasonable.”

Sitnakov readily said, “Good! Then you have chosen Tasar’s option, which is my option since Tasar agreed to that yesterday. In return, Tasar is to be elevated to Heavy at the end of this upset.” He declared, “And with that, we’re done with this tiresome talk. Let us leave this place to the ghosts.”

“… What?” Erick asked, looking toward Tasar.

This was moving too quickly. Everything was happening so fast. It had to be a trick and Erick didn’t like it.

Tasar stood strong, saying, “I have allied with Stratagold’s Heavies and they have agreed to some adjustments in their plans. To make a long agreement short: You keep your memories of this land, since Stratagold’s Heavies have the power to stand up to the Church of Rozeta, and you will not be forced off the Path, but you will be guided to end it as quickly as possible, and—”

“To make it even shorter:” Sitnakov said, “Tasar is now your keeper. She will accompany you on your Path and as soon as you get [Gate] from whatever non-Dark Wizard you happen to find, she’s getting elevated to Heavy. And, you’re replanting Yggdrasil outside of Stratagold. AND! You will come take Bright Tea at the Palace of the Eternal Light, inside Stratagold, before anything else happens.” Sitnakov said, “You will be introduced to wrought society and then we can be done with this silly notion that we mean you personal harm. We only mean harm for those who threaten to upset the world in bad ways, and while you threaten that path, we feel you can be pulled back from the edge. You are not beyond hope, Erick. You’re only beyond hope if you fail to choose the paths we control.”

Kromolok kept his frown off of his face, but with Erick’s various Sights and high Perception, the man was saddened by this decision happening in front of him. And then he shared that displeasure, by saying, “My offer is adjusted to this, Archmage Flatt—”

Sitnakov scowled. “Now Sight this, Krom—”

Kromolok spoke over the larger man, “I erase your memories of this place and you go back home, and nothing else changes. You can remain on your Path, and you can find your own way.”

Sitnakov pulled back his sudden anger—

Because Erick’s response to Kromolok’s ‘new offer’ was already set in stone, perhaps more than all the other possible options. Erick declared, “No. I am keeping my memories, and you can fuck right off.” He turned to Sitnakov, saying, “We have a deal.”

Sitnakov exalted, “Excellent! You’re to leave behind everything you copied or took and take down Yggdrasil right now. Let us leave this place.”

Before Erick could get mad—

Kromolok let his disappointment go, saying, “How about we put it this way, instead: If you take things from here, then other people will know you have [Duplicate]. We three will remain silent on that strategic truth of yours, but our silence means nothing if we allow you to bring forth mementos of your invasion.”

“I’m not protecting you and your loot on our way out of here,” Sitnakov said.

Erick calmly said, “If anything, I would be protecting you, for I can blast through every single one of those monsters out there. How long did it take you three to get this far? Oh, yeah. Would have taken you four more days, until Melemizargo decided to screw with me by chasing you into this land, messing up my Holy Communion with Rozeta.” Erick said, “I already said that once, but I feel you didn’t actually get how much you fucked up.”

Sitnakov laughed. “Fine! Let’s see how much you can actually do! You will lead the way and when you falter in the tunnels I will be there to rescue you.”

Tasar turned Erick’s anger away from Sitnakov, explaining, “All the stuff here is all decoration, Erick. All of it is holy but none of it is useful.”

Kromolok glared at Tasar, saying, “It’s—!” And then he stopped himself. He turned back to Erick’s hologram, saying, “Are you coming out from Yggdrasil? I would prefer to hurry and leave.” He added, “Also, to go back to an earlier point you made: we have had dealings before. Not directly, and not in any official capacity, but I am a Mind Mage, and I have already spoken with your man, Poi, before coming down here. None of these violent confrontations needed to have happened. There will be no Forgotten Campaign today, or tomorrow, due to your actions. We came in peace, Erick. But Prince Sitnakov was too eager to test you by far.”

“It would have been a lot easier to drag him out of here bloody and bruised; yes,” Sitnakov said.

Erick came back to himself, standing on Yggdrasil branches. He had a lot of quick thoughts, then he landed firmly on the idea that if Kromolok was a Mind Mage, which he appeared to be based on the thought tendrils around his head, the fact that he called himself as such, and Sitnakov called him one, too, then that meant certain things. One of which was that the man wouldn’t out him as a Wizard…

Probably.

Oh. Gods. Was he actually agreeing to work with these fuckers?

… Was he really doing this?

Yeah.

His decision came down to this fact: This fight didn’t end here, and it was possible for something good to come of this event. Erick had no idea what that ‘good thing’ looked like, but it was possible! It had to be. And besides that, these three wrought seemed perfectly at ease, even though they were well within his sphere of power. They weren’t worried about him killing them, and it made Erick feel kind of inadequate to need to use Ophiel to speak to them.

It was possible that this was a feint; a trap to lure him out where they could kill him...

And so, he said, “Okay. I’m coming out. And I’m taking a few things with me, but nothing culturally significant.”

Kromolok tensed, but nodded. Tasar relaxed.

Sitnakov gave a soft smile, as he said, “When we leave, I want to have a competition to kill the most monsters.”

“You will lose,” Erick said, as he grabbed his backpack. It was already filled with his necessities, like some of his platinum that he took from the platinum elemental from out in the tunnels, and a bit of the white metal that he scraped off off the white king’s scepter. He didn’t know what it was, yet, but he wanted to find out. He kept some Wizardry books, but he left behind a second bag that was carrying nothing but books, as he rhetorically asked, “How do you think I got in here? Stealth?”

“I admit,” Sitnakov said, “I don’t know how you got past the guardians. I would prefer to know that one before we get back to Stratagold. Was it a lucky guess? Or did you have help? One man cannot break them; of that, I am sure.” He asked the dark question on his mind, “Did the Dark God help you?”

Erick grabbed his baskets of copied metals and, fully dressed for war, he lightstepped into the air next to his hologram on the island; ten meters from the wrought. Kromolok, Tasar, and Sitnakov stared at him, then each relaxed in their own ways, judging him for how he appeared and for what he carried, sizing him up in case there was another confrontation.

He was dressed in a [Conjure Armor] set of lightweight armor that was similar to Jane’s, with overlapping plates of Force that covered his whole body, along with a full helmet, but done in white. He had forgone his usual robes because he didn’t want these people to see him bleed when he was inevitably forced to cooperative cast his [Physical Domain] with Ophiel, to escape this place. A spiky silver shield held on his left forearm, floating just above his gauntlets. His backpack was tight against his body while his sunform Ophiel hovered behind him and Yggdrasil’s [Scry] eye held on his left shoulder pad.

“No,” Erick said, “Melemizargo did not help me, you pompous ass.” And then manually blipped the three baskets of metal onto the ground in front of their recipients, saying, “A gift of metals in case they were needed.”

Tasar leaned down and with a gesture began turning the knives into liquid adamantium, saying, “Thank you, Erick. I gratefully accept.” The dark metal flowed into her arm and she gave a soft sigh as it absorbed into her body. “And thank you for the assistance with surviving the Dark.”

Kromolok left his basket on the ground. “Unnecessary. And please take the shards of white metal out of your bag and set them on the ground. And the books need to go, too.”

Sitnakov twisted his hand through the air above the basket, ripping the adamantium knives into floating streams of metal that flowed into his chest. He sighed, and said, “Your tribute is accepted.” He said to Kromolok, “Let him keep his small trinkets.”

In that moment, Erick realized one thing above all others: These people absolutely did not give a shit about all of his accomplishments or his power. To them, he was an inconvenience to be solved using any number of methods, but he could not be left to his own devices; his accomplishments so far had decided that much for them, at least. But to make sure he was reading this correctly, he looked to Kromolok, the only one who truly knew everything that had happened in here because he was probably reading Erick’s mind right now.

Erick asked, “Are we going to have a problem, Mind Mage?”

Kromolok said, “That’s up to you. If you prove to be a danger to this world, then yes. If not, then no. That’s really all there is to it, and only time can tell either way.”

Sitnakov said, “It would have been great if you had accepted our offer to visit the embassy, Erick. We could have avoided all of this with proper introductions long before you got this far.”

Erick decided that he was going to do a few things from here until his visits ended with the wrought: not care too much about what any of these people said, get through this with as few further incidents as possible, and move on as fast as he could to get away from them. So, he looked around, asking, “Which cloudgate are we going through?”

Sitnakov frowned a little, miffed that his barb hadn’t drawn blood—

Erick had a realization. This guy got off on making people mad. Ah. Yes. That made sense.

Sitnakov, now firmly in Erick’s category of ‘idiots to keep at a distance’, said, “Take your pick, archmage. Let’s see what you can really do.”

Kromolok, gestured back the way they had initially come into the Outer Core, up past the curve of the blue Inner Core above, saying, “Any of the ones where we came in will lead to Stratagold.”

“Great!” Erick asked, “Are all the tunnels the same?”

Sitnakov narrowed his eyes a bit, saying, “More or less.”

“Then I’m going to go first. Don’t follow until I get a few hundred kilometers down the tunnel, because I’m going to blast my way out, killing all the guardians, too.”

Sitnakov scoffed—

Kromolok rapidly exclaimed, “We can walk past the guardians with the passwords so we would prefer to leave them intact.” A bit slower, he added, “And then we can avoid most of the major fights by sticking to the air, until we get to the smaller tunnels.”

… That was fine, too. Ah. Was Erick’s anger getting the better of him, again? Was he going to have anger issues from here on out? That seemed… Less than optimal. But, anyway. Perhaps it was for the best that Sitnakov would never find out exactly what Erick could do with a cooperative cast [Physical Domain]. In fact, was the large man’s goad an attempt to find out that sort of information? Or was the man simply a battle junkie?

Maybe a lot of column A, and a little of B.

Erick said, “Fine. I’m in your care. Lead the way to Stratagold.”

“I expect you to pull some of your weight,” Sitnakov said, with a smirk.

Erick narrowed his eyes. “You do know that I’m the one that invented the [Luminous Beam]s that your guardians use, right?” With his own nasty smirk, Erick said, “If you think about it, I’m the one that’s protecting all of the Core. Not you.”

Sitnakov blanked, unsure how to combat Erick’s sudden, aggressive idiocy.

Kromolok held a hand to his head, wincing in pain, saying, “That’s… That’s not how that works.”

Tasar just smirked, then said, “Of course it does! He made the spell. Therefore he’s protecting this land more than either of you.”

“Ah!" Erick said, “My overseer gets my humor! Fantastic!”

Tasar lost her smirk.

No one was happy.

Good.

Erick almost told them all off again, but he held that back, and said, “Lead the way. Someone.”

Sitnakov windstepped away first, followed by Kromolok doing the same.

Tasar stayed behind for a brief second, saying, “I’m sorry, Erick.”

“You have too much power over me right now for me to accept that apology.” Erick said, “I might accept it when we’re not at war.”

Tasar nodded, slowly and with understanding. “Then I look forward to that time, for I will certainly be trying to ensure good relations between everyone involved.” She stepped away.

Erick took a deep breath, and then he followed.

- - - -

Erick stepped down onto the same rocky land where the wrought had popped out of the cloudgate. Kromolok stood at the edge of the misty vale, waiting, while Sitnakov was already a meter into the white fog. Tasar stood to the side, waiting for Erick.

Erick asked, “How’s this going to work?”

Kromolok explained, “Sitnakov will go first, opening the path to the land behind the guardians. We walk onto the other side, then Sitnakov will close the cloudwall, and have the guardians clear a few kilometers into the path beyond. We follow behind the guardians and remain in the tunnel while they pull back to their normal positions. Then we make our way through the tunnel of monsters and eventually to a garrison with a t-station.” He asked, “Could you dismiss Yggdrasil once it looks safe enough for us to cross the cloudwall? Before Sitnakov closes the wall with us on the other side. A spell dismissal command has a high chance of failure as soon as the wall shuts.”

“I’ll dismiss him now.” Erick had already talked to Yggdrasil about this, and so, the big guy’s [Scry] eye flickered around to his front, as he said, “See you soon, Yggdrasil.”

Yggdrasil’s eye bounced, and twirled.

And then, in the far distance, Yggdrasil began to break apart, slowly at first, like a bright light dimming, and then the erasure sped up. The massive tree revealed himself as an illusion made of light and air and breaking stone. Green leaves turned to green wind. White bark turned to motes of shattering mana. In three short seconds Yggdrasil was gone, and Erick felt exposed.

He looked to his ‘captors’, daring them to do something.

Sitnakov did nothing except look at Erick with a bit more respect in his eyes, or in his body language; Erick wasn’t quite sure. Wrought eyes were solid metal unless they made an effort to make pupils and irises.

Without preamble, Sitnakov said, “One minute,” and then walked down into the clouds.

It was a short minute before something else happened; maybe only 23 seconds. But who was counting? Erick was counting. He was worried of treachery—

The misty vale swirled directly where Sitnakov had vanished. That swirl opened up into a hole, that dilated to a ten meter wide tunnel through the clouds, revealing the beveled edge of the cloudgate on the other side and the guardians in the near distance. Their Domain flooded out of them and Erick felt a bit of a pushback on his own Domain, wrapped tight around his body. That wave of power flowed across the nine sunform Ophiel hovering behind him, sweeping them away briefly before they compensated. The little guy on Erick’s shoulder ruffled up in response.

Kromolok gestured forward. “Would you like to send some Ophiel through, first? To see there is no treachery?”

Erick sent three sunform Ophiel through. He inspected the other side, while asking, “Why not leave a t-station on that side, for easier access to the Core? Security issues?”

“The Core is not meant for easy access,” Kromolok said with a bit of force, as he started walking into the tunnel of clouds.

Well okay then.

Tasar followed Kromolok.

Erick touched the straps of his backpack and clenched his fists tight, and then he followed, back into the depths, back into the danger, not wanting to go yet but needing to anyway. He spared a glance backward at the Outer Core, and said, “Parted too soon.” Then he faced forward, and walked.

Tasar stood in the cloud tunnel in front of him, saying, “You can come back once you get proper permissions. Then you won’t have to blast your way inside.”

Kromolok said, “It will be almost impossibly difficult to do that, but coming peaceably does gain you some certain forgiveness.” He sighed out, and looked forward, seeming to relax with every passing second as they got further and further from the Core. “A great deal of forgiveness with the church and we Inquisitors, as well. If you choose to go through the proper paperwork and channels to return to the Core, then I will vote for you to be allowed to return. Your communion did appear to be true, and we interrupted something which we likely should not have interrupted. For that, I apologize.”

Erick wasn’t sure how he felt about the ‘apology’, but he’d figure out some words in response soon enough. He stepped out onto the other side of the cloudwall with the others. Ophiels spread out, but not too far, as the cloudgate closed behind them. Gravity was back to being weird, with Erick’s feet firmly planted on what would have been a vertical wall, if they were going by the shape of the Outer Core, a mere ten meters backward.

‘Up’, directly in the center of the 20 kilometer wide tunnel, was a kilometer wide streamer of thick rainbow air, passing out of the cavern, through the wall, into the Inner Core behind, to fall straight ‘down’ into the blue Core of Veird.

All that was behind Erick, now.

He looked forward, and saw that the land was completely filled with monsters.

Erick gazed upon his tribulations, and said to Kromolok, “I’ll tell you what I told Tasar: You have too much power over me right now for me to accept any apology. I might accept it when we’re not at war.”

Sitnakov laughed. “You’d know if we were at—”

Kromolok snipped at the man, “Sitnakov. Stop.”

Sitnakov glared at Kromolok. “I’m not a bad guy, here.”

“Well I don’t know that, Sitnakov.” Erick said, “I literally have no idea who you are, or who—” He stopped there, before he got on a roll.

“Fine.” Sitnakov said, “You know what? You might be right. I haven’t been on the world scene in…” He looked around, searching for something in his memory— He froze. “Ah. It’s been 45 years. Oh. That’s been too long.”

Tasar tried some diplomacy, saying, “Everything is going to change soon enough, Sitnakov. Now is as good a time to get involved with the world as any. My long term plans are to take back Quintlan from the oozes.”

Sitnakov frowned, disgust shaping his features briefly, before he dropped that expression and looked thoughtful. “Oozes aren’t that interesting. All the undead in the Fractured Citadels might be good to fight.” He scrunched his face a bit as he turned away and started walking toward the line of guardians, half a kilometer away, at the ridge where the cavern leveled out onto the main monster floor. He said to himself, “I could fight undead.” Then he called out, “GUARDIANS! ADVANCE!”

Erick’s heart did a jump in his chest as the hundred guardians encircling the entirety of the massive cavern all took a single step forward, all at the same time. Monsters started screaming. [Luminous Beam]s ripped out across the land alongside hundreds of other spells. Lightning and fire. Piercing Domains of shadow or ice. With his ten Ophiel, Erick saw as precise Domainwork flowed around the circumference of the cavern, like death prowling for weakness, breaking monstrous Domains like they were shattering glass with particularly large hammers, killing everything that didn’t get away fast enough.

Sitnakov, Tasar, and Kromolok walked forward, following in the wake of destruction, but keeping well distant from the front line. Erick had his Ophiel hug close to him as he kept up. Five Ophiel had their [Greater Lightwalk] switched out for [Physical Domain] and Erick prepared to switch too, if necessary to cooperative cast with all of them, but hopefully it wouldn’t come for that.

In a very short timeframe, faster than Erick was comfortable, the guardians had reached their kilometer forward distance and everyone in the group had cast their own spellwork, readying for the actual fight to get back to civilization.

Kromolok was wrapped in shimmering white-gold light, as he took second position in the middle alongside Tasar, who had summoned a collection of void-motes onto the head of her staff, turning it into something resembling a very large sparkler. Sitnakov took the forward position; he was wrapped in air with two swords in his hands and ready for war.

Kromolok asked, “Erick. I would like to include you in the party link. Will you accept?”

“Yes,” Erick added, “If only so we’re not overlapping on spellwork or accidentally hitting each other.”

‘Thank you.’ Kromolok sent, ‘And with that, we’re all here.’

Sitnakov sent, ‘Aw! Now we can’t slag-talk him behind his back!’

Kromolok sent, ‘Eyes front. The guardians are done.’

The ten meter tall, white spiky guardians all stopped advancing at once. Then, then slowly took a foot backward as one, the single white eye at the tops of their chests never leaving the sight of the monsters they had chased off, or killed. Most of the monsters had managed to get away, for they were smarter than the average sort and they knew what the wall of advancing guardians meant. Some of those monsters tried to swarm forward, to occupy the land the guardians were about to leave behind, to swarm directly at Erick and everyone else—

‘The transition is the hardest part.’ Kromolok said, ‘We need to hold our ground and not attack the guardians at all. They’ll forgive smaller spellwork, but Domain magics will be retaliated against. Let them wash behind us while focusing spellwork forward.’

Erick was on edge, again, so it was good to hear a man with a plan.

A large part of him knew that he would be a lot better off surviving and thriving in this monster tunnel if these other people weren’t here, but another part of him was grateful not to have to go through this alone. One trip alone through darkness was enough, for sure.

The guardians stepped backward, while Erick and the rest waited for them to pass by on either side. Their white eyes flicked to Sitnakov, then Kromolok, then Tasar in turn, judging them for their power, and then they came to Erick and did the same. He waited for them to attack, but the attack never came.

And then the guardians were ten meters behind, taking their collective Domain with them. The monsters were in front, their Domains washing toward Erick and the others, falling upon them with too many mouths and claws and ripping, tearing spells.

Erick countered with brilliant, piercing [Luminous Beam]s, carving holes into monsters like a disco ball erupting. The only monster he didn’t target was the singular one that Sitnakov dove right into. Just! Straight though! Right into the red-tentacled monster like a reverse chest-burster!

By the time Sitnakov had killed that one, Erick had killed thirty.

Tasar killed her one, but her spellwork had continued onward and would have killed ten more if Erick hadn’t killed them a second before she could. Her spell continued outward, though, seeking targets and finding a few that Erick hadn’t fully murdered, turning those weakened beasts into cubed meat and then into fine, bloody mists.

Kromolok just watched, his eyes a bit wide like he was seeing what he expected to see, and yet he still couldn’t believe it. Sitnakov came out of the red-tentacled monster without a single scratch on him, but covered in gore. He had aimed himself toward the next monster, but Erick had already killed every single monster within ten kilometers, and he kept going. Tasar’s spellwork fizzled out after only one kilometer. Sitnakov, Tasar, and Kromolok just watched Erick’s decimation proceed down the tunnel.

Sitnakov stared. Then he exclaimed, “You held back on me, Erick!”

“Of course he did,” Tasar said, sending out a hundred small motes of Void, or Shadow, or Star; Erick wasn’t quite sure. The motes hung out around about 30 meters out, waiting for a target, but Erick had already killed them all. “I told you this a hundred times already.”

Kromolok had already gotten over his temporary shock. He began walking forward, asking, “Let’s hurry this up, then. I don’t want to tempt the Dark again.”

Erick said, “Then try to keep up.”

And then Erick started lightstepping forward, moving a kilometer with every step. Ophiel kept up with him, blasting as necessary, while Erick resummoned them as necessary, which turned out to be ‘whenever they got below half mana’. There was no way he would allow himself to get in a vulnerable position out here, not with these questionable people nearby.

Kromolok lightstepped with Erick, remaining within ten meters, while Tasar rapidly pulled her summons back to her staff and kept up... with some other sort of movement ability. Erick wasn’t quite sure how she was moving. Sitnakov was easy to understand; windstepping, all the way, alongside a bunch of wind-powered abilities. But Tasar’s magic was strange—

Erick was 55 kilometers down the tunnel when he realized what he was seeing from Tasar’s Domain. The roar of the monster killing and all his bright, burning light made it too hard to speak, so he spoke on the party chat, ‘It’s a Spatial Domain, isn’t it, Tasar?’

‘Yes,’ Tasar sent, ‘I spent some time on the Worldly Path a long time ago, back when I was a Spatial Mage. I managed to reach the last part that required a Wizard but I could go no further for several large and small reasons. I hopped off the Path and have tried a thousand smaller ways to understand Gate since then, but it’s been lost to me. My hope is that I can help you succeed where I failed and that we can do it in such a way that such advancements in magic harm the fewest people possible.’

‘That’s why you’re a Summoner, now,’ Erick sent, as they moved another ten kilometers down the tunnel. ‘You have to create a being that controls the [Gate] and you sought to solve that problem in the only way open to you.’

‘Summoning has never been my greatest strength.’ Tasar said, ‘But I’ve gotten rather good at it since I switched. Not as good as you, tho—’

Her eyes went wide as she watched Erick carve through a kilometer tall spire of flesh and death that looked like it had been there for a very long time. None of the other monsters had been anywhere near the spire, but Erick wasn’t about to let such an obvious problem stick around, and so he went straight for it.

Tasar’s voice was small, “Oh, bright stars.”

Sitnakov and Kromolok had been prepared to go left, to go around the spire of false flesh and bone, but at Erick’s effortless killing of it, they had paused to watch even the remnants evaporate under bright white light.

Erick commented on the monster’s Kill Notification, ‘A Deepdweller Deathsoul Shroom? Can’t let any part of that survive. Let’s go around the remains while I leave this behind~’ He had an Ophiel cast a rarely used spell atop the formerly multi-kilometer domain of the giant soul-eating monster; a [Vivid Gloom]. As the very air of the Underworld cracked open and bright darkness poured forth, to fill the land where the shroom spores surely lay, Erick sent, ‘Don’t mind the utter blackness of this spell; it’s a light-trap spell filled with all the harmful light it traps.’

Erick was already three kilometers past the utterly dark sphere beginning to fill the false-gore filled former land of the Variant deathsoul shroom. Everyone else caught up soon enough.

Kromolok looked behind them, saying, ‘That one is a lot different in person, too.’

‘You’re not going to give me shit about how it looks, are you?’ Erick said, ‘It's a light-trapping spell. Of course it’s going to be blacker than black.’

Sitnakov smirked. ‘I’ll give you shit about it if he’s not.’

‘You have already surpassed your accepted shit-quota for the week,’ Erick said, ‘You’ll have to wait a week to give me more.’

Sitnakov laughed and it seemed genuine against the backdrop of all the roaring and fighting monsters all around, and all the flashing, bright spells.

Tasar eyed the world, looking for targets and finding none, her motes of … [Space Warping Summons]? Or whatever?— glittering on her black crystal staff like blackberry stars.

Kromolok said nothing, though he kept his eyes trained behind them on the very large black spot in the world until they were a good 20 kilometers away.

And Erick realized something. They were expecting to see Melemizargo. They were waiting for the Dark Dragon. They were impressed by Erick’s power a little bit, but they had seen more impressive things before. They weren’t worried about him, at all. They were high strung and ready for the hammer to fall, that’s what they were prepared against.

Erick almost told them that Melemizargo was already there.

But the Dark God kept to the furrows in the stone, on the other side of the wroughts’ collective sight. Kromolok likely saw the beast through Erick’s sight, while Sitnakov and Tasar piggybacked off of Kromolok, but none of them were looking at the Darkness like Erick was. Erick saw Melemizargo rather clearly. White eyes in the Dark. White fangs five meters long. A swishing tail covered in dark scales, as dark as the [Vivid Gloom] Erick had left burning way, way back there. Wings in the wind, shifting the air of the Underworld at his command.

Erick decided to set them at ease, while also telling Melemizargo to fuck off. He spoke loud, “I’m not at the end of my Worldly Path yet, guys. Melemizargo isn’t going to show.”

Everyone panicked, including Melemizargo.

The Dark God vacated the shadows.

Suddenly, it was just Erick and his various captors, each of their voices telepathically overlapping as they all tried to tell him how utterly stupid it was to call out the Dark God’s name in the Underworld, and how he was trying to get them all killed, and so on and so forth. Erick mostly tuned them out, for all of their words were underlain with a deeply appreciative and unremarked thanks.

They took a left when the tunnel branched.

Then a right, then another left.

Leaving was much quicker than entering, especially since all the major monsters with Domains were back in the main tunnel, and most of the monsters in the side tunnels didn’t have Domains, which made them rather easy targets. Erick knew what to expect, this time, and that made a world of difference.

The wrought did pull their weight here and there when the monsters got easier to handle, but only against the various metallic monsters, and only because those monsters survived the first few passes of a [Luminous Beam]. Spatial displacements turned monsters into fine mists, while air-powered swords vaporized monsters of all types and shockwaves eradicated the bodies. Kromolok mostly held back, like a proper Mind Mage—

A worm burst from the ground like a thousand maws with a hundred times that many slicing tendrils. Tasar was on it, already blasting the thing with spatial displacements, turning it from a coherent monster into millions of tiny cubes of displaced meat, and then into mist.

Tasar calmly told Kromolok, ‘Mana.’

Kromolok shone a beam of light onto her and Tasar inhaled deeply, looking restored with every passing second. Erick adjusted his theory on the man’s Class; he wasn’t an Inquisitor or a Mind Mage. He was something else.

Tasar said, ‘Good.’

Kromolok saw Erick’s questioning gaze, and offered, ‘If you’re low on mana I can give you some. I’m a Font.’

Erick remembered Fonts; they were the opposite of Mage Hunters. Instead of Draining people and taking their mana into themselves they gave their mana to other people. Erick had briefly looked into both of those Classes when he was researching [Renew], but neither of them dealt with the maintenance of current spellwork. They were a failed avenue of [Renew] inquiry. Erick said, ‘I’ll take you up on your offer when I’m replanting Yggdrasil at his appointed spot, but not now; no thank you.’

Sitnakov joked, ‘I bet if Kromolok put himself to it he could make your [Renew]. How’d you like that, Erick? Someone else invent your next big thing before you could!’

Erick leveled a glared at the man, and then he thought better of his first instinct and evaporated his own hostility, calmly saying, ‘I freely shared everything I had that I thought the world could handle, letting them do whatever they wanted with the knowledge of knowing how this cosmology actually works, and you think I would be angry if someone else invented one of my current goals out from under me. This is sad, Sitnakov, and reveals more about yourself than perhaps anything else you have said before. Reevaluate your life choices.’

Tasar’s eyes went wide as soon as Erick started talking, and they only got wider as more words poured forth. She began to smirk toward the end, but she wiped that mirth away as soon as it appeared.

Kromolok approved in a very quiet, almost invisible sort of way.

If Sitnakov would have been flesh and blood instead of black adamantium, perhaps Erick would have seen a blushing rage upon his face. Or perhaps not. Whatever emotion Erick did see upon the man’s face was quickly smirked away. And then Sitnakov had had enough of a break; he got back out there into the tunnels and rapidly sailed through a dozen monsters in a line, ripping them apart with shockwave blasts, shouting, “Come on then! We can go faster than this!”

And so they did.

- - - -

The tunnels narrowed. Soon, they had to walk along the stone ground to maintain distance from the mana stream up above, but monsters still came out of that ground like they always did. The third time a worm popped out of the tunnel walls Erick asked after their usual solution to ‘monsters in the wall’, to which Tasar said that any solution was usually too expensive to matter.

So Erick had an Ophiel open wide his [Unmoving Stone Aura], solidifying the ground as they walked, preventing further attacks from inside the stone.

Tasar’s eyes seemed to sparkle with hidden jealousy.

The tunnels narrowed.

- - - -

Several hours and a thousand kilometers later, they reached a point in the tunnels that was similar to where the mana stream spit Erick out, several days and ten thousand kilometers on the other side of the world. The mana stream was right up there, and the monsters were easy pickings.

The four of them passed that unremarked point, and kept walking.

They didn’t speak much, for everyone was occupied with killing and there wasn’t much to say that wouldn’t result in anger. And so, they were a four-person tunnel cleaning service, erasing every monster they found. Erick did ask if the tunnels were always filled with monsters like this, to which he got many different answers. Mostly, they were, but some tunnels were worse than others. The ones underneath civilization tended to be worse than the tunnels between an empty Surface and the Core.

‘Because of the [Cleanse] thick air falling to the Core?’ Erick asked, wondering if his own hypothesis was correct.

‘Correct,’ Kromolok filled Tasar and Sitnakov with more mana as he said, ‘The tunnels under Nelboor are particularly bad. When we heard of the circumstances around your disappearance at Enduring Forge we wondered if you had accidentally killed yourself, but no; you were just stuck in the stream for a long time.’

‘33 days, I was told.’

Sitnakov frowned a bit as he emerged from the center of a giant, now-dead lizard, spilling gore off of himself as he sent, ‘And he says it with such nonchalance. Like that’s what really happened.’

Erick returned the large man’s frown with one of his own. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

Kromolok said, ‘What Prince Sitnakov means to say is that you should have dropped off somewhere inside the tunnels within 8 or 9 days of the mishap at Enduring Forge. You’re missing around 20 days.’

Erick froze. ‘I’m missing 20 days?’

Tasar said, ‘Yes. But we can all see that you didn’t know this.’

‘I still don’t believe it,’ Sitnakov said.

‘And you’re the only one, Sitnakov,’ Tasar said.

Kromolok said, ‘That missing time is going to come up in your official inquiry.’

Erick unfroze and had some rather deep thoughts while he kept killing monsters. Kiri had lost time on the Worldly Path before and the question of that missing time was never solved. Had the same thing happened to him?

Tasar said, ‘If it’s any help, we expect the inquiry to go well.’

Erick looked to Tasar. She had thought that Erick was concerned about the inquiry, but he didn’t care too much about that. Whatever happened would happen, and if he needed to commit some genocide, then that option was still on the table.

While Kromolok briefly went still—

Erick sent, ‘I want to see Yggdrasil’s new spot and spend a few days resting before any of that, okay?’

‘Of course.’ Tasar sent, ‘I don’t foresee that being a problem.’

Kromolok sent, ‘The Church of Rozeta doesn’t want Sininindi’s World Tree to be the one that gets us to new worlds because then we’d have to go through her, so we’re already on your side, and will be speaking on your behalf. We would prefer peaceful cooperation, done through proper channels, though. Less vigilantism. Less unexpected surprises.’

‘I suppose I can get behind that.’ Erick sent, ‘Probably.’

Sitnakov exclaimed, ‘By all the bright gods… Is it really time to get back to politics? Already?’ He sighed, then asked anyone who could answer, ‘How much further to the nearest station?’

‘I suppose I could start looking for one.’ Tasar stopped spacewalking.

Everyone else moved to be near to her, maintaining the defensive perimeter without too much communication or grating. It was a bit odd to realize that Kromolok was making Erick part of the group, but the Mind Mages were an honorable sort, so there probably wasn’t anything untoward going on there. Anyway, this uneasy cooperation inside these tunnels should pass soon enough.

Tasar lifted her arms and her black staff. Ten shimmering motes broke away from the tip of the staff, blipping down the corridors. Erick almost missed their departure for they moved almost too fast to see. The four of them didn’t move while Tasar did her thing. except to ensure the security of the area, with Ophiel Beaming various monsters and Sitnakov diving straight into his opponents to rip and tear them apart from the inside out.

Erick kinda wondered how come Sitnakov had never attacked Yggdrasil in their confrontation—

Erick sent to Sitnakov, ‘You didn’t give me your all, either. Did you?’

Sitnakov laughed as he stepped out of the gore of a particularly large lizard, saying, ‘Of course not. I wanted to take you in alive and force you to be a friend. But I guess we gotta be equals! It’s the more dangerous route, for sure.’

Erick frowned at the man, but said nothing else.

After a minute Tasar lowered her arms. ‘143 kilometers further, left, left, right, left, right. 10 kilometers past that final right. It has a t-station. We can get there in an hour.’

Sitnakov led the way, happily wrecking-balling his way through every single monster that was large enough to be a threat. Erick allowed the man to believe that he was the faster combatant, keeping Ophiel back a bit and only killing the monsters that came for them, which was most of them. Some did run away, though, which Erick was glad to see, but perhaps he should have paid special attention to those to ensure they died. The smart monsters were the worst.

The mana stream above still pulled at Erick every time he tried to lightstep too fast, but he compensated for that well enough; they all did.

A short 30 minutes later, after a few turns down the appropriate tunnels, the mana stream was finally too thin to properly see. Aside from the flashes of light from Erick’s power or from Kromolok refilling Sitnakov and Tasar’s mana, the tunnel was near to full-dark. One more turn down another side tunnel and the mana stream was gone, completely.

Tasar sent, ‘Ten more minutes to contact. They know we’re coming.’

- - - -

The mana stream was gone, the tunnel dark and empty of monsters. And the tunnel changed. No longer was it a rough cylinder, but instead, it was a flat road, and an arch of stone overhead. Somewhere in the last kilometer it had changed from a ‘naturally occurring’ mana stream tunnel, to an excavated road with lightpoles on both sides, stretching from floor to ceiling.

Words left Erick as he saw this place. It reminded him of when he first drove onto Veird with Jane in the passenger seat… Except it was different. Smaller, for one. And the place was well maintained. That original tunnel had been too deep in the dark to see anything and the lightpoles had been mostly burned out.

In this place the lights were fully functional and the land was painted with a layer of white stone making the whole place that much brighter. It was also occupied. In a cavern to the side of the main tunnel, there were at least a thousand wrought. Erick couldn’t tell exact numbers, but he could see the large archway carved into the side of the tunnel, the guards posted there, and a bit of the land beyond. It was a bit hard to see, though, for the entire place was runed like Enduring Forge, and Ophiel’s [Scry] sight blinked off as Erick tried to get a better look. He probably could have forced his way inside but the guards were already watching Ophiel and they did not look too happy at the fluffy guy’s intrusion.

So, since the tactical necessity of getting an eye on what he was walking into was out of the question, Erick focused on the people who had come out to greet them, instead. The wrought were of every single race Erick had seen on the Surface, but done up in different metals. Mostly grey iron, if he was correct, but also shiny copper and silvery metals, along with blues, and green copper. No black adamantium, though; that color was conspicuously absent. Full-white, like Kromolok was absent, too. But every race was present; humans, orcols, incani, lots of dragonkin, a harpy, and some shifters of wolf and snake varieties but without the masks. A goblin—

The base shot to attention, with people rushing to fill posts and appear busy, as Erick and the other walked down the white tunnel, moving at a sedate and measured pace. People appeared on the walls with spells flowing around them, and around the runic web protecting the garrison.

Sitnakov led the way, shouting, “Haloo! At the garrison!”

A human man of grey metal stood in the center of the white tunnel, near the archway that led into the cavern. “Haloo! At the returning victors!”

Sitnakov walked right up to the man, saying, “Prep the station for transport to Stratagold, Property Ygg. It should be the new option.”

The man hopped to, banging a fist against his chest. He turned around and started shouting orders. People moved. Sitnakov followed the garrison leader into the cavern beyond. Kromolok and Tasar followed Sitnakov…

And Erick followed them.

He had many choices at the moment, but none seemed as good as going along with the flow, for now.

Once Erick was beyond the front gate he could properly see the cavern beyond. It was a rather nice place of columnar apartment buildings, tidy green spaces, and practice yards. Light was absolutely everywhere. It was pretty much exactly what Erick expected to find in an underground base, but done by people with a lot of time on their hands. Gravity seemed to all pull in one direction, though, which was unexpected but welcome, and may have had something to do with the various ‘[Gravity Ward]’ runic inscriptions in the metalwork that ran alongside every building’s base, and in the spaces between every tile on the ground.

The Teleport Station was at the back of the garrison, inside a protected building.

It was a simple, yet extravagant affair which hid a deep complexity inside. A meter-wide ring of brightly shining silverish metal surrounded a five meter wide circle of gold. In the center of the platform was a two meter tall spire of even more gold. The gold platform was a solid decimeter-thick, while the ring around it was slightly thicker, and Erick was beginning to suspect the bright silver metal was platinum. Both had to be amalgams, though, for they were much more solid than pure gold and platinum would have been… Unless there was physically strengthening runework inside the metals, and there very much might have been. The upper, flat surfaces were devoid of runes, but the undersides and the spire in the center were covered with so much ancient script that Erick had trouble understanding what he was reading. It was like looking at the adamantium crusher back at Enduring For—

“Are you done trying to figure it out?” Sitnakov asked him, “Because you can study any of them on another day. Probably when you’re waiting to speak to the tribunal.”

“Yeah, yeah. Fine, fine.” Erick said, “Let’s go already.”

He prepared for whatever trick they had on the other side of the blip, but there was only so much prep work he could do. For starters, Ophiel would get left behind, so that might be hard to come back from—

Without preamble or any obvious action from any of the people nearby, the world blipped.

And then came back.

Erick started resummoning his Ophiel right away—

But he guessed that there wasn’t going to be a problem.

They had reappeared on the edge of a massive, empty cavern that was practically a large beach like out in California, where there weren’t any monsters and the waters were great for fishing or relaxing. Indeed, Erick even saw some fish already out there in the massive cavern. The space they had constructed for Yggdrasil was practically the size of the largest caverns next to the Core. The world arched overhead at least twenty kilometers tall, and maybe 30 wide, while the waters ahead were at least half a kilometer deep and fed by waterfalls on the far edge that looked like Niagara Falls, but which spanned for a dozen kilometers to the left and right. The entire place was filled with light from a hundred skyscrapers-sized sun-like crystals shining in the ceiling above, and more than a few that poked out of the waters near the beach, and here and there among the lake. This land wasn’t the Outer Core, with so very much space and a lot more nice things besides, but it was more than enough space for Yggdrasil, and then some.

The beach with the t-station was a dozen kilometers long and half that wide, but it only took up a small portion of this side of the cavern’s circumference. To the side of this beach space a wide tunnel led away from the cavern, toward another place. Erick sent an Ophiel down that distant path. A few kilometers later Ophiel passed a checkpoint and some bowing guards, before exiting into a cavern much the same as the one that would hold Yggdrasil. But this one was populated.

A palace of white stone that was not a palace dominated the land with a hundred towers and a hundred keeps. Erick only knew it wasn’t a palace because of a large sign out front proclaiming it to be the embassy for Stratagold. Thousands upon thousands of people were everywhere, in every open courtyard or open air hallway of the palace, and probably in a lot of rooms besides, conducting business all over the place. From that embassy’s cavern three large tunnels, each at least three kilometers across and with archways to match, led away from the palace, becoming much more than simple roads that led deeper into the Underworld, though that function was clearly present in the people trundling up and down the central thoroughfares. There were houses and businesses and bars and restaurants and farms and playhouses and booksellers and civilization, all along all of those roads. One of those roads led to Stratagold, but that particular tunnel was highly protected; people weren’t allowed past that one.

This place was filled with light and people; it was populated. Only about a third of the people out there were wrought; most were of every other race Erick had ever seen before.

Kromolok offered, “Would you like some mana assistance while you resummon Yggdrasil? I have a [Restful Ward] as well, if you wish.”

Erick… Was starting to think that perhaps there would be no genocide today. Hopefully not ever. He stepped off of the platform, onto the sandy beach, saying, “Yes. I will… accept this assistance. Thank you.”

Kromolok cast a spell over Erick and he felt more Restful already. Sitnakov said nothing, except he did look up and across the blue waters. Expectation filled his face, though he took steps to try to remain impassive. Tasar wore her excitement openly in the small widening of her eyes, as she glanced from Erick, to the waters.

Erick sent an Ophiel into the waters, to the center, where a small rise in the cavern’s flooded floor stood, waiting for Yggdrasil. He cast. Yggdrasil rejoined the world, white branches fountaining out of the large lake like an explosion that only grew even larger, and more intricate. Kromolok poured mana into Erick while Erick opened himself to his [Familiar]. The drain this time was almost pleasant.

When Yggdrasil was fully back, with his massive rainbow crown and fiery green canopy, Erick welcomed him back to the world with a few short words, telling him that he’d be there soon enough. And then he turned to Kromolok, saying, “Thank you. That was much easier that time.”

Kromolok said, “You’re quite welcome, Archmage Flatt, though I did not expect that much of a drain.”

“Yeah.” Erick smiled a little, saying, “He’s a big guy.”

Sitnakov said, “Archmage Flatt. We shall depart here, to the embassy. We invite you to come along when you can, but do not take overlong. I expect you for Bright Tea as soon as you can. Feel free to study this Teleport Station at your leisure and know that we have many more secrets besides this small one.” And then, with a casual, kingly mien, Sitnakov departed, walking toward the archway that joined this cavern with the embassy’s. He hadn’t even waited for a response.

This Sitnakov seemed a lot different than the Sitnakov that wanted to battle, but Erick understood code switching between public and private well enough. Erick had wanted to poke fun at Stratagold obviously having [Duplicate] and using it to make these Teleport Stations, and what that meant for how Sitnakov had goaded Erick for his possession of that spell, but the time for that counter-goading had passed, apparently. Maybe Erick would poke at the man later, when they weren’t in the public eye.

[Scry] eyes of various sorts were already floating around the area, looking at Erick, and the wrought, and at Yggdrasil.

Kromolok said, “I would speak with you in private.”

Tasar said, “Me, as well.”

“Later, please.” Erick said, “What I’ve seen so far bodes well for continued interaction, but I need to talk to my people and be with Yggdrasil for a little while.”

“But of course, we should also take some time to decompress.” Kromolok said, “I have offices in the embassy, Erick, and guests are well taken care of in this land, but if you wish to be on your own then feel free to turn this cavern into whatever you and Yggdrasil desire. It’s a gift from the Goddess Rozeta and from the people of Statagold, to you, for the possibilities you present. Please see me when you can.”

Erick nodded, saying, “Then that is what I will have to do.”

Kromolok walked away.

Tasar asked, “Want to talk about Spatial Magics? Or should I come back later, too?”

“Later. I need to… I need to have a nap.” Erick said, “But mostly I need to talk to everyone else. See how they’re doing.”

“Of course.” Tasar said, “The embassy knows how to get to me. Talk to you later, Erick.”

Erick nodded.

Tasar departed.

Erick rapidly lightstepped directly onto Yggdrasil. He plopped down on the safest part of his largest summon and began setting up temporary housing, talking to Yggdrasil all the while, asking him to start popping all the [Scry] eyes he saw—

“I pop them?” Yggdrasil asked, “I do this?”

“… You didn’t know you could do that, Yggdrasil?” Erick said, “I’m sorry, I thought you saw me and Ophiel doing that so you had learned how— Okay. I’ll show you how. It’s rather simple…”

After a short lesson, Yggdrasil was popping every [Scry] eye that came around, and there were a lot. Word had spread about the new occupant of this major cavern, and people wanted to know the truth behind all the rumors they had been hearing. Dealing with that was too much for Erick right now, though, but Yggdrasil seemed to have fun popping the eyes, and soon, a child’s giggle filled the cavern.

Yggdrasil said, “This easier than metal men!”

Erick said, “Considerably.”

Erick moved on to talking of responsibilities and being nice to people and what it meant to live in a world with others, hoping that Yggdrasil would get more experience out of his first encounter with the wrought than ‘they’re hard to kill, so I need to try harder’. Erick doubted that any other wrought would be nearly as tough as Prince Sitnakov, so if Yggdrasil tried hurting some random guy showing up in this cavern, then that random guy would surely die, and no one needed that to happen right now. Hopefully not ever.

Ensconced in one of a hundred smaller [Sealed Privacy Ward]s that dotted Yggdrasil like invisible bubbles, Erick sat down on a conjured chair that would probably pop if he moved too much and started sending out messages to his people. Poi was first.