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Stars twinkled beyond Yggdrasil’s green leaves, far, far above the glass windows of the [Fairy Stronghold] warehouse. It was late at night, and the Wizard was hard at work.

Sweat ran down Erick’s torso, causing tracks in the soot that stained his hands and his pants. Lightning flickered in his eyes as he gazed upon his work.

Three weeks ago, Erick had begun devoting his nights to the problem of magical iron and runic webs. In all cases, magical iron worked fine to channel about a thousand mana before it began to rust, and rust hard. Runic inscriptions would flake red at channeling 1,500 mana, sending small showers of dust to the ground whenever the runic web was handled, and even when it was not. At 2,000 mana, the iron would crumble. It could still hold and empower the magic placed inside the runic web for a time, though it was like a child trying to hold onto a dream after waking. At 2,500 mana the dream was gone, and all that was left was a rusted, pitted, red stretch of iron.

All these numbers were generally true, but Erick had discovered that there was variation.

The larger the object, the slower the degradation. The more surface area exposed to the air, the faster the degradation. Runic inscriptions exposed a lot of surface area. The purer the iron, the better it handled the inscriptions, but it also degraded faster.

Erick had collected these small nuances into a journal which sat to the side of the room. It would probably prove useful for whoever came after him, trying to follow in his footsteps of making iron work as well as platinum for runic webs. It wasn’t an original work, though. The Overseer of Magic of House Benevolence, Aisha, had had her people working on this problem for a while, and so, while Erick had used their own notes as a start to his own work, they used a bunch of math and Erick didn’t like math.

Erick still gave those guys a copy of his own notes whenever he felt like he made a breakthrough. They were all working on the same problem, after all.

But the Office of Magic had no idea what the fuck to do with Erick’s notes. Oh sure, they took those notes, and they were thankful, but they had no idea what to do with them. Erick’s lack of rigorous math was like turning in homework to a teacher with flowers drawn on it instead of doing proper calculus or moon-landing-levels of trigonometry, or whatever. He still used some math, of course, for this stuff had to be plotted out over a surface.

Eh! It was what it was.

The Office of Magic could do as they wanted, for in his own way, Erick felt he was on the right track. After his first night of sleeping in a [Hasted Shelter] three weeks ago and then having all the rest of the night to himself, Erick had started on this project. He hadn’t done much more in his free time besides work iron.

In those first nights Erick had discovered something unexpectedly important, and it had nothing to do with the physical and magical properties of iron.

Erick would rate his magical control as ‘super fine’ on the Script-suggested scale of ‘gross, normal, fine, and super fine’. But sometimes, and usually during extended periods of [Incandescent Aura], [Condense Iron], and all the rest of his Particle Magic, a control rated at ‘super fine’ was not good enough.

There had been blowouts.

Molten iron flew outside of Erick’s control for brief moments. Superheated air had flashed outward, burning away Erick’s clothes and spreading soot everywhere. There had been a few accidents that had burned Erick’s clothes badly enough that a [Mend] could only do so much.

Erick’s skin could withstand brief exposures to 2000 degree Celsius air a lot better than his clothes. He could even withstand (temporary) prolonged exposure of several seconds without being hurt too much, and he had Healing Magics, anyway. And so, due to his lack of perfect control, the temperature of the warehouse usually went up more than it went down every single night.

Erick had begun to work without shirts.

He had tried working without pants once, but that had been… Uncomfortable. So the pants stayed, even if they did occasionally get burned away when Erick turned up the heat and turned 20 metric tons of rusted slag back into 19.90 tons of magical metal.

And that was another thing Erick had discovered.

No matter what sorts of cocoons of [Condense Iron] and other Particle Magic Erick laid into the workspace, it seemed there was always a bit of blowout when working with this quantity of metal. Erick did a little bit of [Duplicate] here and there to get the metal in the first place, but he wasn’t about to fully [Duplicate] his problems away; not when he needed to work in a way that other people could eventually copy. And so, when he ended up with rusted piles of junk, he recycled; he took the molten iron and mixed it around inside a [Prismatic Ward] while letting it cool down to make it magical again.

And then he went back to the drawing boards.

The entire goal behind Erick and House Benevolence’s work here was to make useful magical iron; not just stuff that iron wrought could eat for food. [Condense Oxygen] and [Condense Iron] were the primary ways in which Erick tried to make this work, but that was just a starting point. A final product needed to allow other magics to also inhabit the runic web.

The theory was solid. The execution was the problem.

Various prototypes that did not work sat to the side, showing Erick’s progression over the last three weeks. The first actual success was a solid cylinder of iron about two meters tall with a dome cap and runes tracing up and down the outside. That prototype had happened on day 5 of this new endeavor, after many failed starts, and it had been the basis for everything to come.

It was rusted to shit, so it had failed. Every single runic inscription had acted as a centering point for the oxygen to start rusting, even though Erick had tried shoving all that condensation toward the top. The dome at the top was also rusted to shit, and it had rusted first, so Erick had managed to get that much right at least. It had taken 10,000 mana and lasted a full day at full power without rusting, but on the second day, in the middle of a meeting with Erick’s brand new Cooks, the runic web was starting to rust. Over the course of an hour the rusting intensified, eventually breaking the entire web not 75 minutes after the first signs of rust appeared.

Erick had moved on.

The second prototype success was also rusted to shit, but it had managed to stay unrusted for a full two days.

This second one was not a solid cylinder of iron. It was a hollow tube, and the runic inscriptions were on the inside. Erick had needed to make it a lot bigger than the first cylinder so that he could write on the inside, so it was more like a barrel than a tower. When Erick capped it off and sealed the web inside, he started introducing [Condense Oxygen] into the web from the ‘backside’ of the runic web. Upon filling the runic barrel with all the appropriate spellwork, the barrel design had lasted a full two days before rusting to shit.

That rusting had happened a lot faster than Erick had expected it to happen. Over the course of 10 minutes, starting from the first signs of rust, the whole thing turned pitted and red like it had been sunk at the bottom of a salty, warm ocean for a hundred years.

The third, fourth, and fifth prototypes were all variations on this second design. Each of them failed in different ways that Erick compensated for in the next version.

But tonight, in the hot air of his warehouse and covered in sweat and soot, Erick felt like he had finally done it.

Disintegrated and shaved iron dust covered the floor. Piles of slag and piles of half-rusted metal lay pushed to the sides of the large space. Lightning flickered in the black runic dagger in Erick’s right hand.

And a hollow sphere of black iron held in the air in front of him. It had not been black ten minutes ago; it had been cherry red and billowing heat out into the warehouse space. It was still a dark red in some of the swirls upon the hollow sphere, but it was cooling down in the dense air of a [Prismatic Ward], and a whole bunch of other magics.

The runic sphere looked almost like a dark model of Jupiter, about a meter wide, but with a lot more Great Red Spots and no banding at all. When it finally cooled all the way, hopefully the runic web in the hollow, airless center of the sphere would remain intact. According to Erick’s mana sense, the runic web held.

Three Ophiels held in the air around the sphere. With a collection of overlapping auras, they kept the interior of the runic web cold so as not to disturb the runic designs, and the outside warm, but gradually tapering off. That split between the cold, airless interior and the molten exterior had been the hardest part of this construction. The metal warped twice already and Erick had needed to redo the whole thing, but according to prototype 5 this was the way to proceed.

And so, Erick proceeded. With a wash of hard, yet suppressed [Pristine Benevolence] that acted a lot more like solid, lightless [Telekinesis] than how it usually did, Erick held the entire sphere in his power and gently continued to push more power into the ‘backside surface’ of the runic web, ensuring that it absorbed magic from both him and from the dense air all around. He had Ophiel adjust his own auras, gradually pulling back the heat, and expanding the cold from the center. Soon, the red glows fully vanished, but Erick continued to gently push against the sphere with his own power. With grinding smoothness, he pressed upon the swirls, ironing out the iron so that there were no ridges, disallowing any possible interruption in the various Condensing spaces planned and laid down inside the sphere.

This time it might actually work.

The hollow sphere cooled even further.

Five minutes later, Erick was done. The work was finished.

The black sphere was now as polished and smooth as a mirror, and looking a lot more silver than it had before. Erick saw himself in that mirror, and he smiled. Lightning flickered from his eyes and from the runic dagger in his hand. He laughed a little, and then he took over the magic Ophiel had been supplying, fully cutting off the [Incandescent Aura] as well as the [Frozen Mist Aura]. With a bit of telekinesis and only a brief moment of tension at the weight of the thing, Erick set the sphere down into a waiting holder made of white Yggdrasil wood. The white wooden holder didn’t even groan or shift as it readily held the ten ton sphere of iron.

Now it was time to add the magic.

Erick had made a few more new spells for this working, which had all come about from what the wrought were doing with the base spell, [Condense Oxygen], in order to cure wrought rot.

--

Condense Oxygen X, instant, close range, 25 mana.

Collect all ambient Oxygen in a medium area, into a small area. Lasts 10    minutes.

--

--

Anti-Oxygen, instant, close range, 50 mana.

Prevent oxygen from entering the area and expel all oxygen within the area. Lasts 10 minutes.

--

[Anti-Oxygen] was not a perfect spell, though, because Particle Magic did not work on individual particles. It did, however, work on molecules, and most atmospheric oxygen was of the O2 variety. With just this one spell, a lot of wrought could recover from wrought rot on their own. [Anti-Oxygen] was a miracle spell in that respect, but it was not a sudden, perfect cure. It was medicine, properly administered over a course of a week, and not too much or else it could seriously harm the wrought, but with this medicine a wrought suffering from rot could heal themselves.

[Anti-Oxygen] only halfway worked against the oxygen in water, but Erick had more solutions for that problem. He had a lot of solutions for all the problems of this project, for ‘rust’ was not simple iron and oxygen. The thing known as ‘rust’ was oxygen bonded to iron and hydrogen, and in rare cases, a whole bunch of oxide compounds that Erick had never known about while back on Earth. He had discovered most of these other rust combinations through working on this project himself, through a lot of trial and error, and through reading the work that the wrought had done on wrought rot.

Iron reacted with a lot.

[Anti-Carbon], [Anti-Phosphorus], [Anti-Water], [Anti-Bromine], [Anti-Flourine], [Anti-Chlorine], [Anti-Iodine], [Anti-Nitrogen], and more, were most of the spells Erick had needed to make, and then put into this runic web. He even used the normal version of [Condense Iron] to ensure the web remained as solid and as unchanging as he could make it.

It still hadn’t been enough.

And so, Erick went for a broad spectrum solution. He had already made [Catalyst], and so he had needed an [Anti-Catalyst]. The anti-[Catalyst] spell was simple enough to make, though it wasn’t called that at all, because someone else had already made that Basic Tier magic long before he even thought to make it. He didn’t get any points for Remaking that magic. He did, however, get that new magic.

--

Catalyst X, instant, medium range, 50 mana.

Enables easier reactions in a large area.

--

--

Inhibitor X, instant, medium range, 50 mana.

Decreases the rate of reactions in a large area.

--

All of that went into the runic web.

It was complicated. It was messy. It didn’t work 5 times already, though Erick admitted to himself that perhaps his creation hadn’t been robust enough until now. He had been trying to make something small, to make magical iron that was usable for everything from wands to Gates. But apparently, this stuff was only ever going to be useful on large-scale stuff like Gates and Denial Spheres.

Once all the theory was done and put together, though, this creation had required expertise, a steady hand, the magic to make it all work together, and not much more than that.

It also required [Renew], but that was icing on the cake, really. Anyone else could have made this without [Renew], but [Renew] tied everything together and allowed the empowerment of any magic channeled into this sphere to power the entire sphere.

Erick explained to Ophiel, “Which was the purpose of [Renew] all along.”

Ophiel chirped.

Erick touched the part of the runic web where the [Renew] lay on the other side of the hollow sphere. Power flowed into the sphere, and like a lightbulb turning on, the iron runic web lit, bright white and radiant. Erick couldn’t just put normal spellwork in there. He had needed to make this runic web hold something in addition to the normal working. This version held a simple wardlight spell.

So far, so good!

Erick forced his smile away, saying, “And now we inspect the web.” He leaned in, looking over the sphere as he said to Ophiel, “See here? The mirage-like sheen atop the iron? That’s the [Inhibitor] and the Anti spells all working together. None of them work properly because Particle Magic can’t work on individual atoms, but together they might work well enough…” Erick frowned. “Maybe.”

Ophiel cooed in quiet violins.

“You’re right; it should work.”

Ophiel looked up at Erick’s shoulder and twittered in guitar thrums. He seemed to ask, are you done, Father? Your shoulder is too dirty to sit on but I want to sit down now.

Erick smiled a little bit. His shoulder was quite dirty with soot and sweat. With a localized [Cleanse] that only caught his own body in the effect, Erick was suddenly clean and thick air flowed away. A larger [Cleanse] would have been bad because the floor was dirty with scattered but useful iron, like so much black sand. With another sweep of magic Erick gathered up the black sand and forged it into a block of iron that he could work with tomorrow.

With one last look at the glowing iron sphere, Erick felt hope rise again.

Maybe he had done it this time.

And then he got naked and went for a swim among Yggdrasil’s roots.

- - - -

Night stretched far, far overhead, filled with twinkling stars, but down here on Veird, where water formed a lake in the desert, the world was filled with light. Green light from Yggdrasil’s canopy, but also white light from his trunk. Rainbow light filtered down through the green, and smaller lights held on the horizon to the east and the north.

And the Wizard swam naked through the illuminated water, enjoying some time to himself.

Zolan pulled back to himself, in his office at House Benevolence and regarded the messenger in front of him.

Enforcer Iriki was an orcol from Enforcement. The large, red-skinned man was also from Ar’Cosmos. He was not Enforcement’s usual way of delivering important and possibly-urgent messages to this side of the House, but that is what he had just finished doing.

Iriki repeated some of his message, his voice strained with worry. “At least 32 [Scry] orbs out there right now. A few from Treehome, one from Oceanside, but the rest are impossible to tell.”

Zolan sat back in his chair feeling less than happy at this news. To some it might seem he was working late, but no, he was working truly early. The sky was full dark; the day was at least two hours away. It wasn’t so odd for him to be awake this early, for he was truly happy to work for 20 hours a day when the numbers were up and there was gold to be had. Ever since the Gate from Spur and the Gates to Portal had opened business was booming, even at a simple 1 gold per ton, 1 gold per person rate.

Zolan should have been happy.

He was… Generally happy. Life was really good these days. Better than it had been in a long time. And yet, the Wizard’s sometimes-habit of swimming in the lake, nude and in full view of the world, was concerning. Zolan cast another [Scry] and gazed out across the world.

Yup. Still looking rather defenseless as he swam through the illuminated water like a lightning-trailing fish. He was obviously not defenseless, but that’s certainly not what it looked like.

“Such an odd and unnecessary risk.” Zolan came back to himself. He looked to Iriki—

Suddenly, and silently, pieces of Zolan’s mind came together and drew a slightly different picture than the one presented to him. Zolan recognized what was happening as it happened, and it was good news. His magic was finally working again. It was like he was seeing again for the first time in a long time.

It would not last. This sudden awakening of his larger mind was about the tenth time this had happened since Zolan’s [Reincarnation]. The awakening lasted longer and longer as his magic gently reasserted itself across his collective knowledge, but it was still not stable yet.

And so, Zolan considered what lay before him. Or rather: who.

Iriki was not a bad looking man, though he was from Ar’Cosmos so the plan forming in Zolan’s mind was something of a risk, but according to what he had seen over the last two months of living and working here at House Benevolence, Erick wouldn’t go for Iriki, anyway. The outcome of what Zolan was about to do ended up with Enforcement taking a much needed knock; they were getting too strong in Zolan’s opinion.

To start with, Zolan simply asked, “What are your thoughts on the matter?”

Iriki stood a bit straighter. “Enforcement needs our Wizard to listen to us, and to stop these nightly swims. He started this nonsense 3 weeks ago and he continues to ignore the guidance of Enforcement. I am here to ensure that the message gets across this time in as solid a way as possible.”

Zolan calmly said, “You already said that and I heard you the first time. I have even given our King this much guidance before, both on my own cognizance and at Enforcement’s request.” Zolan said, “What I asked, though, was what are your thoughts on the matter?”

Iriki instantly said, “He needs a swimming partner.”

Expected.

“A better solution than my initial one of telling him to stop, and one I already tried.”

Iriki scowled, not understanding, more than a little lost. “And he continues to swim alone?”

Suddenly, Zolan reevaluated his plan. He had been thinking of making Burhendurur look bad and Iriki look horrible, but he saw something there.

Some sort of genuine concern.

That made Zolan pull back a little. Admittedly, Zolan had had little interaction with Iriki, though the community here was rather small and therefore Zolan knew of Iriki quite enough. Until now, Iriki had always appeared as the usual hothead battle nut that came out of Ar’Cosmos and went into Enforcement. Until now, Zolan had seen no need to update that label with anything besides a continued list of information on the man.

But now...

Iriki respected their king a great, great deal, and he wanted to serve Erick in any way possible. If one of those services were in the bedroom, Iriki would take to this assignment with the same fervor he showed when he cut down monsters in the name of House Benevolence.

Zolan’s initial plan had ended in a deep embarrassment for Enforcement, but now…

It could actually go well?

After briefly weighing the pros and cons of a physically-important-to-Erick person working in Enforcement, under Burhendurur, and also from Ar’Cosmos, Zolan decided to go full throttle. Ar’Cosmos could not be allowed any good hooks into Erick.

Zola said, “Since Erick is not willing to forgo his swims, I will have to assign someone to watch over him. I think Miloxo is awake—”

Miloxo was a fantastically handsome orcol man from Oceanside who worked under Zolan, and who was gaining a rather promiscuous reputation among the staff for his brazen attitude. He had even hit on Erick once, almost a week ago, though by Miloxo’s standards it had been a rather weak attempt. Nothing had ever come of it, as far as Zolan knew, but the important thing there was that Erick had taken those flirtations in stride and had even flirted back a bit.

Much to everyone’s surprise.

Who knew! Erick might accept Miloxo’s bedwarming offer eventually, though rumor was that Miloxo had been terrified two days after Erick had flirted back. No one knew quite what had happened there, but either someone talked to him, or Erick talked to him, but as far as Zolan knew, Miloxo had simply realized that he was chasing Darkness by pursuing Erick. It just took him two days to realize this.

But bringing up Miloxo had the expected sort of reaction in Iriki.

“I will do this myself,” Iriki said, puffing up his chest and squaring his shoulders in a way that Erick might find attractive. “I can solve this myself.”

And thus, the plan was set.

It had been rather easy, actually. Iriki was an attractive man, and maybe Erick would be receptive. Rozeta knew that a lover might do Erick some good, for though Erick hadn’t critically failed any meetings due to lewd advances by the other party, those Trademasters from Portal had certainly set the tone for every other meeting with Portal.

Erick didn’t attend those particular meetings anymore.

Zolan was beginning to think that Erick might have some hangups, for some reason, though everyone knew that he had bedded that one warlord in the cow lands north of Songli, and had taken that Runesmith out on a date. Erick had only gained power since then, so taking someone to bed should have been even easier. So… Yes. He had to have some hangups.

Zolan had participated in a few delightful diversions courtesy of Zaraanka Checharin’s wonderful Pink House over at Candlepoint, as well as a whole bunch of colleague-level investigations at the New Folk’s Home. He was rather sad that Mox desired much more than he was willing to give, but such were the breaks of dorm room romances.

“Good luck to you, Iriki.” Zolan said to the hopeful orcol, and he found himself only halfway hoping for a disastrous failure.

It wasn’t that he wanted Ar’Cosmos to look bad…

Ah. Well.

He wanted Ar’Cosmos to look exactly like they were and—

Iriki left the room.

He did not bow as he left the room.

… A small spike of annoyance lodged itself in Zolan’s forehead, causing him to narrow his eyes. Iriki should have bowed considering their stations, but Iriki only showed deference to Erick, or to one of the two dragons at the House. Every single person from Ar’Cosmos was still like that, even all these weeks later. Sure, all of them could have gone into any of the Overseer positions if Erick had chosen them to go into those positions, so Zolan understood how they were all ‘sort of equal anyway’, but Erick had chosen their positions. He had solidified a command structure.

All the people from Oceanside and Stratagold were bowing when they should! They even bowed to their Ar’Cosmos superiors of Burhendurur and Volaro! Iriki’s and Ar’Cosmos’s general lack of respect for the command structure would have been fine, but Iriki bowed to Burhendurur. The people from Ar’Cosmos didn’t bow to anyone who was not from Ar’Cosmos!

This! This right here was why Zolan had done what he had done and tricked Iriki into pursuing Erick.

Erick would be fine. He had been hit on so many times this last half month that Zolan knew exactly how resistant the man was to amorous aggression. And yet...

If Iriki worked out, Zolan would take credit.

Zolan gave the man a 10% chance of landing that big fish.

More, if Iriki approached their king with a proper measure of respect. Maybe, if Iriki asked to accompany Erick and bolster his honor guard at all possible hours, and maybe even inside the bedroom, Iriki’s plot might work. Erick certainly needed more guards these days.

Teressa was in the Benevolence Research Tower almost all the time, honing her prognostication skills. Kiri was working with Tasar on magic, to Zolan’s continued surprise, when she wasn’t working with Mox to turn the land around here habitable. Jane was still adventuring in the Underworld with Sitnakov and others. At least Poi was still by Erick’s side most of the time, except when Erick decided to go for a swim at—

Zolan looked at his clock on the wall and his eyes went wide. “4:40 in the morning.”

Iriki’s interruption had cost him time.

Time spent on something that would likely amount to nothing.

Representatives from Songli would be showing in four hours and Zolan was still working out this stack of paper in front of him. He shut out all other distractions and began tearing through the sheets, devouring the information within and sorting it through his mind, spitting up tax rate information in Holorulo, shipping rate information through the ports of Eralis, and Wayfarer Guild plans in the Highlands. Everything went into his mental library, sorting itself out as long as Zolan had the mana to spare to record everything he read.

Zolan had once known all of this by heart, but he had needed to regain this information after his [Reincarnation]. It would take years to regain everything he had lost, especially since he had no time to just sit down and read and read and read, but actually putting what he read into work was better than simple reading.

This job —this life!— was a dream come true.

- - - -

Poi woke up bleary-eyed when Erick blipped back into the house, carrying with him a cloud of flustered feelings and tension. The man himself was invisible due to that necklace he wore, but his mind was a cloud of rainbows and lightning and thoughts moving through the house, following the Wizard. That cloud roiled. Poi was briefly worried, but after mentally confirming that Erick’s most recent experiences were nothing special, Poi rolled back over in bed and pulled the covers tight over his head. He would talk to Erick about what had happened in the actual morning.

An hour later the sun peeked in through the window.

Poi got out of bed and went to the kitchen, first. Sitting on the counter, under a nice wrapping of [Ward]s, lay some of the best pancakes that Poi had ever eaten… Or would eat, anyway. That was the impression that he was getting from Erick, who was already eating his own pancakes on his breakfast balcony. Poi helped himself to a trio of his own 3-centimeter-thick loaves of syrup-soaking deliciousness, along with some of the verdant-cactus syrup that Poi had been missing since this time last year. He missed that syrup every year, for he always went though this stuff rather fast, but the point still stood.

The syrup only went on sale right before the end of the year, when the natural growth of the sugar cacti slowed down, and they started producing the truly great, thick as ooze stuff. After a bit of cooking, the late year harvest turned deliciously brown and then the harvesters bottled it up and sold it on the market streets of Spur.

And now that the Gate between Spur and Candlepoint was open, Poi got to experience this deliciousness without needing to go through proxy markets.

Poi could not wait to dig into these pancakes!

The Cooks Erick had hired were proving themselves well worth their pay.

Now this? This right here? This is what Poi imagined when he signed on with Erick almost two full years ago. Comfort. Security. Soft breads and nice syrup and all the fish imports he could eat. He did not imagine that he would be making the world a better place (not so much, anyway), nor that he would now be living on the branch of a World Tree, and that all the enemies of the world would be working for his boss.

Erick had solved a lot of problems here on Veird—

As Poi carried his loot out to the breakfast balcony where Erick was already eating, and as Poi’s presence pinged on Erick’s thought cloud, Poi had a funny thought. Of all the various problems in their lives, somehow Erick’s recent bashfulness surrounding sex had not been something Poi had expected to see. Sex was nothing important unless one made it important, and usually sex was not important to Erick, but recently that had changed. This hangup could develop into something deeper, and so...

Poi decided he was going to rip through this problem.

He sat down beside Erick, saying, “You should fuck Iriki.”

Erick shuddered a little, his fluffy-pancake filled fork halfway to his mouth, his eyes suddenly wide as his mind filled with a thousand different experiences all at once. Gazing at that swirl of sudden information was like looking into an abyss and seeing a thousand pairs of eyes staring back, so Poi didn’t look too hard. As the abyss swirled and stilled, Poi naturally picked out Erick’s thoughts as though looking at the pages of a book; he couldn’t help but read everything he saw.

Erick had some worries.

Propriety. Balances of power. Morality and social concerns over what would happen if people found out that all it took to get in bed with the Wizard was to ask him and show up naked while he was swimming. In that same moment, Erick thought about how ballsy it had been of Iriki to try that, which then morphed into a thought about balls and what Erick had seen last night when Iriki proudly stood nude atop one of Yggdrasil’s roots, saying that he was here to swim, too, and act as a guard for his king at the same time.

That particular moment played for Poi like he had been there, in the water in Erick’s body, looking up at Iriki standing not too far away.

And then came a bunch of thoughts on sex, including the intrusive thoughts about Erick having sex with Poi. It was rather easy to skip past that part of this particular book, for Poi had been desensitized to those particular types of thoughts long ago, and Erick was usually rather devoid of intrusive thoughts; it was one of the reasons why Poi truly liked the man.

Most people, and especially those who labeled themselves adventurers or otherwise, had a great deal of intrusive thoughts all the time. Most people even went down intrusive thought patterns sometimes, thinking through all the bad things that they would never want to actually do. Thankfully, Erick knew when his thoughts were unhelpful and he usually banished them whenever he could.

Erick moved past his own thoughts, saying, “It wouldn’t be right to… Accept Iriki’s offer.”

Another sudden cloud of sexual thoughts filled the air, and Poi ignored that cloud, too.

“You decide what is right, Erick. That’s what it means to be king, and while you are king, your actions have consequences beyond the physical. If you attach too much meaning to a simple flirtation then it will have meaning.” Poi said, “If you decide not to ever have sex anymore, then when you finally do find someone you like then that relationship will have so much meaning that it will be uncomfortable for all involved.”

Erick’s thoughts stilled.

And then Erick suddenly realized something he should have realized already, that Poi was right.

“I’m certainly not going to let that worst case scenario happen,” Erick said, sighing a little. He still wasn’t about to do anything that Poi suggested, but at least Poi had exposed Erick’s reluctance for what it could turn into. Erick said, “Sometimes I feel like a stupid teenager.”

Poi smiled. “That describes about 95% of your staff at least sometimes, so you're in good company.”

More sexual thoughts filled the air, of all Erick had unintentionally seen.

“Gods! They just won’t stop, will they!” Erick said, but deep down he wondered what it would be like to give in to the small invitations he had been getting practically every single day since the incident with Portal’s Trademasters. And then Erick’s upbringing reared its head, dominating his mind, along with worries over vulnerabilities, and knives gleaming in the dark. Erick said, “I’m not sure I want this to be the culture of House Benevolence. They planned an event over at Zaraanka’s Pink House and Zaraanka is planning on expanding.”

And Erick wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“We have a therapist at that Pink House,” Poi said, plunging the conversation into deeper waters than where it was already headed.

Erick froze, but his mind did not.

His thoughts turned to a red storm of blood and death. Bodies mangled by monsters. Pus and viscera and rib cages half stripped of flesh and broken bones and brains spread out across the stone floor as a red wave flooded the land, and solid light evaporated it all. Death and blood returned soon enough as more bodies fell to swords and spells wielded by unseen enemies, along with hopelessness that Erick could never kill the enemies fast enough before they killed everyone he loved.

It was hard to look at.

For a brief moment, Poi saw Erick’s thoughts as the thickest cloud of horror that he had ever witnessed, but that was untrue. It was just the thickest cloud Poi had seen in a while. Erick had been getting better, but the second any conversation turned to serious topics, like Benevolence’s dark knots, or being intimate with another person, or even just a casual meeting between people who wanted something from Erick that had nothing to do with violence at all, and had everything to do with all the good Erick had done, or, how good Erick physically looked. Sometimes it seemed that every single thing pinged Erick’s trauma in a small way. Sometimes in a large way.

Poi asking Erick if he wanted help, to talk to someone, usually pinged this trauma and all these thoughts of blood and monsters and death. It was why Poi rarely brought up this subject. It was also why Poi knew that he had to bring up the uncomfortable subject.

Today’s attempt didn’t seem to be bearing any fruit, though.

Erick settled down, saying, “No. I don’t need to see a therapist yet. But...”

Erick surprised Poi. His thoughts turned toward questions, instead of toward denial.

“… But tell me what therapy looks like here on Veird.” Erick shrugged. “I might as well know, right?”

Poi grinned a little, then began, “It could look tens of different ways. There’s erasure, which is the most extreme option, or simple talking, which is the least option. Most people fall closer toward the smaller options.”

Poi would have continued, but Erick had a sudden, visceral reaction to the offer of erasure. That mental reaction passed like a flash of lightning—

And then Erick began truly considering it—

For all of half a second.

Poi would have been worried if Erick had considered erasure for any length of time longer than that, for erasure meant erasing a part of one’s own mind. Erasure was a good offer when it came to healing away defining trauma that would never happen again, but with Erick making himself a king, the trauma was not over. Therefore, Erick could not safely remove that trauma from his mind.

Erick asked, “Middle of the road option?”

“A reframing.” Poi said, “Reframing takes the specific trauma and turns it into a source of growth. You’re familiar with the idea of ‘post traumatic stress’ turning triggers into full blown war responses. Well, a proper reframing turns mental scar tissue into something more productive; ‘post traumatic growth’. It’s invasive, perhaps even more so than an erasure, but in my professional opinion, you’re already far down that path, so I’m not sure what a Mind Mage-assisted reframing could do for you, but it is an option.”

Erick sat back in his chair and thought.

Poi let him think, tuning out the storm of thoughts crowding their breakfast nook.

The two of them got to eating their breakfasts, and smaller conversation started. Plans for the day, news of the new prototype iron web over in the warehouse, words over Zolan’s latest ‘newspaper’ which Erick had been reading before Poi had come out and tossed Erick down a different series of thoughts. When Kiri and Teressa came out for breakfast the conversation turned to land development surrounding the lake, and to what was happening in the Benevolence Research Tower.

Jane called when breakfast was over.

Poi patched her through to her father. As father and daughter connected, all thoughts of Iriki vanished. Erick filled with joy as he spoke with his daughter. Poi stayed out of that conversation, but he was still providing the connection so he heard everything.

- - - -

‘I love you, Jane! I hope your search goes better.’

‘It might! I love you, dad. Bye!’

Jane cut the connection.

They had talked about a lot, as they usually did. Jane asked after dangers threatening Candlepoint and the only thing her father spoke of were meetings and how everything was going well, as he usually did. Her father had asked her after the dangers she had been facing, and she… Mostly spoke the truth.

What was she supposed to tell him? That she had almost died three times while exploring the Underworld in these last two months? And that it was the best time of her life? She might not have found her sword, but here she was, prowling the depths of Veird with a team at her side, visiting little spots of civilization everywhere they went, helping with smaller problems and sometimes very, very big problems. She had tried telling the full story to her father once, and thankfully her father had not rushed after her, but Hizogard and Sitnakov started to stay closer to her than they needed to. Such a failure of party dynamics had almost ended in Danaro getting killed.

So they stopped doing what her father had wanted after the first week of being down here in the depths.

And Jane loved it!

“You like this life a bit more than you need to, Jane,” Ravan said.

Ravan retracted her mind tendril and stood up. She was a Mind Mage dragonkin with scales like bright smoke. A generous person would call Ravan a silverscale, but Ravan was not a generous person and she appreciated facts above all else.

Ravan announced to the group, scattered across the campsite, “Jane has checked in. It is time to finalize a plan for moving on. Everyone awake!”

No one moved fast enough for Ravan’s liking, so she pulsed a telepathic gong, filling their cave with silent sound.

The ripple of power passed over a pool of blackness sitting in a crack in the side of the campsite. Sitnakov jolted out of that blackness, halfway forming his orcol body before he realized that there was no danger, so he slowed down and yawned wide. He started crawling out of the hole in the ground. With the back of one hand he rubbed grit and rocks out of his eyes and with the other hand he plucked a spike of stone out of his side, casually tossing the stone back into the small sleeping pit. With one final, full body shiver, Sitnakov stood tall and himself again.

Then he got to putting together his pack.

Down the short tunnel, where their camp seemed to end in a solid wall, another orcol rested on a rock beside that solid wall. This orcol was female and fleshy, with bright red skin. Her name was Lyrical Carnage, and she was rather skinny for a full grown orcol, but that was probably due to the Carnage Dragon in her. Jane thought she smiled too much, but she had a nice voice and nice attitude which all went rather well when she sang and played her strummer. Her instrument of choice was a battlefield version of a one handed guitar which she had strapped to her palm, leaving her other hand open for a sword; she held and played her instrument with only her left hand.

With a cheer in her words, Lyrical hopped away from the wall, flicking the strings on her strummer, asking, “Are you all ready to hear a new song? I finally got it worked out!”

Sitnakov yawned again, saying, “Is it going to ping on me, or on the sword?”

Lyrical said, “It might just ping on you again!”

That was an old ‘argument’, which no one really cared about anymore. Sitnakov was made of adamantium, and so was Jane’s sword. It made finding the damned sword rather difficult.

At the noise all around (and not due to the telepathic pulse, apparently) the last two members of their group pulled themselves out of their combined bedroll. Hizogard was a bog-standard good-looking human man, with blonde hair, flawless skin, and blue eyes. He was a frontline fighter who was still getting back all of the magic he had once had, before he had taken a dip on Ar’Cosmos’s Renewal Tanks to rid himself of his corrupted half-dragon nature.

The other man in the bedroll was a pale red incani named Danaro who used to be a shadeling. Now, he was just an incani, and a rather skinny one at that, like he never quite ate enough. He was still working on getting back some of his more nuanced Healing Magic, but almost all of it was back now that he had been an incani again for the last 6 months.

Danaro grogged out, “Are we going back to Healing Waters yet?”

He had been asking that question for the last two weeks. He had loved that place, even if it was filled with electric spiders and rapidly mutative cancerous danger. Jane had loved that place, too. Healing Essence condensed in some of the animals who lived there, and if they didn’t turn into failed horrors of amalgamated flesh and fangs, they became almost ascended lifeforms, unable to be harmed in their natural environment at all.

Jane still hadn’t been able to kill one of the brighter fish. She almost wanted one of them for a Familiar Form, but without the Healing waters of the aptly named ‘Healing Waters Cave’ (which was more like a Great Lake), they lost almost all of that power. Such a Form still might have some useful properties, though. Jane still hadn’t found another useful Familiar Form in their two months of hunting the Underworld for her sword, but that was to be expected.

Jane said, “Not going back to Healing Waters until Lyrical’s magics fully clear this place again.”

Danaro sighed as he fully untangled himself from his shared bed with Hizogard. “I miss the Healing Waters Cave. I could actually explore there, and not hunker down in camp, or wait for you all to kill the monsters.”

Aside from Jane and Sitnakov, no one else was able to explore the full breadth of Jane’s fugue-state-fueled race through the Underworld, where she bounced through Abysses of Blood monsters, caverns filled with Sand and Shadow, rivers of Healing and Lightning, and a whole bunch of smaller places that Jane barely remembered, and only thanks to the Mind Mage in their group, Ravan.

Hizogard began packing up his belongings, saying, “We’ll get back there soon enough.”

Lyrical happily skipped forward, saying, “Not if I can find the sword today!”

“I’ll believe the sword is here when I see it.” Hizogard said, “It probably got lost in the Abyss. We should go back there.”

Sitnakov said, “If it got lost in the deeper parts of the Abyss then we’re never seeing it again.”

That was another point of contention. Jane’s sword was very small compared to the places they were exploring. Some of these places even Sitnakov couldn’t travel safely.

Ravan said, “I still feel it got stuck in Ar’Kendrithyst’s walls, and none of us know enough about how they work to know if it was truly lost, or not.”

“We can go bother the new settlement again?” Sitnakov offered. “Or look for more people who need monsters killed? There’s that settlement north of this cavern that we didn’t get to yet.”

Hizogard and Danaro were the last ones to put away their camping shit, but Jane and everyone else were ready to get a move on. Jane’s backpack was a rather thin thing that she could strap onto any sort of Familiar Form she had, but right now it was a simple weight upon her normal human back. The bulk of their stuff was held by those who stayed in the backlines while others fought on the front.

Ravan telekinetically hauled one such very large backpack onto her back, and supported its weight with a long term [Weightless Platform] spell, as she said, “We should go to those settlements. We could spread word of the outside world and Candlepoint, as well as ask around about the sword.”

Jane said, “It’s still surprising to me that there are places down here that aren’t connected to anywhere else.”

“We try to keep people connected,” Sitnakov said, “But we don’t require them to stay connected.”

Lyrical grinned brightly, reminding Jane yet again of her father with his perpetual joy, as she said, “It’s all going to get so much more connected in another fifty years, too! There won’t hardly be a single place that’s not a week’s journey from a Gate!”

Lyrical’s infatuation with Jane’s father also reminded her of Erick all the time. In one of Jane’s more bitter moods, Jane had suggested that Lyrical try to ask Erick out on a date, knowing that the woman would get shot down hard, but Lyrical had laughed it off, telling Jane that she was here for the journey and the experience and to make something Good. She had absolutely no interest in her father, but if Teressa was interested, then she would take that introduction.

Jane had been pretty sure that Teressa would not be interested.

Lyrical took that information in stride, and that little conversation had dispelled practically every dark thought that Jane had had about Lyrical.

It seemed like everywhere Jane had gone during the Worldly Path, someone had been wanting to shack up with her father, through her. That had sensitized her to every single person who saw her and their eyes lit up and then they started being nicer.

But it turned out that Lyrical was just a nice person. And a lesbian.

Jane returned some of Lyrical’s joy, saying, “Sing us a Seeking Song, Seeker!”

Instead of instantly starting in on her magic, fully thrumming her strummer in her palm as she sang loud and clear, Lyrical’s grin faltered. She looked around.

Sitnakov looked around as well, but he didn’t seem nearly as concerned as Lyrical… or Hizogard, now that Jane was looking around for other discrepancies. Hizogard had been helping load up Danaro with another bag, but he faltered and that bag fell off of Danaro’s pack, tumbling to the ground. Ravan was already looking around. Something had happened, but Jane had no idea what.

There were no sounds from the ground. No big and heavy monsters on the way. Just the usual whipping wind noise beyond the cave that barely filtered into this space. Jane focused on that noise to see if there had been any change, but nope, no change.

The only ones not in the loop were Danaro and Jane, even with both of them throwing their senses wide.

The cave was empty. The stones around them remained unmoved, and uninhabited.

Jane broke the silence, “… What?”

Lyrical looked around again. Everyone else did, too.

Sitnakov said, “Sounded like Fae Magic in the air.” He looked to Jane, “Did you finally figure out your Domain? Or was that just a roll of the tongue?”

All attention turned to Jane, and Jane realized what had happened. Alliteration.

But at the mention of a Domain, Jane’s mood darkened. There were many reasons for this trip besides just finding her sword and helping people. She still didn’t have a Domain. She was getting better at aura control and everything else, though.

“It was just a roll of the tongue.” Jane said, “I am constantly stressing my aura, though. There could have been some Fae Magic in there?”

A moment passed.

Ravan broke the silence, saying, “Doesn’t feel like there’s Fae in the air. Let us move on.”

Sitnakov shrugged.

Hizogard said to Jane, “A Domain will come with time. My own [Domain of the Sword] took me a decade to understand. Second time was easier.”

Sitnakov said to him, “A more generic Domain is usually better.”

That was a new, old argument between them. Sitnakov usually won because he had the weight of time on his side, but Hizogard’s recently recovered [Domain of the Sword], a Force-derived Domain, was rather good at cutting things. Jane liked that idea. It fit in well with her own Prismatic Magic, and her own Truth that she could be whatever she needed to be in order to advance.

Danaro said, “Domain of Blood is still the more useful Domain, I wager… Not much use against all the elementals we face down here, but it has been useful! What can a sword do but stab?”

Hizogard smiled and leaned in to Danaro, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. He pulled back, saying, “I think I can stab rather well.”

Danaro rolled his eyes.

Lyrical had allowed them all to speak as they wanted, but now she spoke up, saying, “Well, whatever happened with Jane’s words, there was resonance in my strummer—”

Everyone looked to her as she held out her left hand. Her strummer was glimmering faintly on the pinky-finger string.

“—and I already started the new song, Seeking Adamantium Swords.” Lyrical questioned, “Maybe the sword is actually close by, and there was some resonance with Jane’s aura and some random Fae stresses? Your magic is supposed to be prismatic, anyway, right?”

Jane’s eyes lit up. “It could be here!”

Sitnakov smiled, saying, “I hope a monster found it.”

Ravan held onto the straps of her bag, saying, “We were already going to search the area again, so let’s get to it.” With a flick of magic, a layer of silver spellwork draped around Ravan and her large backpack. When it settled, she looked sort of like a volcano inspector, with her bright silver hazmat-like suit.

The camp was already cleared, and so, one by one, each person began conjuring their own armor. Everyone had armor that did a few different things, like having zero gaps, added air filtration systems, and whatever other conveniences they could cram into that spellwork. Jane had updated her own armor to match theirs.

Sitnakov didn’t need any of that, though. He transformed his outer layer into smooth armor so debris wouldn’t accumulate on his surface.

Lyrical held up her left arm, where her strummer held under a clear glass case that surrounded her fist.

Ravan brought up and maintained their group [Telepathy], and after a routine series of ‘ready!’s she pointed at the solid wall where Lyrical had been taking her watch. The wall vanished, becoming a crack in the world, letting the noise of an ever-tumbling avalanche rush into the cave, drowning out all normal sounds. Another cancel command from Ravan extinguished all lights and warming fires in the cave, so that their light wouldn’t attract anything out from the storm beyond.

Beyond their nook of safety, roiling darkness that was not darkness at all enveloped the world. It was a corridor of obsidian sand storms a hundred kilometers across, where glimmering shards of glass cut apart everything it could, leaving behind either obsidian sand drifts kilometers deep, scoured stone, or violent elementals. The sapient natives to this land hunted these depths for the rarer types of elementals made of silver or iron or other valuable metals, but the main enemies encountered were obsidian elementals, and those things were not nice. Especially the big ones.

Lightning flashed in the upper parts of the obsidian desert cave, where wind and mana poured down from above, briefly illuminating the massive obsidian elementals that kept the storm going. They were each the size of twisters, and they fought and broke the world around them with every tornado-filled step, vying for position around the mana vent.

The cavern their little party had picked out was far, far south of the main monsters that called this land home, which no one engaged. If you tried to fight them, they fought back and usually murdered the attacker, but if you ignored them and stayed away, they usually didn’t bother you, because they were always primarily fighting over the mana vent.

When Jane had come through here the first time, with Melemizargo, she did not notice the elementals. It was highly possible that the elementals fled before Melemizargo, though.

Jane sent through their connection, ‘We should investigate the center again.’

Ravan replied, ‘You should at least allow Lyrical to search before you suggest a course of action that takes us directly into the jaws of death.’

Sitnakov backed Jane up, saying, ‘I bet the monsters have it, anyway. They usually do!’

Ravan looked up at Sitnakov.

Jane couldn’t see through her silver armor, and her mana sense wasn’t large enough to let her spy like her father could, but Jane got the impression that Ravan was frowning at the giant black wrought.

Sitnakov allowed his armor to transform a little, showing a smirk. He instantly seemed to regret this as grit flew into his mouth.

All the while, Lyrical had been gesturing back and forth with her glass-bulb hand, the strummer clearly visible. She moved the musical instrument back and forth a few times, and then up and down. She settled on a straightforward and downward path, pointing toward the giant obsidian elementals…

And then a bit to the right, and her strummer pulsed with an unheard song. ‘I think we should check out the settlement north of the cave.’

No giant obsidian elemental fights today!

Ravan laughed a little through her connection, sending, ‘Time to help out some natives!’

Sitnakov sent, ‘I bet we have to fight the giant elementals anyway.’

‘One can hope!’ Jane sent.

Obsidian sand crunched underfoot as they walked into the storm.

- - - -

The small storm raged at the top of the Benevolence dungeon, spitting out white lightning that arced between pillars and occasionally danced down the side of the spiral tower. The tower had originally been made of dry, orange stone, but over the last three weeks Kiri had watched it change to full white, with a whole lot of green decorations. Masses of vines and moss dripped down the tower, a green flow to accompany the white rains which also ran down the whole structure.

A lot of those plants flowered, too, so that was a whole rainbow of color to add to the effect.

The pit to the south side of the structure was now a real reservoir, filled with lily pads and fish and all sorts of life. All the land around every pool of water was iridescent white, and though that transformation stopped about ten meters away from the water, the plants that transformation produced continued to spread outward.

[Terraforming]’s wave of green had reached the first wall around the tower. It was just starting to overcome that wall, too, but the effect would not reach the second wall, five kilometers further out, for a long time.

Kiri retracted her senses from Sunny and returned to the room. Chalkboards filled with Spatial equations lined the wall in front of her. Tasar stood in front of those chalkboards awaiting success, but unfortunately...

“That didn’t work,” Kiri said. “It was a greater lightstep; not a [Teleport Other].”

At first, under Tasar’s Spatial Magic tutelage, Kiri had spent a good week trying to brute force [Blink], [Teleport], and [Teleport Other]. She had succeeded on the first two accounts but not on the third. She had had brief success learning [Teleport Plant] and [Teleport Monster], but she was not skilled enough to accomplish the same thing on a living, fully-sapient mind.

She was not willing to experiment on people to overcome this limitation. Tasar wouldn’t have let her experiment on people, either, or to create a ‘person’ of her own, as Erick had done with the Myriad Citrus. And so, they had had more lessons.

Tasar briefly frowned, but then some other thought passed across her mind. She said, “Perhaps we are coming at this from the wrong angle. How much experience do you have with Force Magic?”

Kiri perked up. Force Magic wasn’t Spatial Magic, but Kiri was willing to learn anything that Tasar the Summoner was willing to teach. Even if Kiri only got an hour or less of private tutelage per day, and only when Tasar wasn’t needed for guard duty, this was still fantastic. Kiri didn’t have much time to pursue what she learned on her own, though, for she was working with Mox to Shape the land outside of Candlepoint, trying to bring back the forest.

Mostly, she killed mimics.

Soooooooooooo many mimics.

“I’ve studied the basic Shapings and tested out of Arcanaeum Force Magic 1, 2, and 3.” Kiri almost embellished her next words, to inform Tasar of noble interference with her education and explain away why she hadn’t completed more Force Magic training, but she simply said, “Force Magic 3 was a bare pass.”

“Ah! Then we will do that, though we will begin with Force Magic 2.” Tasar waved at the chalkboard and the writing vanished. Words began appearing as she spoke, “We will begin with the Force Conjecture, which states that all non-elemental magic can be traced back to applications of Force, and it is from Force where we get Spatial Magic, which is technically a pseudo-element-derived magic in the same category as ‘elemental sword’ and ‘elemental shield’ and ‘elemental defense’ and ‘elemental movement’, which don’t actually exist, but which do exist within Force. Normally, that is where that particular Conjecture ends, but as you are you, and Erick is Erick, and there is no need to obfuscate helpful truths, I can add in some smaller truths to the Force Conjecture...”

Tasar spoke of small, hidden truths that no one in the standard Arcanaeum track would ever learn. Kiri absolutely loved when Tasar did that. It made her feel like she was finally getting the education which was denied to her back at the Tower, or even at Oceanside.

Oceanside wasn’t nearly as bad about the smaller lies as the Tower was, though.

- - - -

Archmage Quel, Master of the Tower, was an older man with long, dark hair and pale white skin. His robes of office were slate grey, and his staff was straight and polished…

He scoffed at the mirror. This was good enough. He had some news to give to the Viridian King, ripped this very morning from the Scryers he usually had spying on The Wizard. Apparently Erick Flatt got truly flustered around offers of sex!

… It might not be the most pure information to bring into Greensoil’s negotiations for a set of Gates, but every little bit counted.

… It was honestly shit information that would be difficult to use.

But Quel was mad, and he was going to use every advantage he could take, for the King was mad at him, because the nobility was mad at the king for first trying to assassinate Erick, and then again for all the failures to actually acquire Erick themselves, and thus, shit seemed to not only roll downhill, but also uphill and all around, in ever-broadening circles. There wasn’t a single noble in the Greensoil Republic who was silent about their collective failure to acquire Erick for themselves. Odaali was perhaps the loudest of all, for what did the Republic expect out of them, to ask Erick to come and fix all their problems? To bow down before another king when they already had a king on the Viridian Throne?

Preposterous!

And Quel kicked himself every single day for not taking Erick for more than he had. Who would have ever thought that one of Quel’s failed students would attach herself to a planar from some magicless world, and that planar and the apprentice would rise up to such lofty heights! All the public was shouting out that ‘of course Erick Flatt was The Scion of Forgotten Light!’ or some other such nonsense tripe, ‘he had invented Particle Magic! And Elemental Benevolence!’. Those idiot commoners would believe whatever they wanted, but their voices were loud, and (though Quel would never say this anywhere it could be overheard) the king ruled at the pleasure of the mob.

When the Wizard had killed Ar’Kendrithyst, Quel thought his head would roll, and he was almost ashamed enough to put his head on the chopping block himself. When the man was outed both as a Wizard and as having made [Gate], everyone thought that Stratagold or Oceanside or Ar’Cosmos (for those who knew of that land) would soon take care of the problem of Erick themselves, and Quel had no idea what to really believe anymore. Surely, whatever was going to happen to Erick would be over as soon as the wrought decided to move, which would happen within days, and then Quel could move past the shame of not doing more to get more out of Erick.

But no! The wrought did not move on the Wizard! Apparently, the Wizard had either ensorcelled all the powers of the world (a [Far Shot Bolt] if there ever was one), or he was the genuine article of the true Old Wizards; those who pushed back the edge of the Void and brought others with them into new worlds and new bases of power. The real Old Wizards; not the one you read about in Sundering stories.

According to some of the more restricted texts Quel had recently reread on the subject, though, Erick could be either type.

As far as ensorcellment went: According to Greensoil’s own history, back when the Wizard Oathbreaker almost took the throne, it was very possible for a Wizard to ensorcell a great many people without those people knowing they were controlled, and with no signs of anyone being controlled, either. Oceanside had eventually helped to break those controls on the kingdoms of Greensoil, so Quel was having a hard time believing that Oceanside and the Headmaster were corrupted by the Wizard…

And so, for now, Greensoil’s response to the Wizard was to ‘wait and see’ and—

And another thing! There was also the whole problem of Erick being a human allied with Koyabez and not with the Angels, and going on record to openly state that the Angels needed to die! At least the Converter Angel was smart and decided to bide their time. Knowing what Greensoil now knew, a clash between Erick and the Angels could have been a disastrous outcome for Greensoil and all of humanity.

… Aside from just sitting back and watching and waiting, and sending out desperate attempts to get Erick fully on their side —None of which worked! Damn the man— Greensoil, and Quel and the Tower, were starting to approach Erick as one would approach a… a ‘normal’ diplomatic relation.

With a desire in their hearts, plans to grant certain compromises in exchange for a vast increase in power and influence, and whatever knives they could scavenge together that could be of use against a Wizard.

Gossip about sex was apparently one of those knives.

It felt weak to hold onto such a thin hope, but war and other violent options had been cleared from the table. Softer power and softer threats were required, now.

Apparently —and Quel was still uncomfortable about this— they would be working with The Wizard. And yet they had no real leverage. They had nothing to offer the enigmatic Erick Flatt. They were paupers coming to beg for scraps from the master’s table, and it irked Quel terribly.

A lot of time had passed since Quel managed to trick Erick into spilling the secrets of the Daydropper…

Quel doubted he could manage the same sort of trick again.

- - - -

Burhendurur had a great many plans he could unfold inside House Benevolence in order to tie Erick more closely to Ar’Comos, and to alienate everyone else. But he hadn’t needed to enact any of them yet. He and Volaro had conferred several times since they got here and got their duties, and each time they both agreed to delay their major anti-wrought and anti-Oceanside plans. The smaller plans went through without interruption, of course, but those were plans for smaller gains, such as making inroads in international markets, and transforming smuggling routes into normal trade routes. They hadn’t needed to do anything directly against their longtime enemies, because Erick was already working tirelessly for the gains of their homeland… And everyone else, too, but the gains for Ar’Cosmos had been immeasurable.

Aside from allowing Ar’Cosmos to buy and sell openly in the markets of Candlepoint, which was steadily becoming something that was actually worthwhile, due to Erick’s runic [Renew] rings the size of their ancient homeland had multiplied at least ten times over. Maybe even more! House Fae had the real numbers on that account, and Burhendurur wasn’t a member of that House so he didn’t know the exact size increases. He wasn’t really a member of House Death anymore, either, so he had no idea how well the inroads of Ar’Cosmos were being maintained.

But he still got all the important and generalized news from their homeland, and everything he heard was good news.

Even Erick’s insistence that the wrought be allowed an embassy of their own inside Fairy wasn’t as disastrous as everyone had suspected it would be. At least not yet. In exchange for that weakness of their homeland, the Houses demanded and acquired trade routes between Stratagold and Ar’Cosmos, directly, and that the export fee be nothing more than normal. So that was truly to Ar’Cosmos’s gain. One embassy was easy to eradicate if necessary, but so far…

There had been no need for eradication.

Every plot Erick enacted sprouted life and possibility.

Conversely, every plot enacted against Erick was met with swift destruction, and most of the time by any number of people acting on Erick’s benefit, and without the Wizard’s direct involvement at all.

So today’s news of an old plan restarted, with the capability to disrupt the tenuous forward momentum of House Benevolence and Ar’Cosmos, had struck a chord deep inside of Burhendurur, making him less than happy with the messenger.

Burhendurur slipped his draconic form through his bone pit, scattering the raw materials of his beloved magics back and forth as he went. Most of it was dry dust, but among that dust lay femurs the size of orcols, crushed ribcages from shadowolves like tiny specks among the ground dust, spines from lesser dragons weak enough to fall to him and stupid enough to try, and so very many skulls. Mostly, the bone pit was a simple bed. Burhendurur had been submerged below the dust, resting well, but he was not resting right now. He swam up though the pit, grey magic flowing from his form as bones and claws and horns scraped him most wonderfully.

The Overseer of Enforcement lifted his head from the bone pit, bone dust burbling around him like aerated sand. Some dragons liked gold, but Death Dragons liked something a bit more useful, for this place easily acted as a command center when the dragon in residence wished. Even while sleeping tendrils of thought left Burhendurur and touched upon all of his active offices, and officers, allowing him to coordinate the defenses of an entire land by himself.

There wasn’t much to do right now besides defend the walls that Overseer Mox and the Wizard’s apprentice had erected, and even that was rather easy. Moving around a few thousand skeletons, most of them simply detectors rather than actual threats, was something Burhendurur could do in his sleep. Which he often did.

While it was true that monsters crawled everywhere outside of civilization, and you never knew what you would truly find out there in the darker spaces, the enemies most prevalent in the Crystal Forest were rather easy to kill. Crystal Mimics were rather harmless for anyone of any skill at all.

When the lands started to grow trees and other things started to move in… Then this job might require some actual focus and organization. And so, since the patrols were easy, and nothing pressed in on his senses as though it were a danger, Burhendurur could focus almost his entire self upon the messenger, which is what he did.

To his credit, Iriki did not quail under Burhendurur’s Death-filled Sight.

“Are you proud of yourself?” Burhendurur asked, rhetorically.

Iriki knew not to respond, though the flush of embarrassment upon his face was enough for Burhendurur to know that, no, Iriki was not proud. But if the man’s plan had worked, Iriki would have gained a kingdom. For that reason and that reason alone, Burhendurur did not fault the man for his attempt.

It had been a rather stupid attempt, though. Iriki didn’t seem to understand that, either.

Burhendurur attempted to enlighten him, saying, “I sent you there to fix the problem of our king displaying himself for all the world to see. Not to make a new problem for me, and certainly not to get stirred up by Zolan into making such a critical blunder of your own. That man is almost as skillful with a scheme now as he was before he retired. He instantly saw your desires and when you delivered my report, he took advantage to see if you would go for it, because he knew you would fail. Which is exactly what happened.”

Iriki’s face turned redder with subsurface Rage, but then he blinked that away, and said, “I want Erick. I saw what Zolan was doing, and I decided to go for it anyway, because if I wait too late then someone else will get him and I will be relegated to his harem! And that’s if he decides to get a harem! Which he won’t. I had a chance, and approval from the Castellan, and so I went for it.”

“… Advancing where you should be retreating, I see.”

“Are you going to help me recover from this blunder, or not?”

Burhendurur glared at Iriki.

Iriki glared back.

Burhendurur sighed, all his anger going out of him. He transformed into his incani form and wrapped himself in a robe sculpted out of bone dust and Death. With a bit of flourish, Burhendurur added some black markings here and there, in the style of their king. With eyes glaring grey, Burhendurur Sighted everything he could about Iriki, then said, “It is to your credit that you have not let any of our ‘coworkers’ see you acting this familiar with me. It is also to your credit that you have held back from pursuing Erick this long.”

Iriki brightened a little, but his was a guarded sort of hope.

Burhendurur said, “I will push for our king to allow more guards to accompany him during his duties. You and that Arda woman from Oceanside will be my selections. If our king chooses to go along with this request of mine for him to have more guards, then you will not advance upon him until he is ready, if at all. You will hold back and let him come to you, do you understand?”

Iriki beamed with joy, smiling strongly as he said, “I understand. Thank you, Burhendurur—”

Burhendurur cut him off, adding, “IF this works, then it will be because our king allows it. It will be prudent for him to deny you and marry some other worldly power out there, and if he gets a good offer, I will be telling him to take it, if he should accept my advice. If such a thing should pass then you will not embarrass Ar’Cosmos with any further pursuit of our Wizard King. You will not gainsay this decree in private, and especially not in public.”

Iriki was so thrilled that Burhendurur was assisting him now, directly, that he barely heard all the cautions Burhendurur set upon him. Burhendurur didn’t know why he even bothered. Iriki had been infatuated with Erick ever since Particle Magic happened, because Iriki was a bit of an idiot who had always been attracted to power and righteousness, and even before Last Shadow’s Feast. If Iriki managed to land that fish, then he would treat Erick well, for sure, and Erick would treat Iriki well, in return.

Iriki’s fervor was not in question. His motivations were not in question.

His target was so far above him it was as though he was trying to [Strike] with a standard sword while standing a kilometer away. His methodology in going after Erick left much to be desired.

… Burhendurur could not really blame the man for his recent attempt, though, for any day now some world power would throw a marriage at Erick. It was just a matter of time.

Iriki’s [Gate] of opportunity was closing.

- - - -

Nirzir sat across the table from the man she would marry, and tried not to stare. The pure… physicality of Erick Flatt could not be denied, and every time she looked at him her face turned redder. Thankfully her naturally white skin did a lot to hide her blushing, but she blushed all the same.

She had heard stories about Erick’s transformation and even sent a [Scry] orb his way once or twice —just to check on him!— to see if all the stories were true.

The stories had been true.

Back at that feast at Enduring Forge, Erick had already looked good with his flat stomach hidden behind nice robes and the bulges of his shoulders clearly highlighted under expensive fabrics. His nice face with his nice eyes. Those memories had stayed with Nirzir for a long while after their journey together had ended, and Erick had stepped on that magical device and been swept away on his Worldly Path.

Nirzir had had Void Song’s Knowledge Mages keep her apprised of every single one of his movements after that event. She had cried herself to sleep more than once after Erick had vanished, and then again came tears of joy when he reappeared at Stratagold. More tears of sadness fell when Erick had been whisked away again by unknown forces on Stratagold’s shores, but everyone in the know, including Nirzir and Clan Void Song, had known that Erick had been taken by the Fae.

Nirzir didn’t cry that time, for she knew that Erick would make it back to her—

Back to the world!

Eh hem.

—Erick would make it back.

But then came a whirlwind of world events that Nirzir was still mulling over all these months later. Wizard. Gate Networks. Treaties of Gods and Melemizargo. And that was just the stuff happening over in Erick’s part of the world! Songli was still rebuilding from the war with Terror Peaks, but while almost all of the reconstruction was done, the damage done to the people would take a generation to heal. Everyone had lost someone. Some lucky (or unlucky) few were the only survivors of their towns, or cities, or villages. The Void Song Temple had lost a lot of Singers, too.

And so, even though Yggdrasil was growing on Songli’s shores, Songli did not want to add ‘Wizard’ into that reconstruction mess for as long as they could, and hopefully after Erick had proven himself as truly stable. In Nirzir’s opinion, Erick was already stable and more. And so, Nirzir had lobbied through her family to speed up Erick’s recognition, for it did not matter that he was a Wizard.

… Not really.

… Nirzir had been terrified of that truth for a while, but the more she thought of it, and the more she heard all of the stories coming out of Candlepoint, the more that her love for Erick had rekindled and burned brighter than ever. Sure, the man had dashed her hopes while they were traipsing through cow fields and warlord lands, but that was then. This was now!

Erick had had a problem with her being too young, but she was 18 now! Surely that was old enough? Other young women in her position usually got married at 15, and sometimes even before they Matriculated. It was only because of her own gifts for Song and her steady rise toward Archmage, and the fact that no one could match her for quality of marriage, that she had been allowed to be on her own this long.

… And she had been petitioning her family to tie her to Erick Flatt ever since he came out of Ar’Kendrithyst and banished the Darkness from Songli. The man had invented new magic! And he could hear the mana! And he looked…

Well.

Rozeta truly did bestow proper gifts when it was proper to do so.

Nirzir didn’t know if Rozeta’s gifts had been to Erick, or if they had been to Nirzir. The timing was just too perfect. Truly, the gods were good.

But Erick was having trouble accepting this fact.

Erick, frowning a little bit and in a very cute way, asked, “Could you repeat that last part, please?”

Erick sat on his side of the drawing room, upon a nice long couch. His lithe muscles (he was bigger than before, right?) bulged under his robes of office, and his jaw was like a brick (and his lips were made for kissing). Nirzir had to tear her eyes away to keep her heart grounded.

Ophiel twittered on the back of Erick’s couch, overlooking their meeting; he was as cute as ever, too. To Erick’s side stood Zolan Brightborn, the man who had been Second to the Second of Rozeta for over half a century, decades ago. Nirzir didn’t know much about Zolan except that the previous Matriarch of Void Song had been business friends with the man.

Great Grandmatriarch had been mostly a figurehead for the last twenty years, though, until Terror Peaks had killed her, thinking she was still a head of house. Nirzir had heard that Great Grandmatriarch had laughed when they came to kill her, telling them that they were fools chasing minnows while the rivergrieve had gotten away.

On Nirzir’s side of the room sat Matriarch Lingxing, the rivergrieve Great Grandmatriarch had referenced, who had been in actual control of Void Song for quite a long time. She had only gained the actual position of Matriarch after the Chelation War, though. As far as Nirzir knew, Lingxing also liked Zolan.

According to some of the small looks between Zolan and Lingxing, of surprise, hope, and something a bit more than that, Nirzir was getting the impression that their appreciation for each other had been more than a simple appreciation of business. … But how could that be? They were rather old when they were working across the ocean from each other, right?

No. Of course there was nothing physical there. Nirzir was too in her own head right now. She focused on the conversation.

Matriarch Lingxing Void Song gazed down Erick, summarizing what she had already said, “Songli wishes to join the houses of Void Song and Flatt together. We desire a marriage between you and our rising daughter Nirzir. Your union would bring great joy and stability to all future cooperations between our great nation, and your burgeoning one. If you were to accept such legal bindings, then it will be worlds easier to accept your Gate Network, and the close ties your Network will bring between your lands, and our lands.”

Erick glanced to Nirzir—

Nirzir’s hopes rose.

—then turned his gaze back to Matriarch Lingxing. “My instinct is to say ‘no’, but in the pursuit of clarity and goodwill, I ask for the full nature of this proposal to be in writing. You can tell me now what the written words would say.”

Nirzir could barely contain her joy. This was much, much further than they thought they would get. Months ago, Erick had dismissed this entire idea and then crushed Nirzir’s hopes for a joyful union. But she had persisted anyway! Her love could not be denied! And now he was asking for clarifications!

This was a good sign!

Lingxing spoke, “A baby in her belly inside a year. An heir for your kingdoms, even if you do plan on ruling forever. Ideally, you and Nirzir go on to have at least five children. In all chance, we expect such a union of houses to be raised half in your House, and half in Songli, and to be fully capable of all of the magic you possess, and all of the magic we possess. This includes both the Void Song, if they have the aptitude, and [Gate], if they have that aptitude, too. We are not creating a small union here. We are creating a lasting dynasty.

“But on the monetary side of things: You will create a Gate Network with your recently published universal rates of 250,000 gold for a Gate pair, 1 gold per ton of goods, 1 gold per person, all across Songli, but it will be overseen by our people. We will have an embassy here in your Gate District. You will provide [Reincarnation] services to keep your family alive for as long as they please you.

“If I could gain a [Reincarnation] myself, I could ensure that these rules we create today, or in the near future, remain adamantium solid for as long as our nations persist in friendship, though this is not necessary for the agreement we put down in writing.

“You retain your lands and your wealth, and Nirzir retains her wealth. As you are the power being married into, Nirzir will live here, with you, in a style matching or exceeding your own, and what Nirzir is accustomed to. When you or your current family, or growing family, comes to Songli, you will receive the same respect which you have given Nirzir.

“There is no need for fidelity in your marriage, for we do not care about your proclivities or extramarital affairs, but only the children born of a union between our nations will be considered legitimate in the lands of Songli. If we were working on Highland sensibilities, then the children born outside of Nirzir would form branch families. If you choose to work under different sensibilities, then we will get those in writing before we write our signatures in blood.” Lingxing finished with, “There are a lot more to be said for specifics, but those are the basics, and aside from the Gate Network inclusions it is a rather basic marriage contract between powers of Nelboor.” Lingxing finished.

And Erick sat there, thinking. After a moment he looked to Nirzir, asking, “You want this?”

“I do,” Nirzir said seriously, and softly.

Inside her own mind she imagined her ‘I do’ as an echo of her future marriage vows, and she could not wait for that day.

Erick asked Lingxing, “And this is the only way Songli will accept a Gate Network?”

“No, it is not,” Lingxing said, reluctantly but surely.

… What?

What was that, honored Matriarch?

Did Nirzir hear that correctly? She backed up her mana senses a moment, and realized—

Nirzir’s eyes went wide. They had had a plan! What was Matriarch Lingxing thinking—

Lingxing continued, “But this is our best, most solid plan to make Songli accept your nature, Wizard Flatt. We are all rather frightened about you, and about the giant tree growing beside the capital. Yggdrasil continues to grow. He is well outside of the initial bounds of his small 3 kilometer lake. But those are just the unknown fears. Mostly, we wish to participate in the bounty you have promised the world, for we are still recovering from the Chelation War. A solid union solves these fears, and these economic hardships. Mostly.”

Erick was silent in thought.

Nirzir’s heart clenched.

FUCK! This wasn’t going to work!

Erick must have found someone else. Or maybe he truly didn’t want her? Like he said he didn’t? But why wouldn’t he! She had grown a lot in the last six months. She had boobs now! Men liked boobs, right?! And Erick had changed, too! He was reborn through Rozeta, and he needed allies more than ever! And not just the wrought, who lived inside their holes in the ground and never involved themselves in the world, or the dragons who raged and sundered everywhere they touch. Oceanside was only a partially acceptable partner!

Erick needed Songli! And Songli needed Erick!

Nirzir almost wanted to speak—

But Erick said, “I need to speak to Nirzir in private.”

Nirzir’s heart clenched again.

… That… did not sound good.

Nirzir was rather frozen to the spot for a good five minutes as small words floated through the room and Lingxing, Zolan, and all of everyone’s guards on both sides exited from the gathering.

And then it was just her, and Erick, looking at each other from across a tea table.

Erick started speaking...

- - - -

In a new bar on the waterfront of Candlepoint, Burhendurur refilled Iriki’s glass with redrage wine. He had been doing this for the last twenty minutes, while also coordinating the defense of Candlepoint in the back of his mind. Killing mimics through undead proxies was easy, but the worries of soldiers took a closer touch to fix, and Iriki was devastated. The large man tried not to show his emotions for they were in public, but anyone with any modicum of empathy could recognize Iriki’s sullen face and heavy drinking for what it was.

Iriki grabbed the cup and drained half of it, then summed up everything, “I thought I had more time.”

“He might not accept the offer,” Burhendurur said, “Though he would be a fool to turn down this offer.”

And if Erick asked for Burhendurur’s opinion, or even for the general opinion of his Overseers, then Burhendurur would tell the man to marry the girl and tie them all to Songli. Iriki didn’t need to hear that, though.

Iriki smiled a little bit, though it was a sad sort of expression. “He is a rather foolish man, but his foolish hopes might reach the stars.”

“If he makes good decisions and uses his power well.”

Iriki chuckled. “What needs are there for good decisions when there is more than enough power to make up for the bad ones?”

Without warning, Iriki lost his minor joy and suddenly downed the other half of his drink.

The large orcol sighed, and Burhendurur could see Iriki crush his hope for love and sex into something more manageable, putting away his brief, yet deep feelings for Erick back into a box like they never existed in the first place. Iriki had a lot of nice qualities, though he was dumb as a desert of mimics when it came to love. Burhendurur had worked ‘across the office’ from Iriki for decades, so he knew what he was seeing. Iriki always went after the unattainable, as though he wanted to be hurt. He didn’t care a bit for the emotional comfort or security he could find in the arms of those all around him. It was why he had been single for most of his previous 80 years. It was why he had chosen to move on to Candlepoint, leaving behind the security of House Carnage to come out here and try something new.

Burhendurur had not planned for the man to join him at the Office of Enforcement, but when the time came to pick a person he wanted working for him, he chose Iriki. It had been a selfish choice, only made palatable by how good Iriki was at most paper shaping things, and otherwise. For Burhendurur had hoped, in a small way, that now that he held a position of power directly over Iriki, that Iriki’s strange sensibilities would land on him.

But! No.

They were just coworkers. Still.

Maybe the next time Iriki went into a Renewal Tank he could ask for his sensibilities to be fixed.

Burhendurur could wait. Dragons operated on a different timetable than mortals, and for all his good parts, Iriki was still a mortal. Maybe less so now that [Reincarnation] and Renewal Tanks were things that existed, but even with those new magics filtering out into this world and across Ar’Cosmos, Iriki was a fallible, un-Sighted mortal, unable to see the opportunity staring him in the face.

It would be a century before he gained any real measure of Sight into the hearts of others, or even himself.

… Or maybe Burhendurur was simply not powerful enough?

No. That could not be it.

“It was a [Farshot Bolt] anyway,” Iriki said. “Time to move on.”

At least when the man had received a strict ‘no’ he accepted that decree and moved on.

Burhendurur nodded as he refilled the man’s drink.

- - - -

Lingxing scowled at the door in front of her, exclaiming, “Nirzir Void Song! You will take down this barrier, cease your warbling, dry your tears, and come out here this instant. It’s bad enough you ran away from the negotiations after your private meeting, and I had to continue it all on my own! But now I come home and I find you breaking things!”

Beyond the door to her rooms Nirzir’s wailing carried like she was a babe who missed her meal, but she was a Songstress so her songs were more destructive than Lingxing would have preferred. The walls of their clan mountain vibrated under Nirzir’s Thunderous cries. Vases crashed to the floor. Servants went running.

All because this child couldn’t understand the denial of a Wizard—

The door slammed open and Nirzir stood on the other side. Her face was not reddened with tears. She was perfectly put together. She was a touch angry, but that much was forgivable. Crying in the face of a loss of this magnitude was not.

Nirzir declared, “I was not ‘warbling’! I haven’t warbled in years. I was singing a sad song, Matriarch. If it was too much, then I apologize, but I was certainly not warbling!”

“Oh?” Lingxing spoke sarcastically, “Then pardon this one’s concern for you, for the vases in the hallway which are now piles on the ground, or for the new cracks in the walls of our great clan mountain. Our estate is much better looking now that our archmage has taken a good working to the walls.”

A crack formed in Nirzir’s visage. Her eyes watered, her lips trembled.

And then Nirzir shoved those dark emotions down, asking, “What of the Network?”

“It’s going to happen anyway.”

Nirzir’s hidden sorrow turned to revealed rage. “You never had any intention of making a marriage happen, did you?”

Lingxing almost reprimanded Nirzir—

But Nirzir instantly realized that she had misstepped. Too bad she didn’t realize the folly of her young love before they got into this mess, but to her credit, Nirzir stood straighter and her anger vanished. “Apologies, that was unkind of me. Erick had already made his desires known long before today’s… misstep. I both created and stepped into my own [Force Trap].”

Lingxing pulled back her harsher words, and said, “And we’re lucky your [Force Trap] didn’t explode on all of us.”

Nirzir stood tall. She took the rebuke with aplomb. Lingxing felt proud at that moment, and she allowed some of her own approval to appear on her face. Nirzir noticed, her facade cracking again as she wiped away a quick tear.

“I apologize for running away after my private meeting.” The young girl asked, “What about the other concerns?”

Lingxing gestured forward, saying, “I won’t talk in the hallway. You might have become a proper archmage since your journey with the Wizard, but I am still the matriarch of this clan. Invite me into your rooms and fetch some tea for the talking.”

Nirzir’s eyes went wide, as she suddenly realized she had failed again. She nearly hopped backward, saying, “Honored Matriarch Lingxing. Please come in and allow me the honor of knowing what happened after I left.”

Lingxing walked forward, her right hip briefly catching as it did sometimes, sending a shooting pain through her back. She ignored the pain for it quickly subsided anyway, then allowed herself a bit of joy as she walked beside her niece, deeper into the archmage’s rooms.

Lingxing began, “Erick accepted the [Reincarnation] requests in lieu of ties of marriage. I won’t be going first, but I’ve already lined up 15 elders from various households who wish to restart their lives. We’ll be watching them for signs of corruption for a few years before we do more, but I doubt many people will wait that long…”

- - - -

Palodia opened her eyes in the predawn light. Her first thought was of the warmth at her back, pressing up against her like a solid pillow that could turn hard at any moment. Her second thought was at the large arm wrapped under her own, and the hand gently resting upon her breast.

Tenebrae breathed behind her, his breath tickling her neck as his chest expanded, pressing his muscular chest into Palodia’s back, just a little. He was still completely asleep, as he usually was this time of day. The sun was barely up. This had always been Palodia’s preferred time of day, and she was glad to have that part of her old life remain strong.

Palodia had a harder and harder time waking up early these days, but she still did.

The bread wouldn’t bake itself!

It had been too easy to slide into this new life of hers, as an orcol, and as a match to Tenebrae. Finally! Finally… All of the main problems of their old lives and races were gone, and though some differing circumstances and power remained, they were more like complementary problems, than actual problems.

It had only taken 9 days after their [Reincarnation]s for shy glances between Palodia and Tenebrae along with a few conversations about their next steps, to transform their relationship into something deeper. Something both of them had been dancing around for decades. That first time that they both truly knew what they wanted was a frantic fumble of pants and shirts and underthings, and Tenebrae shooting before the battle even started. Palodia would remember that moment for as long as she lived for it was just so perfect, because after some happy laughter the truth of their new, younger selves reasserted itself. And then they got down to it. Again and again.

And now they were here, in Treehome, at Tenebrae’s suite at Wyrmrest. They had vacated the Rocky compound 15 days ago and got to work reestablishing Tenebrae’s base of power here in Treehome. The house had needed a remodel to fully account for their new orcol bodies, for the place was only partially orcol-sized, but now…

Everything was wonderful.

Tenebrae was a long, long way from having the same sort of power he had once had, but in five years he would have another cloud castle, for sure. And this time the two of them could live together, instead of Palodia being stuck behind the kitchen for decades because she was too damned afraid to go to Tenebrae and say what she wanted. To be fair, Tenebrae had also been all the way up in his tower and unwilling to come down to her, except for dinner.

They had already had long conversations about how funny that all was, how both of them wanted this, but neither had been willing to take that first real step—

Tenebrae’s breath hitched as his arm flexed.

Palodia smiled. Tenebrae was awake.

He pulled her tight, his new, deep voice rumbling behind her, “You always wake up before me.” He kissed her shoulder, and then her neck. “Have you been awake for long?”

Palodia smiled wider as she ground her butt into Tenebrae, saying, “Long enough to know I want to start the day off right.”

Tenebrae chuckled, rumbling behind her. She liked when he did that.

It was good to be young again, and not just because of increased stamina and all of that, but also because this was just one of many, many more days like this. And because this was just one of many, many days like this, Palodia could just roll away, laughing all the while, leaving Tenebrae behind, disheveled in the sheets and looking like she had taken away his favorite new toy. Perhaps she had.

The look on Tenebrae’s teenager face was priceless.

Palodia strutted around the bed, headed toward the door, saying, “When all the rest of you is up we can do something really nice, like bake some bread or hunt down some good monster meat.”

Tenebrae huffed out, “What about the monster meat right here.”

Palodia laughed again, bright and happy. She had said ‘monster meat’ specifically to see if Tenebrae would pick up the innuendo, and he had. She understood him, and he understood her, and everything was perfect.

She had never been good at magic, nor had she even really tried beyond a few good cooking spells, but it was the gods’ honest truth that she knew the power of a good spell, and [Reincarnation] was about the best magic that she had ever experienced. Living with an archmage most of her life had taught her that magic could do a lot, but the magic of a Wizard was another thing entirely.

- - - -

Four days ago Erick had made a meter-wide iron ball glow with runic magic.

Not that impressive considering what he had done before. But here, four days later, the iron ball was still glowing with spellwork.

For all the world without a mana sense, the sphere looked like a mirror-smooth silver or steel ball that some fool had cast a [Light] upon, along with a bunch of smaller, air-disturbing magics that layered upon the surface.

But Erick had a good mana sense. He saw into the hollow sphere. He knew what he had made. For all those like him, they could look into the iron ball too, and see that it was hollow, and the interior space was about 15% covered with runic inscriptions. The entire thing was a runic web made of magical iron. And there was room for a lot more magic.

This sphere was a minor miracle, only made possible through the layering of so many different, specific magics. All that stable magic should have torn through the iron like mice through cheese, leaving behind nothing but refuse. But the power Erick had invested into that simple sphere did not tear through.

There were so many ways this should have failed, but it did not. 5 other failures lined up against the far wall, showing exactly how this sphere should have failed. He had expected a lot more failures before this success.

But…

This was a success.

It was time to show it off to the Overseer of Magic.

- - - -

Aisha stood next to a glowing miracle.

White light shone from that miracle like the light of Benevolence.

It was just her and one more inside the room with the miracle, and the room had been layered and layered with [Ward]s of all kinds. No one was to see this miracle right now. Not yet.

And yet, Erick had delivered the miracle in such a haphazard ‘nothing is wrong’ sort of way that so many other people had seen it, including those from Ar’Cosmos and even Oceanside. Oceanside’s forces were trustworthy, for they saw what this was and what it meant, and while the Headmaster would be alerted, nothing else would come of that leak. But Ar’Cosmos’s people now knew.

That could be a problem.

Aisha’s only assurance that nothing too deadly was going to happen was her own insight into Benevolence. She did not foresee any instant problems upon first Sighting this sphere and understanding what it was…

… And, Aisha supposed, Teressa had seen the sphere first and that large woman had been smiling the whole time. She had even confided in Aisha to ‘stop worrying about the good things so much’, which was, of course, not something that Aisha was capable of doing, but she appreciated Teressa’s words, anyway. Benevolence seemed to be on Erick’s side in this creation, and so…

Maybe this would turn out okay?

Historically, the proliferation of runic webs had been disastrous. This, right here, would lead to another such proliferation. Which had been Erick’s intent this whole while…

The Kings and Queens of the Geodes and even Kirginatharp and the Gods seemed to trust Erick—

Aisha trusted Erick, too. But when runic web knowledge proliferated, and when it went bad, Erick would be asked to clean up his own mess. Maybe he could actually do that?

Maybe.

Aisha did not know.

She didn’t know much right now.

And so, she had invited another person to come see this device. The only other person in the room with Aisha stood to her right, viewing the glowing white orb of iron alongside her. If the orb had not been glowing white, then its color would have been the same color as the man; they were both made of iron.

Archmage Riivo, the leader of Archmage’s Rest, stood beside the iron sphere, eyeing it critically. He had huffed in his first ten minutes upon seeing the thing, fussing over it as though it were a trick of shadow and he was having trouble seeing through the illusion; as though Aisha’s report to him had been a lie. One did not make magical iron—

Unless one was Rozeta, of course.

But outside of wrought bodies, mana-infused iron degraded as soon as active magic passed through that iron. Even inside the wrought, and especially inside the iron born, using too much magic could lead to rapid onset wrought rot.

Riivo stared for ten minutes more, and gradually his disbelieving fugue began to wane. He began to really investigate the runic structure laid inside the sphere. Ten more minutes after that, and he was back to simple staring, mentally dissecting what he could see. Erick hadn’t tried to hide any of his inscriptions, so while there wasn’t much to see, there was a lot to understand.

But Riivo had studied the object for long enough.

Aisha began their conversation with, “There’s a lot of conventional wisdom in there, but it’s the addition of this Particle Magic that makes it work so well.”

Riivo pulled back a fraction from the sphere, his focus returning to the present. “It’s all rather simple when he puts it down like that, isn’t it? His scripture is perfect, and though his style is rather simple, it’s impeccable. The challenge will be applying this structure to something other than a stable, hollow sphere, though I have no doubt that Erick will be applying this working to many large, bulky shapes. Gates, of course. Town anchors, or whatever he wants to call them. The ones with the Denial magics.” Riivo did not look away from the sphere as he asked, “That’s still his plan, yes?”

“Denial spheres at the center of every settlement; yes.” Aisha said, “He could scale this up rather easily, and have room enough to put [Withering] inside every single one of them, though he probably won’t do such harmful magic considering he has a core, too.”

“Prismatic Denials, Spatial Denials, probably some sort of basic monster protection, too, but yes; not something outright harmful...” Riivo contemplated, then said, “He could add some variable permissions into that [Undertow Star] of his and put that in here.”

[Undertow Star]. Yet another miracle of magic, using principles that some archmages sometimes touched upon in the long history of Veird, but which Erick had managed to wrangle into a true working of magic. That young princess of Songli, Nirzir Void Song, had inherited that particular magic already, while even more were studying those shadowy stars that both Erick and Nirzir had placed in the heavens here and there.

Aisha said, “I heard that spell is still going strong in the mountains of Nelboor, and that the Dark Sects of Nelboor are rallying under it, seeking absolution under Koyabez. Keeps the monsters away quite well, but it does leave everyone weakened and vulnerable.”

“It does; all of that. It still might be the best spell to put into one of these. If Erick made these for us, then we could scatter them about in the Darker places of the world and let the [Undertow Star]s permanently weaken those danger zones. If the Star becomes unstable we could put a detonation binding on the interior and disrupt the runic web and make the whole thing consume itself, breaking the magic down as the iron rusts itself to death.” Riivo said, “It would be dead simple to do. It would also be dead simple to put some Privacy magics inside so that no one could see inside the sphere without harming the working, thus protecting the security and knowledge of the runic web. If someone tried to drill inside and send in a Sighted tendril, or something along those lines, the physical barrier for oxygen and otherwise would be broken, and thus the whole thing would rust over in a flashing instant.”

Aisha smiled softly, glad that Riivo was taking this miracle so well.

Riivo asked, “There has to be… 15,000 mana running through this thing right now?”

“Only 5,000 mana, according to Erick, and that was 4 days ago. Maybe about 4,000 right now.”

Riivo smiled a little bit, softly saying, “Wizards, eh? I can already feel my worries over the future evaporating. How about you?”

Aisha said, “The main worries are gone, though they have been replaced with smaller, more nuanced ones.”

Riivo stared at the sphere, nodding as he said, “Me too.”

- - - -

Erick sat behind his desk in his office, worrying over a lot.

A rather handsome man from Enforcement wanted him in a way that wasn’t easy to put into words. A man from his own Castellan office was now fucking terrified of Erick. Portal’s Trademasters were sending him small gifts now; Erick had a few very good enchanting-grade pearls sitting in a box in the corner. Songli’s Local Area Gate Network was going to be a trouble, because he had chosen to not marry into one of their main families. How much had he harmed his future platonic relationship with Nirzir? Did Nirzir resent and hate him? Or would she be able to control her emotions for the good of her own nation? Erick had finally gotten a working prototype of the magical iron runic web, and that iron sphere now rested with the Office of Magic. Aisha had been rather worried about that sphere, but when compared to how much of that worry was personal, versus how much Teressa had been truly happy to see that sphere completed… Was Aisha worrying over nothing? Was Benevolence telling them all that this was fine?

Was Benevolence speaking for Erick, or was Erick speaking for Benevolence? Was there a meaningful difference? Or was Erick worrying over nothing, and all his worries amounted to a case of ‘this is my persona while at work’ and a ‘this is my persona while at home’ sort of thing?

Yggdrasil was growing up fast, and spending a lot of time at Treehome.

Jane and her team were still prowling the Underworld, killing giant monsters and restoring connections between settlements in the dark which had been thought lost.

And there had been no large explosions in three months. Was Erick becoming complacent? Was the House becoming complacent? Was every single one of his subjects turning to interpersonal diversions of sex and food and other inconsequential things, while the world was getting ready to erupt and burn everything they made to the ground?

Erick had a lot of worries.

He breathed. He centered himself.

And then the Wizard of Benevolence and Apparent King of Candlepoint decided where he wanted to start, and began, “I think my problem is that I am doing a lot, and I feel my people are doing a lot, but it’s not enough. There is simply so much to be done. Like… We cleared out Nergal, Nelboor, and Glaquin of a great many mental monster threats over the last two weeks, thanks to the help of the Mind Mages, but… we only cleared out the major cities, and we didn’t even touch Quintlan, or the Underworld. There’s just so much to be done and I wonder when some insane person is going to come out of the woodwork and destroy everything I’m trying to build here. I’m pretty sure that the major powers of the world are solidly behind me… But you never really know.”

Across from the table, sat no one.

Erick was alone in his office. Privacy magic and more defenses of all sorts held all around. This was a private conversation.

Even Ophiel wasn’t here, and Yggdrasil was off doing a lot on his own. Yggdrasil’s [Scry] eye had been gone for an entire day, two days ago. He was having too much fun to check in as much as he used to. Erick found he missed that [Scry] eye. And he missed Ophiel’s weight on his shoulder, and those violin sounds in his ear. Why did Erick have Ophiel flutter around outside? He didn’t really know beyond the fact that he wanted to be alone for a little bit. Actually alone.

There was no way he was truly alone, though.

Erick spoke more words of worry into the empty air, expecting someone to pop out of the manasphere, even though he was not purposefully contacting anyone.

And yet, as he spoke to the empty air for over an hour, no one appeared. Erick casually swept his light through the room while he spoke, too, and though he randomly varied the sweeps, no one showed to his senses. Even the shadows in the corners of the room seemed empty.

When Erick finally felt he had gotten all his worries out there, giving a voice to the shadows in his heart, he did not feel lighter as he thought he might. He needed to actually talk to a real person. But at least now he had all his thoughts organized.

Erick canceled the Privacys and the [Hasted Shelter] he had cast into the space, ending his privacy with a pop of equalizing time and a sweep of cleaning mana that disrupted all history in the manasphere. No one would know that Erick had been pouring his heart into the void.

Except for Poi, who walked back into the room, leading the way for Zolan—

Poi paused and looked at Erick, a brief moment of confusion passing across his face, becoming a frown. Without warning, Ophiel fluttered back into the space, squeaking with annoyed guitar sounds. Erick had left the little guy outside of the [Hasted Shelter], too.

Poi resumed walking inside the room. Zolan followed, carrying a stack of paperwork.

Erick’s castellan was a highly observant man, so he noticed the sudden change in the air. He and Poi had only been outside of the room for two minutes, and yet something deeply important must have happened while they were gone, besides what Erick had told them would happen.

“A good nap, Sir?” Zolan asked, expecting a lie.

Erick lied, “A great nap, yes. All ready for the rest of the day.” He put on a normal enough smile, and brought up the topic on the paperwork in Zolan’s hand, asking, “What’s happening with Portal’s embassy?”

Zolan knew enough to ignore what he had been told to ignore, so he got right into it, talking of numbers and facts and three more monster kills Portal desired of House Benevolence. Two of the kills were tangled hydras hunting in the waters around some cities on Archipelago Nergal, but the third one was a suspected ‘tidecrasher hydra’; some sort of Variant tangled hydra. It was its own tidal force, apparently; able to shift the ocean’s surface for a hundred kilometers around. The Variant had torn through a handful of minor coastal settlements and one minor city in the last two days. The Church of Sininindi had an emergency bounty on the beast.

Erick killed all three city-killing monsters within the hour.