213- Jane (Patreon)

‘Thanks, Poi. Talk to you later.’

And then Jane signed off.

For a good minute after the morning communication with her father, and then a few minutes with Poi to hear about what else might be happening, Jane simply sat back in her chair, feeling some kinda way. She had spoken with her father multiple times during the ‘war’ with the Sovereign Cities, and he had told her to stay away because, for the longest time, her father had suspected that the royalty of the Cities were specifically looking for Jane in order to use her as a bargaining chip against him…

Jane and her team had laid semi-low because of that suspicion.

But now, the war was over, and the truth of it all was revealed, as much as a truth involving several worldly powers could be revealed. According to first reports, the Cities had gone to war with her father in order to solve the supremacy of their royalty once and for all. The war had not started off that way, of course, and the only one able to give an honest accounting of that reason was Queen ‘Crissi Benev’ Pearl, for that was why she had gone to war…

Oh, sure, there were hundreds of smaller powers working in earnest to kill Erick, but...

King Killtree was probably the most die hard warmonger among them; the man had truly wanted to kill ‘The Dark Wizard’ and rip apart Candlepoint, and all of that. Apparently, the king of Killtree had been embarrassed that Erick had cleared out the ballooning spider horde last year, and that had snowballed into people taking pot shots at him, both in the propaganda plays of the city squares and in the form of assassination attempts, so, in order to ‘regain his honor’, Killtree had needed to take a hard-line stance against the Wizard. This then snowballed further and further. King Killtree’s reasons for war were as simple as a man who had to double down and then double down, again and again, or else he would be swallowed by his own nobility.

King Charme, like Queen Pearl, had gone to war because he saw the opportunity to kill all of the other royals and claim supremacy of the Cities. The Cities had been going to war for exactly these sorts of reasons, over and over and over again, since hundreds of years ago, but only when large events came along did the royals actually go to war, and here now, with Erick, was a big reason to break out the big war. If any of Charme’s various assassination attempts against the other royals would have panned out, then he would have sued for peace, but then Erick proved himself as completely unwilling to accept the kind of peace that the royals would have accepted, and so, at the very end of the war, Charme had planted some explosive, soul-killing disease magic in King Killtree and King North Curio Sook. He likely planted the same Disease Magic in the other royals, but those other royals had managed to purge that magic, or something. Solving every part of this particular war would be the work of Knowledge Mages for the next few years.

King North Curio Sook had gone to war in order to inflict as much damage on South Curio as he could. According to the nobility of the North, Sook and other members of the Crushing Depth’s style had had plans to roll the ocean up and over South Curio’s harbors, crushing South Curio. But when Erick and Kromolok and all of Erick’s allies had ended that first polite battle with a decisive win, and then began the actual war, Sook had abandoned those plans against South Curio. No one was really sure what part North Curio played in the greater reasons for the war, but perhaps they were simply swept up in the whole thing, without any real control over what happened once the ball started rolling. And yet they still had control, and they still chose to go to war.

South Curio was in a boat very similar to North Curio, with a few major changes.

King South Curio Xaro had recovered fast during the change-up from polite war to real war, for when Erick had taken out the onlookers at that polite battle he had also taken out many of the people who were guiding South Curio to real war. South Curio had been an absolute political mess, apparently, and the only reason they had gone to war was because anti-Wizard sentiment was popular in the Cities, and much of the nobility was using that propaganda to control their people and distract them from real problems in their own part of the world. And so, South Curio’s nobility had been fully mobilized by promises of power from various organizations, like the Church of Original War, and refugee children from Terror Peaks, and the Book Burners.

Erick suspected that the Dragon Stalkers were also involved in South Curio (and all the other Cities) somehow, but they had never actually shown themselves during the war, so maybe they had escaped or pulled their support once the war got up and running in earnest. Whatever had happened in South Curio was a combination of land-grabbing maneuvers (as the cities usually tried to do to each other) and deep plots that would likely take years to untangle. Whatever had happened to the Dragon Stalkers in the war was currently being worked out between Kirginatharp and the Dragon Stalkers at Oceanside, too, and Erick wasn’t privy to that talk quite yet.

And then there was the final Sovereign City, Pearl, led by a Queen who was somehow still in charge after the war, who had entered into the war with the express purpose of uniting the Cities behind a single power; her own. Queen Pearl had therefore ‘won’, sort of.

Jane didn’t know how to feel about all that.

Her father had mixed opinions, too.

But ignoring the fallout of the war, and the reasons for the war for a minute...

Jane had a lot of mixed opinions about the use of Soul Magic to solve a war. [Reincarnation]ing and Empathying all of the nobles of a society in order to turn them into better people was an idea that her father had toyed with a few times, but Jane had never thought that he would have actually gone through with it. Murder was cleaner, ethically, for Jane.... People had been murdering others for a long time in order to solve problems. Once a person was gone, they could no longer directly influence events. This was slightly less true here on Veird, where some specific people could turn into angels, or demons, or undead, and reclaim their influence…

So perhaps murder wasn’t the best solution to war? Well, the humans and incani had been fighting each other for a long time, and they had been using soul-twisting powers to make sure their enemies stayed down once they were put down…

But maybe the Cities would be better off for this war? Maybe this Soul Magic had been a good thing?

All of this was very confusing for Jane in a way she was not used to being confused. Even Poi had been confused. The two of them had spoken for a little bit on all of that, but they’d likely have more talks on that later.

Once, months and months ago, back in the land of Songli when Erick, Jane, Teressa, and Poi were all walking to Eralis and pretending to be different people, they had been attacked by bandits; ransomers who would capture people and then try to sell them back to whoever wanted them. Those people had been face stealers with mana drain collars on them, and they had tried to capture ‘Ezekiel’, ‘Julia’, ‘Tiffany’, and ‘Paul’. Those bandits had lost, and Jane and her family had won, and afterward…

Jane didn’t remember it all so well, but Poi certainly had, and he had even added in more information for Jane that Jane had never known until then. His experience of that event had been slightly different, after all.

- -

Erick said, “Silverite said that soul magic is a slippery slope. Best not to fall down that path this early. Let the gods judge them.”

“No,” Jane said.

Erick startled, and looked to his daughter.

Jane stared at her father, then at everyone else. “You’re all overthinking this. The options are to kill them, or to make them better people. There’s no reason to think that changing who they are is a bad thing.” Jane stared at her father, saying, “Do it, and don’t look back. Or, if you need to have a line you won’t cross, then only do this to those people who personally try to murder you, which every one of these people tried and failed to do.” She stressed to her father, to Poi, to Teressa, and, it seemed, to the very mana itself, “This is not a dark moment; don’t make it one. This is righting a small part of the world into something better.”

Poi cut in, “The problem is not here. The problem is in escalation. When does the solution not become soul-control, once soul-control is on the menu? It’s the same problem of [Mind Control]. When does the evil action that’s used for good become just another evil action?”

Teressa sighed, unhappy that Poi was making decisions for the group, but she said nothing; she had already said it all.

Jane said, “I already said when: when they come after us directly and they could obviously use some empathy. Besides! We’ll never see these people again, either way, but if they’re Blessed, then they might do some good after doing all the bad they’ve done. Do you see those collars? You don’t even need to tell me that they’ve done wrong! I can see it already.”

“You have this concept of Free Will.” Poi said, “You understand the need for this. Why is this a hard concept for you?”

Jane said, “Because we had jails to lock up the bad guys. Not everyone should be free, but since there’s no jails here, except for jails of the mind, then we should use these ‘jails of the mind’ against those who deserve such treatment.”

Poi went dead silent, trying not to give away anything, for he had no idea how to tell Jane everything that was wrong with what she had just said, or how the problem was much more nuanced than Jane’s imprecise language had allowed for.

Jails of Mind Control had been tried before, and though it worked, it was also horrible and led to the destruction of the Mind Mages via a wave of political opposition, and also faltered control causing criminals to rise up against them all. The Mind Mages almost all died because of that.

But by contrast, soul control did work. It worked very, very well, for all Forgotten Campaigns were partially soul-control campaigns. And yet, Poi knew he should not say as much, for while soul control and mind control were different, and one worked while the other did not…

That was not a conversation he was willing to have. Both options were horrible.

Teressa looked on, deciding not to be a part of the conversation anymore.

A minute passed.

Erick said, “I’ve decided.”

Poi looked to Erick, and was thankful that Erick had decided on the only way to make any of this ethical at all.

Teressa simply crossed her arms.

Jane asked, “What are we doing?”

“In what is likely stupid, but the only way to be sure: I’m giving them a choice.”

- -

Those bandits had chosen death.

And Jane’s thoughts on Soul Magic and death had changed a lot. Poi had experienced a similar shift.

And so, today’s conversation with Poi had gone a lot differently.

- -

‘So Mind Control is terrible because it makes people go crazy, but Soul Control works?’ Jane sent, still disbelieving all of that.

‘It’s rather more nuanced than that, but according to what I’ve been studying of soul control, and of what your father has shared with me, his Empathying works perhaps the best way that Soul Control can possibly work; just a small, cascading effect that points a person in a general direction. No real ‘control’. No real mutilation. A simple, true Blessing that allows people to connect better to others. I haven’t actually been allowed on the field of battle, though, so everything I have heard about it has been through daily communications with your father, and through the Mind Mages.’

‘You’re a lot more open about this stuff than you used to be, Poi. It’s weird.’

‘We’re in weird territory, Jane, and you need to know ‘this stuff’ as much as I need to know this stuff. Everything is changing, and it’ll be an age before anything settles down.’

‘I still can’t believe that dad is shacking up with Quilatalap, the Archlich of Necromancy Itself.’ Jane, exasperated, added, ‘And now he’s the king of a million-plus people! Holy fuck, Poi. Gods… And all that Blessing… I think… I think killing is cleaner, even with all the ways that people don’t actually die when they are killed.’

‘I’m more comfortable with keeping people alive and changing them through Soul Magic for exactly that reason; people don’t always die when they are killed. Changing the soul is the only way to be sure that a killing hasn’t delayed the problem for another day— But this is a conversation I should not have with you; there is propriety to consider.’

Jane almost laughed. ‘At least you’re actually telling what’s really happening at home, Poi; Dad sugar-coats everything.’

‘Yes; this is why I try to keep you in the loop, but we have passed that specific point right now.’

- -

And now, Jane sat there, thinking.

It didn’t take her long to come to her own personal conclusion; that killing all the worst nobles would have been cleaner. By miring himself in Soul Magics, her father had… mired himself in Soul Magics. It just wasn’t clean. Jane couldn’t really articulate herself very well, to Poi, to her father, or even to herself.

But killing was cleaner. Death was still a very large barrier for a soul to overcome. Most could not. Most people who became angels or demons were not the same people they were in life, at all.

And so, destruction was better than uncertain change, for allowing those who have deeply wronged others to retain power over those people who they had wronged—

That was it.

Jane was mad that Queen Pearl had ‘won’.

No matter what else her father had done, Erick should not have allowed Crissi Benev back into power. No way, no how. The Sovereign Cities needed the head of the snake on a pike, and it needed to be Crissi’s…

And yet.

Perhaps that would happen? Eventually? Erick had put Crissi back into power, but Crissi still had enemies the world over, and especially over in the incani/demonic Wasteland Kingdoms. Crissi was very much angel-aligned, after all, and to hear her father talk of the aftermath of the war was to hear a litany of assassination attempts against the self-named ‘Blessed Nobility’.

… That name ‘Blessed Nobility’ irked Jane, too, and by a lot.

But all of that was outside of Jane’s influence, or capability to influence. She didn’t want to be involved in the politics of House Benevolence at all. She wanted to run missions; boardrooms and meetings and actual decisions were not what she cared for in life. So she shook her head and dispelled her concerns over the politics of it all. Daylight was figuratively burning, or at least it was burning about a thousand kilometers up, at the Surface.

Jane and her team were still in the Underworld. They had spent the last week doing ‘side quests’, walking down the Main Roads of the Underworld between semi-major settlements far below the Crystal Forest, circling this area called the Slanted Roads but not actually going there, burning time because all of them had agreed that Jane was probably a target of the Sovereign Cities. It pissed Jane off that she ‘needed to be protected’, but she saw the value in not giving her father a headache by trying to join his war.

And so, they wandered, solving problems.

Ages and ages ago those major settlements had been much closer together, and nearer to where the Geode Kendrithyst used to be, but now those major settlements were scattered to the depths. A thousand years after Kendrithyst raised to the Surface, those settlements were also more like cities themselves.

They were currently in a city called Downhere, which was close to a major Upways that eventually led to the Hole in the desert north of Spur. As Jane got up off her chair and went into the hallway of their rented suite, she glanced out the picture window of the rental, and saw Downhere in all its glory.

Much like all the cities of the Underworld, Downhere needed extensive protections against the threats down here, and it needed certain architecture in order to accomplish those protections. The entire city of Downhere looked almost like a normal city at first glance. Streets, buildings, markets and towers of various sizes. But this was only the bottomside of ‘The Rock’. Gravity was rather subjective when it came to the Underworld, for when you got a big enough rock, that rock floated and every surface of that rock was ‘down’, Downhere was actually a slate rock with a topside and a bottomside, both filled with streets and buildings, and the whole thing floated. Downhere was almost like Enduring Forge, with the whole thing floating in the middle of a massive, kilometers-wide cavern, air-gapped from the rest of the Underworld. There were no chains keeping this place centered in the cavern, but there were a lot of continually-cast magics that locked it in place, and ensured that gravity worked how it was ‘supposed to work’.

A lot of people in Downhere were very excited for the [Renew]-based Node magic that Jane’s father had created recently at House Benevolence, for it would solve a lot of maintenance issues, but Jane nor any other member of their team had been able to actually connect with the rulers of Downhere in order to make that happen. Not when there was a war going on with House Benevolence and the Sovereign Cities.

But eventually Downhere would get those sorts of Node magics, Jane was sure, and then they could probably fix up this city properly, and actually expand the borders, or something. Of course, that could be a problem, for if they stopped teaching the newer generations how to cast magic properly, then Downhere could face a collapse-situation eventually, once all the older generation died out and the magics lapsed… or something.

Jane muttered to herself, “But maybe that won’t happen...” and then she turned the corner, and saw Ravan, the Mind Mage who formed the communications-hub of this party. Jane said, “You heard the conversation; Looks like we’re good to go home! I’m ready when you are.”

Ravan was a silverscale dragonkin with scales more the color of smoke. She nodded, then got up off her chair, new tendrils of thought spilling away from her. “Then we shall begin the journey to the Surface as soon as everyone is back. It is a shame we never found your sword, and that you failed to gain a Domain, but I am glad for all the good we have done otherwise.”

Jane shrugged. “I’m close. I’ll figure it out later.”

“These things take time; not simply familiarity with magic. It would be a miracle for you to understand your Domain before you were 35, but it would have been nice.”

Jane smiled softly. “Yeah. It would have been.”

After a nod, the middle-aged dragonkin woman asked, “Do you wish to show before the Feast, to take part in it? Or afterward? Because if afterward, we could pass through the Slanted Roads and take care of a good ten undead infestations we heard about before they become truly impassable.”

Jane’s fragile smile faltered. “We wouldn’t have gotten into nearly as many side quests without you around, and so I am very grateful for your presence. It’s been a joy, Ravan, but it’s time to get back home… Before the Feast.”

“Yes; There is no telling what might happen this year.” Ravan added, “But we could always go out on more journeys afterward. There’s always more people that need saving.”

Jane’s smile returned in full force. “You’re not tired of this? Of roaming everywhere?”

“If I didn’t like this sort of life I wouldn’t have signed up for it, and it’s a rare thing indeed to be able to journey with people who can get the job done without complaint and with minimal danger. Though I do wonder if we have too many heavy hitters on our team. Usually, splitting up all this power is better so that more jobs can be done at the same time.” Ravan said, “If I have one real complaint about this team, it is that we are too strong physically; we don’t have an archmage with us, and none of us are really learning anything new in that magical direction either. All the knowledge we do have could be better shared with rookie adventurers.”

Jane joked, “Hizogard and Danaro are certainly learning a lot from each other.”

“Bah!” Ravan tried not to smirk, but Jane had gotten her good. “Those two are only learning carnal matters; nothing important at all!”

The front door to the rooms opened and Sitnakov walked in, joining the conversation like he had been here the whole time, saying, “We could still hit the Slanted Roads without losing too much time, and going up against against soul magic monsters is about the only thing we haven’t done yet.”

Jane looked up the large black orcol wrought, having almost asked him where he was to be able to listen in like that, but she had long ago learned that Sitnakov’s mana sensing range was at least 200 meters. He could have been all the way on the topside of Downhere and still listened in. “I’m more than willing to tackle the Slanted Roads, but do want to be there for the Feast.”

Sitnakov’s face held concern. “You should not ask to be involved in that, Jane.”

“… Maybe not for the 3 days at midnight, but for everything else, yes.”

Sitnakov frowned. “Gods above— Well I’m not going to try and change your mind, but I’m not going to the Feast at all, so if we’re headed back before then, then I’m going to pass through to Stratagold and prepare for possible war on the homefront. We might even ask for your father to close all the Gates before the night falls.”

Ravan stood straighter. “You’re not going to be at Candlepoint for the Feast, Prince Sitnakov?”

“No. If my duty here is ended, then duty drags me onward. Perhaps we can reconnect after the Triumph of Light provided nothing serious happens between now and then, but I must prepare for the waves of monsters that usually happen after the Feast.”

“But that didn’t happen this year?” Jane asked. “It was part of the treaties.”

“The unsaid, unsigned, unknowable treaties that we only rely on the Dark not to mess with? Those ones?” Sitnakov asked, sarcastically. And then he added, “The Dark is going to ask something strange of your father at this Feast and your father might not agree, or maybe he’ll talk the Dark down to some lesser show. Who knows! I try not to even guess anymore. Either way, the world might change again, and we must be ready.”

Ravan was stoic in the face of sudden facts just laid out there.

Jane felt a little lost as she said, “Well… those are... a lot of good points.”

Ravan asked, “Do we have time to kill the largest of the undead at the Slanted Roads? I would have us attempt that, if we can. A full purge is likely out of the question, but clearing the main blockade might be possible.”

Sitnakov shrugged. “Send out a call to Hizogard, Danaro, and Lyrical. Get them here fast enough and we might have time, though we will need to go in blazing quick, and with soul monsters that could be bad. That whole place is constantly falling apart, too, so we might run into a real blockade and need to find another path.”

Ravan began contacting the others, saying, “If it is too dense of a problem we can clear a path and escape through the opening, like the caravaneers. That will be good enough.”

- - - -

Jane stood to the side of their [Sneaky Traveling Platform], as Danaro guided the spell through the right-of-center part of the tunnel, deep in the dark. A bunch of Danaro’s spells had fun little names like that, and Jane appreciated that about the man; that, and his incredibly powerful healing and Blood Magic. Ravan had complained about their team not having a real archmage, but Danaro had a ton of utility, and that was useful enough.

This version of Danaro’s Platform spell was a translucent Force spell that surrounded the Platform, providing active camouflage and various anti-Sight magics, as well as a speedy vehicle with which to travel the open parts of the Underworld. The inside of the sphere was vaguely illuminated, but the outside world was completely dark in a lot of places, so the team sometimes ran into unexpected obstructions and the Platform popped, sending everyone tumbling.

This was not a safe way to travel the dark. But it was fast! And they could recover if they ran into something, while also being able to talk as much as they wanted to this way. Currently, that talking was a bit of an argument.

Danaro, who was incani, and who had also been shadeling for a brief time, said, “Look, Hizogard. I am not saying that I don’t think the King’s response to the war was unfounded, but I am saying that he should have just killed them all and been done with it. Like Jane said; murder is cleaner. Our King could keep killing as necessary until the Cities changed, and that would have been good enough.”

Jane frowned a little. “Maybe I shouldn’t have even brought it up.”

Hizogard, the former half-dragon, now human, from Ar’Cosmos, exclaimed, “But the Cities never change! That’s what I’m saying. They’ve been killed a thousand times over and they never grow back right. The Cities are not some tree that could be pruned into something better. They are Propagating Decay; an anomaly of all that is wrong with the world. Now I hate soul mutilation as much as the next man, but if anyone deserved it the Cities certainly did. They needed this sort of change. Maybe they might actually change this time.”

Sitnakov was staying out of the conversation, and Jane could guess why. Before today, Jane would have guessed that Sitnakov was staying out of it because he didn’t like arguing; he never joined in these spirited discussions unless it was ‘how to best kill a monster’. But now, Jane knew he stayed out of this topic —which was pretty close to ‘how to best kill a kingdom’— because Sitnakov had participated in Forgotten Campaigns before, and he knew that Soul Magic worked to change people a lot better than anything else available. He had even participated in Forgotten Campaigns against Ar’Cosmos.

Which had added a whole new layer to this conversation that Jane had not been fully aware of until after the conversation started. Jane was certainly fully aware of that layer now, though.

Danaro said, “Yes. And the Cities might change to be true angel lovers. That’s the danger with all these humans everywhere.”

And that right there was yet another trap-filled aspect to this conversation that Jane had unintentionally triggered.

Their team had been getting along so well, but now…

A lot of old hates were surfacing.

And Jane was so very, very sorry that she raised this topic at all.

Hizogard gave Danaro a Look, saying, “That better have not been a jab at me.”

“Bah! It wasn’t a jab and you know it,” Danaro said, returning Hizogard’s Look.

Lyrical, their former half-dragon, now orcol, from Ar’Cosmos, said, “I’m sure our King knows what he’s doing, and Hizogard is right; the Cities needed a major shakeup to change. I also do not appreciate the massive use of Soul Magic, but… I’m not sure exactly how bad it was back before Hizogard went into [Stasis], but the Cities of today are mudholes that spawn murderers and thieves all the time.”

In a heavily sarcastic but-not-sarcastic-at-all sort of way, Hizogard said, “The only thing I’ll miss about that place is that I won’t be able to walk into a city square, know that I’ll get mugged and attempted-murdered, and be fully within my rights to kill a fucker that needs killing.”

Jane’s eyes went wide, and she was not the only one.

Danaro gasped. “Hizogard!”

“What!” the man said. “Nothing wrong with taking out the trash.”

Lyrical said, “If there was one thing the Cities were good for, it was knowing that killing any of the nobility there was doing the world a service. Though I tried not to kill the muggers. They’re just products of their culture, Hizogard.”

“Bah! Products of their culture my ass.” Hizogard said, “If all the bad people make a culture that makes more bad people, then the whole thing needs to be killed so that others can bring about something better.”

“Tactical killing is better,” Lyrical said.

Everyone looked at Lyrical and Hizogard.

In a semi-deadly sort of way, Sitnakov asked, “Did you kill commoners for the fun of it? Or did you have a plan?”

Hizogard glared at the big black man. “I was entrusted with a duty to root out a branch of the Dragon Stalkers and I went to one of their known bars and pretended to be a dragon in bad disguise. It worked very, very well, and every single person I murdered fully deserved it.”

“… Ah,” Sitnakov said, then he pulled back out of the conversation.

Danaro looked a little chastised. “The Stalkers are… hmm.” He went silent.

Lyrical spoke up, “I did two Speaking tours in Killtree, pretending to be a human and to find out who was targeting the nests of some dragons of House Carnage. It was some people from the Adventurer’s Guild who thought that the gem-like eggs of a freshly laid nest were real gems, so they’d been thieving them. I executed those people. Couldn’t do that more than twice though, not with my half-dragonness progressing every time I was outside Ar’Cosmos.”

Hizogard nodded. “That’s how mine progressed, too.”

Jane connected a few dots. Besides the stark reminder that every single person in this party had done horrible things before… Lyrical, the orcol (previously half-dragon), and Hizogard, the human (also previously a half-dragon)…

Jane asked, “You both took Familiar Forms from people you killed?”

“They were already dead.” “Yes, and I’d do it again.”

Jane had some complicated thoughts on that. Murder in the name of securing your state was one thing, but taking someone’s Familiar Form was face stealing, and that was crossing a line. It seemed that Sitnakov had a few odd feelings of his own, according to his mess of facial features and body language; he was mostly opaque to Jane, though. Danaro wore his disgust as concern, though.

Ravan was the only one to not participate in this discussion, because she knew what she was about, and she wanted nothing to do with anything that was not helping other people…

Which made Jane ask, “Do you have an opinion, Ravan?”

“I do,” Ravan said, uncharacteristically strongly. As everyone turned to her with mild surprise, Ravan said, “I feel you should all stop talking about shit that does not matter. We’ve been very good about staying away from these topics while we’ve been down here, and we should return to that arrangement.

“We’re in a new world, and this new world is being made by a Wizard Dragon King who is allied with all the gods and all the powers of this world, including the Darkness. We are in a new age. Old hates, old terrors, and old scars do not need to be reopened. What needs to happen is healing, and since everyone here already knows another major truth besides Danaro, I’m going to just tell him that Soul Magic is what makes this world work at all. Make of that what you will, Danaro. Perhaps with enough mulling over it you will eventually come to the right— Ah. You got it. Yes.”

Danaro, wide eyed, looked to Sitnakov, saying, “Oh. Soul control and Forgotten Campaigns.”

Wait? Did he not know about that? The only one? Well… Okay then.

It seemed everyone was suddenly on the same page, then, and everyone was looking at Sitnakov, for his response.

Sitnakov sighed. “We do what we must for the integrity of this world, and yes, Soul Control magics have been used before, and extensively. Erick’s particular brand of magic is rather subtle, and therefore probably fine. We’re keeping an eye on it, though.”

Danaro shut his mouth, falling deep in thought as he locked his eyes forward, gazing into the dark of the Underworld as he flew the Platform forward. Hizogard smirked, but he did not revel in that ‘win’, because he was from Ar’Cosmos, and this team with a wrought in it was new for him, and in that moment, he was likely thinking about all his old hates of everything not-Ar’Cosmos. Probably. Jane wasn’t sure; she wasn’t empathic like her father. Lyrical was having a complicated set of emotions, too… Probably—

Lyrical brightened in a completely false-hope sort of way, holding up her strummer strapped to her left hand, asking, “Anyone want to hear a flying song?” She began to flick her fingers on the strummer, eliciting music from the air. “Ohh~ There once was a Platform flying~ flying high~ flying~ flying high~…”

Ah.

So back to ignoring the dragon in the room, Jane supposed.

She was sorry she ever brought up the subject of the Cities War.

… Even Jane had to admit that Lyrical’s song was eventually a catchy little tune. Eventually, her quiet singing did a lot to disperse the tension of the argument, and when everyone else started joining in on the singing, it got actually-enjoyable.

After that first song, but before the next one, Jane said, “I really have appreciated your songs, Lyrical. But I think I like the story ballads better than the marching songs.”

Lyrical smiled brightly, strumming her strummer with a rapid, hard flick, accentuating her words,

“Have you heard the story of the Ribbonriver Runner? It’s a tale best-told with a tiny travel strummer! And look, oh~ here now, on my hand! It's one of those best hummers! Now listen lass to this tale told true. It starts at the end of summer…”

- - - -

Lyrical’s stories never ceased to amaze Jane. The woman could sing and dance and play her strummer all the while using magic to put images into the air about whatever story she was spinning. But even discounting all that, her stories always took exactly as much time as they needed to take. As Lyrical’s song of the Ribbonriver Runner ended, she had long enough to add a minor epilogue about how the Runner’s kid went out to the Ribbonriver just like his father, before the story ended, and their own team was a minute away from the Slanted Roads.

They had not met a single monster on the way here, which was pretty damned strange, but eminently possible.

Jane and the whole team watched as the Main Road leading away from Downhere ended, like a tunnel of darkness giving way to an endless void. Donaro slowed their Platform and they glided forward to the lip of the Main Road. They stopped.

All the space beyond was a grand cavern, larger than Ar’Kendrithyst, by far.

The Slanted Roads was a catastrophe zone of continental-sized slate shelves, all broken and scattered atop each other, with many of them laying at the bottom of the cavern, so far, far below, and many of them at the top, so far, far, above. A few haphazard angles of stone were near-vertical inside the cavern, lodged between various broken bits of world here and there, but the space was simply too deep, and vaguely too dark, to see much more than that; the atmosphere, and the Elemental Gloom and Shadow, got in the way.

The distance a person could see through clear air was rather hard to judge accurately back on Earth, with sight lines often less than 50 miles deep, but here on Veird the sight lines could go on for a thousand kilometers or more. The Slanted Roads was one of those spaces on a good day, though it was a good day, Jane could still not see the other side.

Jane marveled. “Holy shit. I didn’t think it would look… So big.”

Hizogard scrunched his eyebrows a bit; he wasn’t impressed. “There’s a reason we didn’t come here before now, right? I mean. We’re right below Ar’Kendrithyst, right?”

Sitnakov smiled as he asked, “Because it’s a trash heap half the size of Glaquin?”

“I’m rather sure I didn’t come through here; I think I would have remembered it if I had,” Jane said. “But maybe we should have checked this place anyway? Gods. This is worse than I had imagined.”

The Main Roads wound all around the Underworld like ten thousand rings of empty cavern space, spaced rather evenly within the globe, save for where Geodes and plumbing diverted those rings. The Side Roads connected the Main Roads together, like staircases, but sometimes more natural up-down caverns. This space that would become the Slanted Roads were supposed to be a living space for the refugees of the Old Cosmology, with the Geode Kendrithyst in the center of this space, but then Melemizargo broke the Underworld. But Ar’Kendrithyst was only about 150 kilometers across.

So there was a discrepancy.

Sitnakov spoke from personal experience, “These here Slanted Roads exist both because Melemizargo captured Kendrithyst and ripped it up from the Underworld, all the way to the Surface, and due to the year-long war that happened before that fateful date, about 900 years ago. Millions died. It was a nightmare.”

Silence.

Jane asked, “About how deep are we?”

“About 800 kilometers below?” Sitnakov guessed. “We’re a bit below where Kendrithyst used to be, I think.”

“I guess monsters are the problem for why no one builds down here,” Jane said, “But this looks like good space? Someone should be using it?”

Sitnako shrugged.

“There’s a lot of good space down here,” Hizogard said, looking up to Sitnakov, trying to build a bridge of cooperation as he added, “But I’m guessing this one is all filled with some of the worst sorts of monsters in the Underworld in a constantly shifting biome that has nothing that anyone wants at all?”

Sitnakov shrugged.

“The biome here rarely shifts; it could be built upon. But the problem is monsters, yes.” Ravan said, “Even still, this is the fastest multi-level trade route through these lands. The Surface areas are all crunched down together, but down here the Slanted Roads are about a thousand kilometer wide, 1,500 kilometer deep hole. If you can navigate this land then you can cut off a lot of travel time. Otherwise you have to go around, and that can add multiple days and even weeks to a normal caravan trip.”

Sitnakov said, “Everything that this area used to be has been rerouted. The waterways, the airways, the manaways. Everything. There’s many safer ways to trade through the Underworld than through this disaster zone.” He smiled. “And subsequently, because only the brave or foolish or strapped for time come through here, this disaster zone is consistently one of the more dangerous places in the Underworld.”

Danaro scoffed. “You say that about everywhere we go.”

Sitnakov nodded. “Most places down here are equivalently dangerous, but in different ways.” He pointed toward one of the larger lights on the broken continental shelves ahead. “That’s our target, yeah Ravan?”

“Correct,” Ravan said, “That largest light in the center of the Slanted Roads marks the largest ephemewights congregation of this land, but every single one of those larger lights marks another congregation. We could spend a week here, killing them all, and make this land much, much safer for all possible travelers. But we can’t; we’re on a schedule. Therefore, we will attempt to clear the main problem and then take a rather straight path up toward the Main Road that leads to the Side Road that leads to the Hole. People come by and clear the main congregation all the time but it comes back rather fast all the time, too, and those who fail to clear it will end up a member of the chorus, constantly wailing their final death throes into the Slanted Roads alongside all the rest who have died down here in ages past.”

Danaro waved Ravan off, saying, “Whatever it is, I am sure our meat shields here will kill it good and well. So let’s get ready?”

“Descend to Main Road floor,” Ravan said, “Standard killing formation. It’ll be about an hour flight toward the center. Be prepared to lose magical capabilities when engaging the ephemewights, but be prepared for all the other normal monsters that live in the gloom down here to attack us long before we get to the actual threat. Those ephemewights require proper [Reflection]s in order to survive their attacks and to withstand their choral [Dispel]s. Anything you wish to add, Prince Sitnakov?”

As the Platform settled down onto the lip of the Main Road below, Sitnakov smashed his adamantium fists together, happily saying, “Nope! That’s it! Reflections if you got ‘em! Be prepared to lose external magics anyway— Oh! And melee does nothing, they learn from the deaths of their neighbors, and they swarm if they sense weakness. We might need to retreat after fifteen minutes because they might become immune to everything we can do. The order in which we’ll likely become useless is Hizogard first, for Force Swords are one magic and they’re probably already immune to Force due to that being a rather common magic.”

“I’ll stay back on defense,” Hizogard said.

Sitnakov nodded, continuing, “Lyrical will become useless next, due to Thunder being mostly physical anyway.”

“Buffing you and Jane then,” Lyrical said.

Sitnakov nodded. “And then I’ll lose effectiveness, and then Jane. Jane will likely be able to outlast us all with her Prismatic style.”

Everyone but Ravan looked at Sitnakov. Ravan kept her eyes on the vast, twinkling space ahead.

“Really?” Jane asked, “Even with you all having Domains?”

Sitnakov smiled. “Domains are what will allow Hizogard and Lyrical and I to fight this battle at all, because the ephemewights will simply become immune to our normal damages after we kill a single one, and they’ll be striking back with cooperative cast anti-magics and thunder-based attacks the whole time we engage— Oh. Lyrical can countersong.”

Lyrical looked unsure. “I can certainly do some countersongs. But what do you mean anti-magics? Like a Void Song?”

“… Somewhat like that,” Sitnakov said, after thinking for a moment. “Pretty sure it’s a Shadow Song.”

Lyrical remained unsure. “I suggest we engage as little as we can, to begin.”

Agreements all around.

Ravan said, “Ignore the light in the center. It’s a trap. The real center of each swarm is always inside the last surviving member of a congregation, and that monster will likely flee if the swarm is destroyed enough. That monster will attempt to join another swarm. We likely will not be able to find nor kill it before that happens. The goal is to kill the main congregation as much as we can, and force it to break apart. Doing this much will save many lives, and it will have to be enough.”

Sitnakov lifted into the air on tidings of black wind, saying, “So we work our way in from the outside, pull back, and repeat ten times!” He shrugged. “But we’ll likely have to move on. These things are dangerous the larger they get, and that central one is maximum size.”

Ravan stepped into the air upon near-invisible [Telekinesis], her full body armor covering her and her very large backpack completely. She linked the group together, sending, ‘Clear as much as we can in ten minutes. Pull back. Go again. And then we leave; straight past and up to the north-northwest at a 2:15 am angle.’

Everyone was now wearing their full armor, or otherwise. Danaro and Ravan, being back-line support, both had very large backpacks incorporated into their [Conjure Armor], while Sitnakov and Hizogard were completely unencumbered. Lyrical had a medium-sized backpack.

Jane was her usual blue-tarantula form. It felt wonderful to shed her human form and finally be bigger than every single other person in her team. She was ten meters wide and four meters tall, and also floating on shadows. The only thing that made her obviously-not-a-monster was a specialty summoned armor that covered her thorax and brightly proclaimed in big white letters on top and bottom, ‘I’M A PERSON, TOO!’.

It would have been funny, but there had been incidents.

And now was not a time to hold back, so Jane was a spider. As she took to the air, flying behind her team, Jane was both sad that they were so close to the end of their adventure, and hopeful that they could get back to this some other time. But a part of Ravan’s earlier words had stuck with Jane; this was an overpowered team, and the world would be better off if every single person here split off into a new team, to guide the young into higher echelons of power.

The 400 kilometer flight over to the ephemewights would take a short while, so Jane had some time to think about what came next. Did she want to reform this overpowered team, after the Feast? Provided the Feast went well and there wasn’t some sort of world-ending—

A falseDark opened its maw in the air to the left, like an abyssal anglerfish with a million gently-glowing white teeth spearing up and down from a 200 meter wide maw that led straight into a gloomy death. A thousand tendrils of gloom lanced out from that deep pit of a mouth, into the sky, mostly trying to capture and eat Jane since she was the biggest target of the group.

The team instantly reconfigured their flying formation. Jane went Prismatic. Sitnakov went Full Storm. Hizogard billowed with cutting edges, slicing apart every tendril that went for himself, Lyrical, Danaro, and Ravan. Lyrical waited, poised to face a secondary threat if it should show, or to back up any of the others. Danaro waited, poised to heal if needed, but it shouldn’t be needed. Ravan coordinated.

The falseDark died mostly to Sitnakov, the gloom-based monster becoming a scattering of barely-there flesh that vanished into the otherwise clear air. Jane went after and cleaned up the second, smaller falseDark, lying in wait for the first one to finish.

The group resumed their flight toward the lights of the central, most major ephemewight congregation; the most visible and therefore most dangerous threat in the area. Things didn’t draw attention to themselves down here unless they could do so without being targeted by a thousand other threats.

A moment after the group resumed flight, Danaro sent, ‘It would be stupid to say that I’m almost not scared of those falseDarks anymore, so I will not say that.’

A few chuckles filled the probably-not-empty air.

- - - -

‘That is a lot of damned wights,’ Lyrical declared, floating alongside everyone else.

The land below was actually the land-to-the-left. A shelf of slate-like ‘flooring’, which was one of the ‘shells of Veird’ that the Main Roads followed, had been broken and left to lay on its side in these Slanted Roads. It wasn’t actually a ‘shell’. Like. Veird wasn’t built in shells. But the layers which the Main Roads sat upon, circling the globe, were sort of situated onto ‘shells’, in that the Main Roads sat upon those layers… in layers.

Anyway.

Jane was having trouble coming to terms with how large the infection of ephemewights was in front of her. So she reoriented her ‘down’ to face the ‘down’ that the fifty-kilometer-wide plate of stone was oriented on. And that helped. Flying sideways helped orient Jane’s thoughts better.

The rest of her team looked at Jane. Ravan began flying sideways, too, followed shortly by everyone else. When they got closer the gravity would switch to make this new angle seem more normal, but for now…

From almost horizon to horizon, the land below was awash in a hundred thousand lights that slowly rotated around a central beacon, like an image of the Milky Way Galaxy. Or maybe the Sombrero Galaxy. Either way, those were just the lights that Jane could see, and she knew that what was present was a lot more than what she was seeing. Once Jane got within actual range of the swarm for her [Eyes of Magic] to work properly she knew that swarm would come alive with ten times as many ephemewights.

That beacon was a good 25 kilometers away, and had to be a kilometer across itself. The edge of the swarm was 10 kilometers away. Each individual light looked like a humanoid or monster soul; a collection of arms and legs. Some were denser and brighter than others. Some were so large and airy they looked more like morning mist, than a monster.

‘It looks a lot bigger in person, too,’ Danaro added.

Hizogard smiled, sending, ‘That’s what he said—’

‘They already see us and are coming. Battle prep,’ Ravan took charge, ‘Ten minutes in, then we backtrack. Communication might cut, but I will work to reestablish. Keep your own eyes on everyone. Forward fly; meet the charge.’

The swarm was already flying their way, though they moved slow compared to Jane and her team.

Sitnakov dove forward, meeting the charge of the enemy and doing what he usually did, resulting in the complete annihilation of many, many monsters.

Jane was a shadow, striking out with her prismatic aura control, infusing her claws and some [Flying Striker]s with a basic elemental power. She was not using her [Greater Prismatic Body]. That power required 12-13 mana per second. Her [Greater Shadowalk], though, alongside her basic prismatic-flavored aura control, was only 2-4 mana per second. Jane’s Regen and Blood Mana was more than enough to make up for that constant drain. When paired with Danaro, who could actually heal Health Fatigue and Mana Exhaustion with his Blood Healing Domain, Jane was an endless storm of faint prismatic power, constantly whittling down the horde of ephemewights, without needing to care about endurance too much.

The ephemewights screamed in choral agony, waves of power filling the sky, washing across Jane and Sitnakov and all the rest of the team like an ocean trying to tear down a sandcastle.

Jane’s weapons vanished. She had expected this but was hoping that didn’t happen. Either way, her claws and all the rest of her continued to tear into the ephemewights, her prismatic Truth shifting her aura control without her input, flickering lines of fire and ice, and then light and magma and blood, across the ghostly forms of the ephemewight swarm.

With Jane’s eight eyes and her burgeoning mana sense she could see all of everything she needed to see. Her team was fine; Lyrical strummed a tune that shored up a defense for herself, Hizogard, Ravan, and Danaro, and the choral [Dispel] washed around them like a heavy, black mist. Sitnakov was about half a kilometer to Jane’s left, blending his way through the ephemewight congregation, blasting away all the monsters’ [Dispel] attempts against himself in the process.

Jane just let those choral disruptions wash across her reflective carapace; sure, her [Greater Shadowalk] faltered to an internal-only spell, and her aura fell out of her control, but all of that was temporary. When the wave of power passed, ebbing to something less than full strength, Jane forced her power against the constant undead song, and then once again began blending through the swarm. Jane met as much resistance against her power as she would running a sharp sword through a cheesecloth; barely any resistance at all—

‘Sitnakov is out,’ Ravan sent. ‘Pull out, Jane.’

Jane carved her way out of the swarm all around her, surprised to hear that Sitnakov was done already. It had only been two minutes, at the most.

The group pulled back and the ephemewights followed, but Ravan organized Jane to be between the team and the swarm, and Jane kept carving away at the uni-directional attack. After a good thousand kills, the whole swarm suddenly reacted, a massive pulse going out from the central beacon and illuminating the full, million-soul-strong swarm.

The entire swarm decided to give chase.

Ravan called for a larger retreat.

After retreating almost a hundred kilometers further away, the ephemewights finally flickered, their rage quieting. All but the largest, strongest ephemewights stopped their chase, falling back toward their rotating congregation. Jane easily took care of the large targets while Sitnakov and the rest of the team killed another 3 falseDarks that tried to take advantage of the ephemewight swarm’s attack against the team.

The team regrouped.

It was not a safe location, but they had power enough to stabilize here, in the middle of surprise-monster territory.

Ravan sent, ‘That matches what I heard of the swarm back in Downhere.’

‘Uh. So...’ Lyrical sent, ‘We almost died back there.’

Jane exclaimed, ‘What!’

‘You and Sitnakov could have gotten away, Jane.’ Lyrical added, ‘And we probably could have escaped through gravity diving once we were away from the swarm’s rock, but my countersong worked twice, and then it failed.’

‘A particularly strong [Dispel Song] from the swarm; yes,’ Ravan sent, ‘In my opinion we should simply mark this place down for an archmage-level purge, and even then such a purge would need to take place over days, or even a week, as they wait for the swarm to forget about the attacks used against them. We had to move on with the obsidian twisters and the umbral rivergrieves, so we’ll have to do that here, too. If we are agreed, then our party will go around the monsters and I will warn everyone else to stay away. We will likely draw the swarm as we pass by, since they are still watching us, but Jane can cover our escape, since her attacks are mostly unaffected by the swarm’s resistance-gaining power.’

A quick round of agreements went out.

Even Jane had agreed. She had not agreed to move on back when they were tangling with the umbral rivergrieves, because she wanted one for a Familiar Form to replace her own rivergrieve form, but that decision had almost cost Hizogard his life. Trying to push against the obsidian twisters had almost caused Lyrical’s death. There had been a lot of close calls like that down here, actually, and with Jane being the only one who could actually fight against these swarms, Ravan’s suggestion was prudent and wise.

But Jane had a suggestion, anyway. ‘If they follow us like that, perhaps we could taper them toward us —from a distance— and I can continue to slash and kill, and then you guys can support me for a while. I do not want to go into the center of the swarm again, but… Ah. That doesn’t float with you all, then?’

Sitnakov, Lyrical, Hizogard, and Danaro all looked unsure, though Sitnakov seemed like he might be willing to try.

But Ravan shook her head, sending, ‘As you have said sometimes Jane, ‘Discretion is the better part of valor’, and we shall be taking that advice.’

‘Fair enough.’

As the team raced around the swarm and Jane cut down the ephemewights who gave chase, Jane still felt her idea would have worked out just fine. But… She was part of a team. She was not a soloist. Not right now, anyway.

Jane’s thoughts returned to Ravan’s earlier comments about their team being overpowered.

Maybe they weren’t that overpowered at all.

They didn’t have an archmage, after all.

… Still awfully powerful, though. Each person on the team had a role, yes, but each person on this team could also be a team leader in their own right, raising up rookies to strength. Jane had even been a ‘Team Leader’ rank back in Spur’s army.

Hizogard had been an Elite of Ar’Cosmos, right alongside Lyrical. Danaro had grown into his power as a healer, for sure, so that was one powerful growth that had happened inside this team, but he was near the top of his game before this trip anyway. He had no real way to improve aside from simple battle experience. Ravan was a Mind Mage, so there wasn’t much more improvement that could be done there; Mind Mages were naturally strong in very specific ways, and to veer out of those ways was to lose power. And then there was Sitnakov. That guy could probably take on every single enemy they had faced, even the ones they had avoided, and come out strong on the other side. But he was holding back in every single combat. Why? Probably to let others grow strong at his side… Maybe.

Sitnakov obviously had limits, but Jane wasn’t sure if they had hit any of those limits, yet.

Jane still certainly had a long way to grow. She was the only one here without a Domain, and there were so many things still to learn about her prismatic aura.

Maybe she needed to go to Oceanside, or something? Get some real schooling from a master on the subject?

… Syllea was all about Mana Altering and prismatic spellwork, wasn’t she?

… It couldn’t hurt to ask, right?

Errr…

Or would that be weird.

Yes. That would be super weird, and also Jane would be leaning on her father’s power in order to make a connection like that. She was uncomfortable with that, and always had been.

Gods.

Jane’s father. The social worker who used to wave to muggers and try to make friends with gangsters, who almost got himself killed trying to help people in the bad parts of town…

Now a Wizard (or was he always?), a Dragon, a King, a Gatemaster, who had won a war against a foreign power with his own revolutionary soul magic (and a different war against others last year), with all those powerful allies, who were the gods, a minor flight of Benevolence dragons, and also the Inquisitors of Rozeta, and the Mind Mages. And he was dating the Archlich of Necromancy.

Jane still had no idea how to process all of that—

And oh yeah. He’s an archmage, too. Can’t forget that.

If their team had had someone half as good as Jane’s father, then they could have taken that ephemewight swarm, for sure. Too bad Kiri was all about the political life these days.

- - - -

Jane, as a human, stood upon Danaro’s Platform as they exited the Hole, flying onto the Surface, entering the Crystal Forest.

She was both the same woman she had been when she first went down into the Underworld with her team, and someone very different. She hadn’t gained much in the way of power, or Familiar Forms, or even anything as base as Experience. She did not even find her sword, which had been the main (stated) reason that their team was down in the Underworld, searching out the dark parts of this cultivated world…

But that right there: ‘This cultivated world’. Jane had gained a deep appreciation for that. The scope of Veird. The grandeur of it all. As Jane gazed across the rolling orange sands of the Crystal Forest, and at the depth of the Hole and the darkness below, and even at the bright blue sky above…

This world was amazing.

And it was so very broken.

Their whole team, aside from Sitnakov, was also staring out at the world, eyeing the brightness all around. They had been underground for a few months now, and they were all happy to be back above ground. Mostly. One person was eager to get back to the Underworld.

Sitnakov asked, “To Candlepoint, then? Danaro?”

Danaro breathed deep and kept his gaze on the deep, deep horizon, saying, “Give me a moment, Prince Sitnakov. I’m having a moment and I want this moment.”

Lyrical said, “It’s so much bigger than I remember.”

Hizogard chuckled, saying, “That’s what he said.”

Lyrical gave him a playful punch on the shoulder and Hizogard pretended to be hurt.

“We have more than enough time to take a slow trip to Candlepoint,” Ravan said, “But we’ll still have to [Teleport] to get there before sundown, so that Prince Sitnakov can take the Gate to Stratagold.”

“Oh yeah!” Hizogard laughed. “We can [Teleport] again!”

“Probably could have [Teleport]ed back when we were at the bottom of the Hole,” Sitnakov added, “But it was safer not to.”

“It’s all so connected, isn’t it?” Jane said, going in a completely different direction than the current conversation. “Like this Hole was actually an air vent before the destruction of Kendrithyst. The oceans have downspouts and upspouts everywhere, like the downspout at Archmage’s Rest and the upspout north of the Wastelands. The Main Roads are as much settlement zones as airways, and the Water Roads are the plumbing of Veird. Everything in this world is artificial, and yet, it always was, even before the Sundering. Wizards and others in the Old Cosmology made worlds, to ensure the survival of as many people as possible, and Veird is no different. But in this New Cosmology, Veird is a spaceship… Which I suppose is true of all planets with life on them, to a certain extent.”

Lyrical and Hizogard gave Jane a funny little look. Ravan nodded like this was normal information. Danaro eyed Jane a little, but said nothing.

… Maybe Jane had been a bit weird, she supposed.

Smiling softly, Sitnakov said, “If the Darkness doesn’t fight us on fixing it from now until your father’s [Gate]s open to new worlds, then maybe Veird can be what it should be again, instead of this cobbled mess of Slanted Roads and monsters breaking the infrastructure, and people searching for homes and finding only death.”

“How do you even go about fixing something like this?” Jane asked, happy that Sitnakov had picked up what she put down.

“With lots and lots of people working together.” Sitnakov shrugged, adding, “But that’s for other people to do. I kill monsters. But even that will come later! So how about we get to a bar and see about some drinks?”

Danaro perked up. “Yes! Let’s do that. We can say our goodbyes there.”

Jane stood up straight in surprise. But...

Right.

The team was dissolving.

Jane knew that already.

- - - -

The world resolved to sight again, but this time Jane jostled as the Platform bucked. She recovered, though, and so did everyone else.

“Whoop!” Danaro laughed a little. “We are on the Surface, aren’t we?”

Jane knew what was wrong, and so did everyone else; she had experienced it several times back when she was inside Ar’Kendrithyst, and even a few times with her father’s magic. She was slightly worried, but not all that worried, so she spoke quickly, “It’s either a [Teleport Lock] from a Shade or dad has put [Spatial Denial]s all across the area. Probably the second, and in preparation for the Feast.”

The trip from the Hole to the northern edge of Candlepoint was a trip of four-ish [Teleport]s in a southwestern direction, across endless sand-scattered lands. Danaro had said that he would be bringing the Platform into Candlepoint at the eastern gate, and he had even scouted the area ahead with a [Scry]. The ‘eastern gate’ was now a good distance away from where it used to be, but even so, the new location had people blipping in and out of it like normal. There shouldn’t have been a problem.

And yet, the Platform had blipped to here, to the edge of the Greater Candlepoint Area, where half the land was a mess of sparse greenery atop dirt and sand, and the rest was orange desert. Three walls of massive height separated the green spaces from the orange desert.

Sitnakov was calmly ready for battle, as he said, “We shouldn’t have hit a Lock.”

Ravan concentrated on a thought tendril as she spoke, “Jane’s second theory is correct. Our King has put up [Spatial Denials] across the land, only leaving specific travel lines open for [Teleport]s. We must go to ground and enter through one of the normal ways… Apparently this is rather new, and laid at the start of the war with the Cities.”

“Not simply for the Feast, then,” Jane said.

“There are layers upon layers of defenses and Spatial Denial mazes, but we should be able to get through.” Ravan turned to Jane. “Or I could seek permission from Mage Fulisade to ask Yggdrasil for a [Gate] on our behalf?”

Jane waved away that concern. “No no no. Let’s… fly forward. Uh. Warn them that we’re coming?”

Ravan nodded. “That is also acceptable, though we will be greeted by Enforcement’s stone guardians by choosing that option.”

“Then that is what will happen.” Jane said, “Please go forward, Danaro.”

“Slowly,” Ravan added. “Moving quickly like we did in the Underworld would be cause for concern.”

“Normal flight speed, then,” Danaro said, pushing the Platform to float forward. Soon, a slight tingle crossed Jane’s body, along with everyone else’s. Danaro shuddered. “I do not miss the feeling of a Lock.”

“At least in the Underworld it’s less noticeable,” Sitnakov said.

Lyrical said, “Spatial Magic doesn’t work in Ar’Cosmos, so we don’t need Locks, but the lack of Spatial Magic is more a matter of everyone knowing that if you try it, you might get bisected by a wall that you didn’t know was there. Not so much that it’s straight Denied.”

Jane would have spoken more on Denials, but she looked down and saw a fuzzed-out sort of magic that came together into a thin line of light. As the Platform floated forward, Jane saw more of those tendrils. Soon, ahead in the sky, was a spot of shadow with a handful more lines of light coming off of it, heading into other directions, toward other Nodes.

Jane gestured forward. “Those things must be the [Node of Renewing Undertow].”

There was a great deal of space between the Nodes, and between the [Spatial Denial]s that they supported, but there were enough Nodes and connections to mark out the blue sky with tiny threads, most of which existed in a layer of the sky about a kilometer above the ground. That major layer was cut into equal triangles by those lines of light. Flying right above those ‘power lines’ was a rather surreal experience, and no one spoke as they passed beyond the outermost triangles of spellwork. Here and there Jane saw where those Nodes sent lines of light into Super Large Area spells; those lines untwisting into impossibly thin threads that hooked into those massive, almost invisible spells. Jane could still see those big spells due to her [Eyes of Magic], but seeing those spells was more like seeing the world through a slightly different color; almost like looking at a person when they had an aura active. When she partial-[Polymorph]ed those Eyes away, leaving her with normal vision (still enhanced by incorporating her primal frost owl eyes, though), the world looked normal…

Normal for a prairie, anyway. Not normal for the Crystal Forest. It had taken Kiri and the Overseer of the Exterior and Enforcement a solid month to be able to clear out the mimics from this land and to then start growing starter plants. That had been a headache and a half, according to what Jane had heard from her father when she was down in the Underworld. But they had done it. They had cleared this land of mimics, and now, with rain spells, dirt-transforming [Stoneshape]s, and with constant vigilance at the walls to prevent reinfestation, the land had started to blossom into green—

A line of pale white undulated in the skies ahead.

—and Jane mentally added, ‘and with Benevolence Dragons to turn the land even more green’.

… Except that wasn’t a Benevolence dragon?

Jane almost opened her mouth to speak—

Ravan said, “Look lively. Overseer Burhendurur is approaching to greet and speed along our ingress.”

Danaro slowed the flight of the Platform and within moments Burhendurur floated before Jane and her team. It was a quick introduction, with the long, bone-white dragon properly greeting Prince Sitnakov and Jane, and then giving directions to Ravan. Apparently, Jane and her team would not be sharing a final meal in Candlepoint, but they would be able to grab something at the House itself.

- - - -

They could not fly across the Gate District, for that was heavily frowned upon. So Danaro guided the Platform to the ground level and flew forward, down a road meant for normal, magically empowered traffic, which ran beside another road meant for pedestrian traffic.

There was a lot of traffic here.

The land was made of massive orange stones, originally carved out of sand by Kiri, but there had been additions recently. Sitnakov mentioned that the sewer below the Gate District looked like it was fully operational, but that was far below the orange blocks and Jane couldn’t tell about any of that herself. She focused on the roadways filled with Platforms zooming across the stone, whizzing by, loaded with crates and baskets and all sorts of assorted things. There were also ‘shipping container’ like objects on some of those Platforms, and from what Jane was seeing most of those containers were coming out from the wrought district up ahead, but a few container-filled Platforms were exiting from Spur’s and ‘Weald’s’ and ‘Gambler’s Rest’s’ Gates, on their way down to the Underworld...

Or over to Portal, actually. If that’s what that other inhabited zone was. Jane had heard about that whole debacle from her father, but she did not know which district belonged to Portal. Ravan knew about the new location, though, and confirmed Portal’s District as Portal’s District.

Jane said, “It’s still really fucking weird that my father was able to work with them after what they did to Spur.”

Sitnakov laughed loudly and suddenly. And then Lyrical and Hizogard and Danaro chuckled.

… Jane realized what she had said. “It doesn’t matter that my father will try to work with everyone; It’s still weird, okay?”

Ravan said, “That’s what makes him a great man.”

Jane looked up at the House, saying, “It’s still hard to believe that this is where he is in his life right now— That this is where we are right now. That… That any of this exists at all.” She glanced up at the artful splay of Node lines encircling the ‘crown’ of the house, which spread up and out, all across the land like some sci-fi utopia's version of power lines, eventually connecting to every Gate and every magic hanging in the air. “He even managed a runic web without actually making a runic web at all. Everything is powered. Everything will not decay. And every single person can stand inside any of those little shadow-spaces and contribute to the whole.”

Sitnakov smiled wide, his eyes on the sky and then turning toward the wrought district, to the right. “It’s a miracle.” He smiled wider. “And it’s another miracle that I don’t have to be a guard for him anymore.”

Jane nodded. “Because he’s apparently a fucking dragon.”

Jane realized what she had said, again—

As Lyrical and Hizogard looked to each other, and with accompaniment from Lyrical’s strummer, then sing-songed, “A~ppar~ent~lyyyy~!”

Sitnakov, however, joked in a much more serious manner, “If he and Rozeta get together it’s possible that you and I could be cousins, Jane. Maybe technically step-siblings.”

“… That’s weird, too.”

Sitnakov patted Jane’s back twice, saying, “I know exactly how that feels.”

- - - -

They entered the House from the north entrance, walking on foot to the front desk which was an arc of white wood manned by four receptionists. A great big [Renew] symbol held on the large white wall behind the receptionists. Jane led the way past those receptionists and then through security, which was mostly people recognizing Jane and Sitnakov, and allowing them past without another word, and then into the food court beyond. The House was open to the public, after all, and many different people came here to eat at any of the 7-10 star restaurants around the open, central space of the House.

Jane walked past the obscuring wall that ran between the front hallway and the atrium, and then she saw the food court in all its glory.

Restaurants and shops and law centers and other businesses surrounded a massive open room of tables and chairs and meeting spaces, filled with people sitting and talking. In the very center of the room held a single Node that was also part art-piece, for that Node sent a beam of light straight up, to three very close Nodes, and then those Nodes sent up three beams of light to even more Nodes. Like a spider’s web spreading out, the entire ceiling of the atrium was a web of light, which coalesced through a hundred tangled webs-lines that went through open spaces in the windows that surrounded the entire cylindrical tower. Jane was pretty sure that those tangles were what produced the web of light that held like a crown outside of the House, that she had seen on their way into this place.

As she watched, a trio of people stepped close to the bottom-most Node, experimentally sticking their hands into the shadowy light at that Node. Trickles of power came out of those people and joined with the Node. The people smiled and they might have even laughed, but the atrium was full of people eating and talking so laughter didn’t carry far before it was drowned out.

Jane found herself by the railing, watching as the people down below experimented with allowing the Node to Drain their resources. She was pretty sure that she could see as power joined the web, like dewdrops falling upward on spider silk threads. Those dewdrops rapidly evened out to the point of invisibility amongst all the other power flowing in those lines.

Ravan, almost reverential, whispered, “I can feel the Peace on the air. Can’t you?”

Sitnakov said, “And the Prismatic Denial and the Spatial Denial and yes, even the [Zone of Peace].” He started walking toward the wide, wide staircase that led down into the main floor. “I’m going to the Wroughtery to see what they have on offer. Meet you in the middle? 30 minutes?”

A round of agreements went out and people started moving.

Jane moved a bit slower than everyone else; the grandeur of it all was still like walking through fantasy.

Eventually, though, Jane found herself on the main floor of the atrium, facing a place called the M Eatery. It looked a little less popular than the other places, but that was good, because Jane wanted meat and cheese and bread, and the M Eatery looked to have all of that based on the lightward displays outside, and on the food she saw people carrying out of the space.

Jane put her hand to the fanny-pack on her lower back and used her shadow to—

Her shadow didn’t move. At all.

Prismatic Denial. Right. Jane’s shadow didn’t respond. So she tried using her aura and… That somewhat worked. It was difficult, actually, to use her prismatic aura in the Prismatic Denial, but her power easily and automatically shifted to something esoteric. She manually checked her gold, for she knew that her meal would be expensive, but she had enough. She could have checked with her mana sense, and she had, but mana sense could be fooled, and she had learned not to rely solely on that power while down in the Underworld. Too many intangible monsters, and too many truly great illusions…

Jane was delaying.

This whole House was freaking her out a little bit, and some people were recognizing her, and that was uncomfortable...

She put one foot in front of the other and joined the line for food. Soon, she was ordering. She requested an orcol-sized portion of magical meat, for 25 gold, for there were only a few options on the menu today, for the Feast was tonight and they were preparing for that. She also got some fries and a large lemon soda. A soda! Sure, it was lemon/lime flavored, but it was still soda! And then she tried to pay, but the incani woman at the counter really looked at Jane.

The cashier asked, “Saaay? Are you—”

“So that’s 25 gold?” Jane asked, “Or do you take Mage Bank? Sorry. New to this here.”

“Oh my gods you are her—”

Jane whispered, “Don’t, please.”

The woman stiffened. A few other people in line were looking at Jane, with her big tray of food and at the weird interaction with the cashier. And then the cashier said, “I can’t take your money. Please. Enjoy your food. We’ve got big things planned for tonight and Darkness and Gods willing, it will be a great time!”

Jane put 25 gold on the counter and then she walked away with her tray, the weight of the massive meaty sandwich, the big basket of fries, and her large waxed paper cup with lemon soda seeming a lot heavier than it actually was.

- - - -

Jane sat with an elbow on the table and a hand held a bit away from her face, blocking half of the people around here from looking at her directly. It wasn’t effective. She ate another fry and then hid the other side of her face with her other hand. She hadn’t gotten to the sandwich yet at all, because here she was, freaking out in the middle of a food court instead of simply eating like all the other people around her—

Sitnakov smiled as he munched on a platinum-covered pastry. “Fame is easier when you accept it, Jane.”

Jane whispered, “It’d be fine if it was my fame.”

“Eh!” Sitnakov said, “You’ll get there eventually. Erick will voluntarily accept being stuck in his tower, unless someone forces him to go to war again, but you’re free to move about as you wish.” He grabbed another small metal-covered pastry, chowing down on it, the metal tearing and whining as he chewed. He smiled again, looking down at the dessert. “These are really good.”

Jane glanced at the pastry to distract herself. “That’s like… dipped in platinum, or something?”

“It’s actually shaved platinum and a bunch of other smaller metals, carefully wrapped into the shape of a pastry; nothing organic at all.” Sitnakov pointed to a different pastry, saying, “This one is a normal pastry dipped in platinum.”

So he was being pedantic for some reason. Okay. Whatever.

Lyrical asked, “Isn’t that… like. 10,000 gold in those five little pastries?”

“19,000, actually.” Sitnakov chuckled a little bit. “The increased cost is because it’s made by a 9 star Cook. We hardly ever get any wrought Cooks, too, so this is a real treat!”

Hizogard asked, “I thought wrought couldn’t eat metals outside of their own?”

Sitnakov smiled at that question, and went back to eating his ungodly expensive pastries.

Jane forced her hands down to the sides of her tray. She glanced around, returning a hundred similar glances in that moment from people who suddenly looked away, pretending they hadn’t been looking at her…

And then Jane used a knife and sliced off a third of her sandwich because it was too large to simply pick up and eat. In its smaller size, Jane easily bit into—

Meat melted into her mouth with the perfect amount of juiciness. It was a roast beef sort of meal, but layered with caramelized onions, spicy hot peppers, some sort of iridescent-white mayo, and so much melted cheese. Wagyu beef had nothing on this, or, perhaps, wagyu beef was exactly how best to compare this meat to others Jane had tried, back when she had stupid rich college friends who tried to show her the world—

And now Jane was mad again, for other people being better, or richer, or more skilled than her.

She still chowed down on the excellent meal, but she couldn’t help but feel inadequate in some way. It was an absolutely stupid reaction, for Jane knew she was good… for most definitions of ‘good’. She had saved countless lives of adventurers while in Ar’Kendrithyst. She had done the same for many, many people when they were down in the Underworld. But here she was, in the House that her father had built, in the center of her father’s Gate Network which would open the way to the stars…

Jane was not envious… Except when it came to accomplishments.

In that way she knew she was envious, for sure. And she hated that. It was not healthy. It was not who she wanted to be. Jane had done a lot of soul searching down in the Underworld, where they had been ostensibly searching for her sword. Jane knew what her problem was.

She wanted to keep her father safe from all the bad things of the world, like he had kept her safe. That’s who she had wanted to be when she was younger. But as she had grown older, that desire had soured. She saw her father being reckless with his own life, making friends with gangsters and other sorts, and he didn’t see a problem with this.

But Jane knew that, based on everything having worked out back on Earth, that her father had done right by a lot more people than just her. Erick helped everyone he touched. And yet, at the time, all Jane could see was the pain he had put himself through, the danger he had exposed himself to, all without taking any of the necessary precautions to stymie those dangers.

The only reason Jane had left home back then and signed up with the CIA training was in order to get as far away from her father as possible, while still maybe doing some good in the world. At the time, Jane was extremely aware of what it meant to be in the CIA, and at the same time, Jane had believed that extreme violence was the best way to actually cause real, positive change. Sure, bad stuff happened in the pursuit of that positive change, and when bad people were put in charge of enacting changes, you ended up with more racism and imperialism and danger, but if good people were in charge, then you ended up with good things. Jane knew she could never be one of those ‘good people’, but she could certainly be the arm of change for some of those good people.

She still believed that now, more than ever.

But…

There were complications, now.

For just like when on Earth, her father had done what he always did, and he had eventually become the same sort of person he always wanted to be while here, on Veird. He had become a source of great, positive change. Of course, he had also learned the lessons of necessary extreme violence, and Jane loved him for that, and yet…

Jane pushed aside those complicated thoughts.

Jane munched on her sandwich, delighting in the flavors of the roasted meat, melted cheese, toasted bread, and all the condiments… And she got her head back into the conversation happening all around her.

“… empty rooms are going to be for the Feast presentations, I think,” Hizogard said, inclining his head toward a series of rooms on the second floor that were currently filled with placeholder lightwards and advertisements to visit Portal, instead of actual businesses. “That’s what happens every Feast, right? The Shades give presentations of what they did that year? To further the Dark’s goals?”

“Correct,” Sitnakov said, rather seriously. “Hopefully, we come out of this not worried over the shit they’ve pulled—”

The air resolved four meters away into a blue-skinned incani with white hair and an androgynous dark-skinned human woman, both of them wearing dark and fashionable clothes. Both of them had eyes of brightest white.

Ah.

Shades.

Well okay then.

Jane was rather mad because she had been enjoying her sandwich quite a lot, so before anyone else could say or do anything, and since there was no doubt in Jane’s mind that these people were here for anyone but her, she spoke, “Shade Lapis, Shade Farix. To what do we owe this visit?”

A rapid hush had already descended all around them.

Farix spoke with a jovial tone, “We’ve been here for a day now and our host hasn’t even greeted us properly! And what’s worse, is that we’ve been asked to make ourselves scarce until he can return from the war. Bah! When is your father coming back, Jane?”

“It is my understanding that he will be here a few hours before sunset, but I haven't seen him myself yet so I don’t rightly know.”

Farix said, “Then we shall wait even more!” He vanished in a step of shadow.

Lapis remained. She said to Jane, “I found your sword.” And then she pulled Jane’s sword out of the shadows of her dress, holding it by its grip.

Jane was suddenly stunned, exasperated, surprised, and a touch angry.

The black adamantium blade was exactly as Jane remembered; a solid length of metal about a meter long, with a grip inlaid with runes, and runes running all up and down the length of the back of the blade. Runes for sharpness and prismatic power, mostly, but also the runes which would allow Jane to wield it telekinetically with her [Flying Striker] spell. Lapis lifted the blade upward, the black length of metal looking almost at home in the Shade’s grip. Then she set the sword down, tip first, onto the white ground. Jane expected the sword to pierce the eternal stonewood floor, because it very much could, but instead the blade simply hovered.

“I didn’t do anything to your sword, but I am the Shade of Enchantment, so if you want something done to it, bring it to tonight’s Feast. Happy Feast Day, Jane Flatt.”

Lapis vanished from sight.

Sitnakov moved his hand toward the blade. A decimeter before he touched the black adamantium sword, the sword unraveled. Spurts of prismatic light flickered as whatever magic remained inside the sword broke; the tool becoming nothing more than a twist of metal that fell to the ground in several spheres of different sizes. “That probably didn’t break every magic in there, but it got most of it.” He turned to Jane. “I’ll have a new sword made for you.”

Jane had no words. She sat there, stunned to silence.

She was angry, a little, because of course she was, but—

Hizogard proclaimed, “Whelp! Quest complete! I suppose.”

“Ending on a good note.” Danaro nodded… And then he added, “Mostly.”

Slowly, other people all around began to speak, to move on from what had just happened.

Jane could not, though. She frowned, then looked to Sitnakov. “It would have been monumentally stupid for them to trap that sword at all. 99% chance it was perfectly fine.”

“And yet, through my actions, none of us need to worry about that 1%.” Sitnakov said, “And come on now, Jane. The very fact that it would have been horrific for them to trap that sword, because to do so would cause so many cascading bad effects, is exactly what the Shades are known for. You see that, right?”

… Jane did see that.

“I thought adamantium was indestructible,” Lyrical whispered a little, while Sitnakov was talking, before slowly going back to eating her sushi.

Sitnakov reiterated, “I’ll get you a new sword, Jane.”

Jane picked her sandwich up, glaring at Sitnakov. “It better be an artifact-quality sword.”

“I can do that.” Sitnakov asked, “You’re not actually attending the Feast tonight, though, are you?”

Jane paused. And then she took a bite of her sandwich, not answering Sitnakov’s question.

Rather a lot more serious, Sitnakov said, “You should not attend the Feast.”

Jane finished her current bite and debated taking a second, but then she relented, “I’ve already been told by practically everyone I know that going to the Feast would be monumentally horrible, and likely put my father into some sort of difficult position, too. So yeah; I got the message. I won’t go. I wasn’t even invited, anyway, so I… Eh.” Jane dropped the topic, then said… “I would rather just kill monsters and not care about these politics at all. Simple problems with simple solutions are nice. I’m going to miss you all. It was… It was a really fun Underworld trip. Lot of simple problems of monsters were solved in the most simple and best manner.”

Lyrical, Hizogard, Danaro, and even Sitnakov softened, each in their own way.

Ravan nodded. “It was perhaps some of the best monster killing I have ever had the privilege to be a part of.” She tapped her giant backpack seated beside her, saying, “There’s still the matter of separating everyone’s personal stuff in order to actually end this grouping, but that shouldn’t take two minutes.”

Hizogard looked to Danaro, and Danaro looked back to Hizogard, and nodded. Hizogard said to the group, “It was nice grouping with you all.”

Lyrical sat a little straighter, smiling as she said, “I had a great time, too.”

And then Ravan said, “Everyone here is already at the peak of their efficiency. I believe that instead of getting back together after the Feast, a better plan would be for each one of us to try forming our own parties with suitable rookies, in order to increase the number of strong people in the world through those partnerships.”

Sitnakov scoffed. “All of you have a long way to go before I’d call you strong.”

Hizogard laughed. “Asshole.”

Sitnakov chuckled.

Jane nodded. “Broke my sword, therefore asshole.”

Sitnakov laughed, and Jane chuckled.

“So close to completing the mission! But then the metalhead ruins it at the end!” Lyrical said, “Sounds about right, tho.”

Sitnakov smiled, saying, “Useless Seeker! Didn’t even know the sword was in the hands of the Shades.”

Danaro said, “We could have searched for years and never found it.”

Ravan said, “But we did a lot of good down there. A lot of people will live because of the monsters we culled, and the major threats we ended.”

“Still kinda miffed about not getting to kill that ephemewight congregation,” Jane said, “Seems like we could have stayed for a few hours and gotten to the core, eventually.”

Sitnakov waved a hand, saying, “Erick could blast that whole thing to nothing with a wave of his power. Maybe he could even help take back the entire Slanted Roads. A lot of people could live in that space if we took it back from the Dark.”

“There are a great many ways to fix the world, Prince Sitnakov,” Ravan said, “And I would be there with House Benevolence many steps of the way.”

“I’m sure dad is busy with other stuff, but I can certainly… look into it?” Jane said, then continued to eat her meal.

Danaro spoke of how they had transformed the Healing Waters Cavern from a place of absolute danger into a place of healing. He wanted to get a Gate into that location. Those Elemental Healing waters would be fantastic for making [Greater Treat Wounds] potions, and [Regeneration] potions, and many other high-grade Healing Magic items, though he also reflected on how that Healing Cavern was a world treasure, and it could easily be ‘used up’ if it were to be taken for all that it was worth.

Lyrical spoke of the Thunder Caves, and how wonderful they were for her Sound Magic, while Hizogard reflected on the cutting forces of the obsidian storm caverns. Those cutting blades of glass had really helped him to figure out his [Domain of the Sword] a lot more than he had. Ravan was simply glad that people were safer down there in the Underworld due to their actions, as a team, culling monsters in the dark.

Jane eventually said, “I liked all of it. Every day. Every danger. Every terrible night when one person was on watch and the rest of us slept. Every time monsters woke us up. Every gloom and bright-covered vista. The mushroom forests and the lightning spider cave. I loved Lyrical’s songs, and Hizogard’s sword fighting lessons. Danaro’s ability to heal everything and his cooking. Ravan’s steadfastness with the mission to do good down in the Underworld, and Sitnakov’s… Well. He’s probably better than all of us— And that’s fine!” Jane smiled softly, wiping away something in her eye. “It was great, and if we get to party again I will love every day of that, too— Ah.” She glanced around and tried to ignore the public nature of this place. “I probably could have said that in a more private setting than here in the middle of everyone.”

Small smiles all around.

Danaro chuckled, saying, “You’ll eat anything, though. How can you be a good judge of cooking?”

“I saw her try to eat a falseDark, once,” Hizogard said, teasing both Jane and Danaro, “It was probably better than your cooking, too.”

Danaro punched Hizogard on the shoulder.

Jane wiped away another something in her eye with the back of her hand. The food was probably too spicy.

Lyrical asked, “How did the falseDark taste, anyway?”

“Not nearly as bad as that Decay Spider.”

Danaro smiled, saying, “I thought spiders tasted good to other spiders?”

“Usually!” Jane said, smiling back.

- - - -

An hour later, Jane had finished stowing her shit back in her room, which was on a different [Fairy Stronghold] on a different branch of Yggdrasil. All of Yggdrasil’s glowing white branches now had a layer of moss and ferns and other green things growing on the top sides, blocking the white glows, and though that was a nice change it was one change of a hundred; too many changes around here. Jane had initially blipped right to where she expected her home to be, but instead of a house, she found herself on one of Yggdrasil’s wide, wide branches, directly on top of one of those fields of moss. The house was gone.

Jane had known that the house was gone, and that they had all moved due to some sort of incident with a person playing ‘steal from the Wizard’, but she had forgotten. And then she was there, where their home used to be. So Jane chanced a contact with Yggdrasil. After weathering a storm of a million words asking Jane about the Underworld (along with a bunch of other questions about everything from fish to river flows to what her favorite monster was) in order to gain a [Gate] directly to the new house. It was only after Yggdrasil confirmed that Jane was Jane, and Poi telepathically spoke up for Jane (though he couldn’t help her more directly at the moment, he was busy), that Yggdrasil opened a [Gate] to the new house.

Everyone was busy with Feast preparations, and so her whole family wasn’t home —or able to be home— to greet her, or show her inside.

And so, here she was, alone for the first time in months, laying on her bed, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling…

She realized...

“None of them said it back. None of them said they liked grouping together… Did they? No… they didn’t...” Jane whispered softly, to herself, alone in her room as she thought about her final moments with her team. “Did all of them… hate it? Did they… Hate me? Oh… Oh.”

Maybe they did hate her.

Sitnakov was a prince, fulfilling his duty to his people. He didn’t actually want to be there with a team of ‘rookies’, playing around in the Underworld, fulfilling ‘low level’ quests in the search for a ‘princess’s’ sword. And then, when they did find the sword, it was because of a Shade, and so Sitnakov rightfully destroyed the sword. Jane wasn’t mad about that at all. But she was mad that Sitnakov was only palling around with rookies like Jane in order to get away from the tedium or guarding her father, by guarding Jane instead. Maybe Sitnakov didn’t like that, either?

It was all in an effort to look good in her father’s eyes, too, so that was bad.

Lyrical and Hizogard were both on the mission in order to guard Jane, too. Danaro was the same, and Ravan… Ravan might have been the only member of the ‘team’ to be there for the real mission of spreading the good word of Benevolence to all the world, and to clean up monsters in that spreading.

Even Jane was there in order to get away from the tedium of running a kingdom, though, so she didn’t blame any of them for that. They were all there for the right reasons.

It had been a great time.

It had been a great group!

Jane had been under no illusions about what their ‘mission’ really was in the Underworld; on the surface, it had been to recover Jane’s sword, but beneath that, it was a mission that served as proof that all the various forces of Ar’Cosmos and Stratagold and the Mind Mages and House Benevolence could work together to make the world a better place. And they had done that.

… But Jane had thought that they were maybe… becoming good friends?

… Or was that all a lie?

Or. Maybe not a lie. But more like a… A hope that never truly manifested.

Or maybe she was just being stupid and emotional and she was overthinking everything and everyone had had a grand old time and they’d group again for another party later—

Jane realized something.

Ravan had spoken about how every member of the party would better serve the interests of keeping civilization clear of monsters and preserving the light of life, if everyone in the team made their own teams of rookies, to raise up those rookies into power. This would multiply the number of people capable of fighting the big fights…

But what if Ravan’s real goal was giving Jane and everyone else there a mission that she knew would linger in the back of everyone’s minds, and eventually take root, because this current team was dissolving and it would never get back together.

There had been a lot of fractures all throughout the whole experience, after all. Little snipes between Hizogard/Lyrical (Ar’Cosmos), versus Sitnakov (Stratagold), or even Ravan (Mind Mages). Danaro (former shadeling) had distrusted Sitnakov and Lyrical quite a lot, at first, but then Danaro got together with Hizogard as boyfriends and there was some sort of lessening of hostilities there. Jane (of Erick-descent, and all that baggage) had gotten along well with everyone else, making dinner when they were on the road and cleaning up corpses so no one else had to, extracting cores and ensuring everyone got a fair share of loot. She had also saved every single person’s life in the trip, except for Sitnakov, at least twice. Or something like that. She had stopped keeping a real count of who-saved-who long ago.

Jane had thought that the group had been going very well, right up until now.

Right up until there were no monsters to fight, and all Jane had for company were the monsters in her head.

… Maybe she was being stupid. Wondering if people liked her or not seemed childish, and yet she knew that a lot of people did not like her for her; they liked her for her father. They wanted to be around her because Jane could speak nicely about them to her father and change their entire world for the better. This was the same issue that Jane had had a year ago, back when her father was going into his first Shadow’s Feast. Her problems with her father’s power had only gotten worse from there.

And yet, these were personal problems. Jane knew this. It was only her own fault that she felt this way.

She did not like feeling this way about her father. She knew it was destructive.

So why couldn’t she make herself stop? Why couldn’t she feel better about her father’s actions?

Why couldn’t she simply be supportive of him, as he had always been supportive of her?

Why did she feel the way she felt?

This confusion over her role in the world was odd. Ever since she had coalesced her Truth with the killing of that soul slime, all of her attacks, when imbued with her natural prismatic aura, always became exactly what they needed to be in order to inflict the most damage. Jane knew her Truth. She was who she needed to be for any given situation. So perhaps that’s why this whole situation with her teammates not actually liking her was throwing her for a loop. She could be reading too much into their collective failure to reciprocate her own words of ‘I enjoyed our time together, and would be up for it again in the future’. Or, she could be transforming a bit, internally, as she recognized that she needed to change. Their team had seemed like a wonderful place to be, for they seemed to be doing everything that each of them wanted to do, and they also seemed to be making the world a better place in the process, but now that was over, and so, Jane was here, thinking.

So perhaps the more important question was not about her mental state or about the status of her team, or lack thereof, but perhaps…

What sort of situation was happening now, that she needed to adjust to?

… A deeply political one, at least.

Now that Jane had an hour’s distance from the final group dinner, she realized that that final meeting with everyone had been layered with lies and small jabs and false smiles all around. Especially with Sitnakov. Jane still didn’t understand all of that but…

But more than that…

“All this thinking is foolish.” Jane sat up on the edge of her bed. “The Feast is tonight. I need to find Poi and I need to prepare with everyone else.”

She was probably overthinking the dissolving of her group, anyway.

Jane went to go find Poi.

- - - -

Jane soon found herself stepping through a [Gate], courtesy of Yggdrasil, into something of a control room, situated on one of Yggdrasil’s mossy branches. The room was abuzz with activity in a way so very similar to the last Shadow’s Feast, but so very different. A year ago Killzone and Spur held their normal response to the Feast with a main control room, but also with side rooms that could be manned in the case of emergency, or the necessity of a fallback option. What Jane saw now reminded her of that.

The room was an average-sized room of [Viewing Screen]s, with Burhendurur in mortal form standing in the middle of it all, watching people watch the world. There were many differences from Spur’s usual response to this event. These viewing screens had bones on their edges, and they were attached to the wall, showing that they were not simple lightward-[Scry]-[Force Wall] things, but instead some sort of more permanent magic. Probably easier to maintain the mana costs.

The room itself was rather smallish, at only ten meters square. Other rooms were likely similar. Lotta skilled mages here, though. Those resolutions on some of those screens were almost [True Sight]— Ah. They probably were [True Sight]-capable screens. Jane’s father only dealt in the best possible support for his House—

Poi stepped away from one of those banks of screens, and approached Jane. “Welcome back, Jane. You’re in time for some final organizations. Team leader position? Something else?”

“Team leader is great.”

“Good,” Poi said, “Because the team you went out with wants you back. Sitnakov had to go back to Stratagold, but everyone else is waiting for your return.”

Jane was stunned, again. Ah.

They did want her back?

They did.

Poi nodded, then looked up, saying, “Yggdrasil. [Gate] for Jane to Ravan, please.”

A ring of lightning instantly appeared next to Jane. On the other side was a prep room somewhere, with Ravan, Lyrical, Danaro, and Hizogard, sitting around, waiting in their armor, waiting for something to happen. Jane looked to Poi once more, nodded in deep, deep thanks, and then she went through the [Gate], back to her team.

The [Gate] closed behind her.

Jane smiled a little, happily saying, “Looks like we’re back together again. And so soon!”

All of them looked relieved.

Hizogard spoke up, “Assuming we survive all of this, I want about a month break, and then maybe we can think about more adventurers without Sitnakov.” He looked to Jane, “I didn’t want to say anything good about you back there, Jane, because then I would have needed to include him somehow, but I wanted to. I really enjoyed working with you, too. If you ever want me in a group, just ask, and I am there.”

“Me too. It was an absolute delight to group with you,” Danaro agreed. “But being around that guy was almost worse than being around a monster.”

“… What?” Jane asked, so very confused. “What’s wrong with Sitnakov?”

Lyrical asked, “Are you somehow fine with grouping with that man? Because if you are, then it doesn’t matter how much I enjoyed grouping with you, for I cannot group with you again. Stratagold and its people have murdered too many of my own people for me to look at Sitnakov without wanting to vomit.” She scowled. “That whole trip was a mental attack.”

Ravan sighed a little, saying, “We Mind Mages try to be impartial, Lyrical, but your people are also some of the worst holdouts for the worst magics this world has ever seen.”

Lyrical rolled her eyes. “I can deal with Mind Mages well enough, but Sitnakov was too much. The saying still stands; it was a mental attack to be around him.”

Jane was stunned, but Danaro and Hizogard both nodded, as though what Lyrical had said made perfect sense. Jane said, “I didn’t know that… I mean. Maybe intellectually I knew, but. Sorry. You couldn’t just get along with him— I mean. You did, and for months… Ah. Hmm.”

“He almost murdered your father in the Core, Jane,” Ravan said, losing whatever tension she had had when responding to Lyrical. She looked rather relaxed, actually. Jane glossed over Ravan’s words about the Core because Jane knew about all of that, and she had hated Sitnakov for a while too, but she had gotten over it, and so had her father. And Ravan’s new relaxed nature was throwing Jane for a loop. Was the Mind Mage truly less tense because she was no longer around Sitnakov? She had to be. Ravan continued, “Even past the Core, the wrought put your father on trial, Jane. That’s just… Unconscionable. For the sort of man he is? For the sort of good he had done at that moment in time? And especially considering what came afterward, with the [Gate]s and House Benevolence. The wrought are as inflexible as the metal they are made of, and it is only by the grace of Rozeta that they haven’t killed us all for our mortal foibles.”

Jane rapidly reevaluated everything that had happened down in the Underworld because she didn’t think that Sitnakov was that bad of a guy? Not after she got to know him? Like. Yes. Jane had personally experienced some of the emotions that Lyrical, Hizogard, Danaro, and Ravan were experiencing, but she had gotten over those emotions, and in no small part because her father had moved on. He was trying to make the world better with his action of moving on, and Jane could respect that.

Jane blurted out, “I thought you guys hated me.”

“What!” “Huh?” “… Not at all?”

Ravan nodded. “Easy to misconstrue.”

“But you all just hate Sitnakov?”

“He held back all the time,” Danaro said.

“Fuck him,” Hizogard said.

Lyrical said, “He could have done more, but he paced himself to always do a bit better than you, or Hizogard. And that was it.”

Ravan was silent. She could have said something, but she chose to be silent.

Jane glanced at Ravan, then decided to end the conversation about Sitnakov, saying, “Well he’s not here right now to defend himself and he did save our lives more than a few times, so that’s worth some points in my book. But it’s whatever. The Feast is starting in a few hours. Anyone know the defensive plans?”

- - - - -

Slowly, the sun lowered toward the western horizon...