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The end of the year was close. Two more days and Shadow’s Feast would be upon Veird.

Erick didn’t experience any disasters and he didn’t expect to go to the party, either. He was on another task given to him by Atunir just yesterday. He would drop his current plans and go back to Candlepoint if they asked him to come back, or if he was needed, but Fallopolis’s party was a small one this year and Kiri was doing fine and House Benevolence was getting along swimmingly without Erick.

They would be fine losing Poi for a week or three, too.

“Thanks for coming, Poi,” Erick said, as he sat down in the pub-carriage, jockeying for a seat at the front of the public transport.

Poi sat down beside Erick and held onto the railing. “Of course I would come with you. I didn’t expect that I would need to make myself Unknowable this early, though.”

Erick smirked. “A few people are still looking your way.”

A good thirty more people found their spots on the pub-carriage. A few of them gave Poi a side-eye, looking over the sapphire-scale dragonkin like he was both an oddity and a slight annoyance. Aside from Poi, everyone else on the pub-carriage was human, for the Greensoil Republic was rather bad about inclusion. And so, Poi had needed to begin using his [Don’t Notice Me] aura almost right after stepping through the Gate to Greensoil. Erick had, of course, taken on an entirely different Familiar Form because everyone would notice him right away. Ophiel had enjoyed a few days being visible upon his father’s shoulder, but he was back to being invisible and intangible.

It wasn’t that bad of an experience for the little guy, for all the rest of his bodies were all off doing their own things, as Ophiel desired.

Poi said, “I’ll turn up the Unknowable when we get closer, but we’re safe to talk openly right now. No one will remember our words.”

Erick smiled at that. “I’ll clean up the manasphere, too. Ahh. I don’t know how you do it all the time, Poi. Talking in your head. Seems like you’d have too many thoughts all the time, vying to be expressed.”

“There is a certain order that comes about when people filter from brain to mouth, but using the mind to communicate directly is rather normal for me.” Poi looked around as the pub-carriage filled up, saying, “What’s not normal is all these humans.”

“It's a pretty singular species up in here, isn’t it.”

Erick and Poi had come to Greensoil through the Gate Network, and there were lots of other races who used that very same Network, but this particular pub-carriage was not headed to the dragonkin side of town, or the very small shifter communities that butted up against the dragonkin. This pub-carriage was headed toward the high-class district, toward the kingdom center and, for Erick and Poi’s purposes, the Grand Courthouse of Legality, here in this capital city of Greendale, on the southeastern coast of the Republic.

And Greensoil didn’t allow non-humans to hold high office, so the pub-carriage was rather filled with humans… And Poi, who seemed to be making himself more and more [Don’t Notice Me] as the moments ticked on, and the bus-like hover-tram filled.

Erick was still human-shaped, but he had adopted a different sort of body than his usual one. Just a different face and a bit lankier, with brown hair instead of black. It was more than enough to hide in plain sight. Poi was not willing to change himself into a different Familiar Form in order to make life easier for him, or for others; he liked himself just fine, thank you very much! So his aura was how he handled the problem of fame. Such an aura was easily seen through by other Mind Mages, but that was fine; Mind Mages policed their own, and Poi was in good standing with the community. He could do this sort of thing without ethical worry.

“I’ll drop it when we get to the courthouse or to whoever we need to get to,” Poi said, “Just like you will with your form, right?” He said the last word a bit strongly.

Erick chuckled. “I just want to see Greensoil through a normal person’s eyes for a while. I’ll drop the act soon enough. And if it gets to be too much for you, you can go back home.”

Poi sighed in relief. “I am content to be looked at like a bug for a little while, but not for three weeks.

“Let me know if anyone tries to fuck with you too much and I’ll fuck with them right back.”

A smile broke across Poi’s face, shadows vanishing a little as he chuckled. “Thank you.”

The doors to the pub-carriage closed with a clang, locking the people inside. Most stood in the center of the vehicle, holding onto rails on the ceiling, or onto bars stretching up, while all the seats were full. The conductor at the front honked a horn, and then engaged the vehicle. With a sudden lurch, the pub-carriage started on down station, gliding along on its rails toward the exit of the Gatehouse.

Erick glanced out the window and watched as another pub-carriage flowed into the docking station that they had exited. A lot of dragonkin boarded that one; a sign hanging off the front of it read ‘Dragalley’, the name for the dragonkin part of town. That pub-carriage itself was almost as nice as the one Erick and Poi were currently riding, but it had obviously seen better days. The metal ribbing was tarnished. The wardlights at the front flickered because there was some sort of power coupling break in the internals. It didn’t seem to have a working [Air Conditioning Ward], either, for some bizarre reason.

As Erick noticed that, he noticed a lot more small, systemic problems of inequality here and there. From the quality of clothes, to the way the human drivers of the dragonkin pub-carriage looked at their passengers… It all painted a rather clear picture.

Erick’s own pub-carriage was going rather slow right now, following its tracks to the end of the station. It would pick up speed soon enough.

Erick said to Poi, “Kiri still hates this place but she’s good about not showing it anymore.”

“Greendale is the worst. All the other major cities are pretty bad, but the countryside is okay. Odaali is making good advancements… It was making really good advancements before the Halls of the Dead killed a third of the people in their Daydropper attack. That action set them back a decade.”

“I still remember when Valok and all the other dragonkin and other migrant workers from Greensoil decided to stay at Spur as soon as we made Spur a full-year breadbasket.”

“You did that,” Poi said, “I merely kept people from trying to knife you in the street for your riches.”

“That wasn’t too often, was it?”

“More often than you know. Most archmages stay holed-up in their towers or hidden from the world for very good reasons.” Poi deadpanned, “I was expecting to work for a half-way hermit.”

With a smile, Erick said, “I’m glad I never became a hermit.”

“Aye; me, too.”

The pub-carriage followed its glowing lines of power off of the Gatehouse station and into the air, finally detaching from the ground, to to ride its lines of power out over the city.

Erick had once thought of making a monorail over at Candlepoint, but Candlepoint had ended up more with a subway system than an over-city monorail. Candlepoint’s over-air rail system was still active in a few places, but mostly it was underground.

Greensoil had copied Candlepoint’s transport, but they put everything in the air, probably because their underground was all filled with private properties. Instead of using actual trains, like Candlepoint, Greensoil used these big bus-like ‘carriages’ that each held about 50 people. Erick felt trains had been a better choice there, too.

But then again, Greendale was a major city of Greensoil with a population in the millions, while Candlepoint and the nearby suburbs had a lot more than that; they needed a lot more quantity than Greendale. Population numbers varied, but last year, counting all of the cities inside the hundred-kilometer ring Kiri had made eleven years ago, ‘Candlepoint’ (and Weald and Gambler’s Rest and Torchlight and all the rest) came in at just under 20 million people.

Erick looked out at the city, at the rooftops. Or at least at the rooftops he could see. A lot of the buildings around here were tall things of stone and glass, reaching several stories into the air. Cultivated trees lined the roads and the pub-carriage flew above those. Greenery rushed past underneath as the vehicle flew forward, following its path into the heart of Greendale, sitting in the distance.

The capital kingdom of Greensoil looked like a pile of differently-shaped and nicely decorated bricks sitting on the horizon. It’d take twenty minutes for the pub-carriage to get there, with the pub-carriage making several stops at the outlying areas along the way.

Greendale’s transit system was slower than Candlepoint’s, but the views were nice.

As Erick looked out the window, he recalled trying to make a Gate Network connection directly between the human-ran Greensoil and the incani-controlled Wastelands a few years ago. For a while, everything was looking great. Fantastic, even! Some of the younger people had even started talking about how the Quiet War might actually end, but then there were Quiet War problems. Some pretty bad and rather suspicious dungeon breaks ended in the complete deterioration of relations between the Republic and the Kingdoms, and so that particular Gate Network connection had come down. Now it took twenty minutes to make it into the city proper. Back then, the Gatehouse had been a lot closer to the city, too, but nowadays one had to take the pub-carriage in from this location 20 minutes away, and there were two pub-carriage systems; one outer-city, like the one Erick and Poi were on now, and one inner-city, which was heavily restricted.

Non-humans weren’t allowed on the inner-city pub-carriages without going through a much more intense scanner than the normal one.

Which was extra-shitty of them—

Poi added, “If you wanted to see how bad it was for non-humans, you could have been one for a while.”

Erick sarcastically said, “But Poi, I’m already doing the non-human thing.”

“Ha ha,” Poi deadpanned.

“Maybe I will, then? Maybe a shadeling?”

“Ah. So you want to be killed on sight.”

Erick winced. “This trip is going to be a whole big thing, isn’t it.”

“Yes, it will. I might not stick around if we have to stay in Greendale too long, but I doubt we will. At least Teressa and Aisha haven’t seen anything extra on the Sky— Except for the storm approaching Storm’s Edge, that is.” Poi said, “With any luck, this trip will go exactly as Atunir asked it to go.”

Erick had only found out about Atunir’s request last night...

- - - -

Erick woke standing in a field of wheat, ripe for harvesting, golden grains weighing down thick stalks, a warm breeze barely jostling the grains at all. The sky was gold and mountainous clouds in the distance cast platinum rain upon orchards and vegetable gardens and pastures. Cows mooed in contentment as their tails flicked back and forth in joy; there was no need to flick away flies but they still wagged their tails, here, in Atunir’s heaven.

“Hello, Erick,” Atunir said, appearing from the corner of Erick’s perception like she had always been there. “Congratulations with Storm’s Edge. That went well.”

The Goddess of Field and Fertility was a dark-skinned human woman with bright amber eyes and long braided hair. Her clothes were the simple sort anyone would wear for harvesting. Erick’s own outfit mirrored hers, here in this place outside of time.

“Thank you, Atunir.” Erick said, “I hope that whatever you would have me do would go similarly well.”

“There’s little need for subterfuge with my request as there was for Sininindi at Storm’s Edge.” Atunir said, “But before we get into that… I want us to be friendlier with each other. Like with you and Phagar, or you and Rozeta or Koyabez, or even… With Melemizargo.”

Well that was surprising.

Erick wasn’t quite sure what to say to that.

She said Melemizargo’s name with restraint but she still said it, because yes, Erick was not close to Atunir at all. Her Champion, Yetta Wheat, had lived and worked in Candlepoint for a few years, but she had moved on back to Odaali several years ago, because the King of Odaali, her former adventuring buddy and childhood friend, Cyril, had asked for her hand in marriage. Apparently the two of them had become more than friends when no one else was looking. Aside from the brief contact Erick had had with Yetta before she moved on, Erick hadn’t really worked together with Atunir on anything at all… Except for the [Exalted Rain] spell, and then only to gift that to Atunir and also the world.

That spell was still used to this day, all over the world, to [Grow] food for almost every major city on the planet.

Thoughts of all of that stuff swirled in Erick’s head as he tried to understand Atunir’s goal.

“… I thought we were…” Erick wasn’t sure what to say except the truth. “I guess we’re not that close, eh? I mean…” Erick asked, “Do you want to come to this years Triumph of Light, at Candlepoint?”

Atunir smiled gently. “Thank you for the offer, but that’s not really what I mean. I mean ‘close’ as in someone you come to, to help solve problems. Every day I wonder how things would have been if you had held fast to being a farmer, to growing food for people instead of managing them. I wonder how much I would have given you, because I want to give you everything, Erick. I want to give you everything you could ever want, partially because you deserve it, and partially because I know you wouldn’t abuse any power I gave you.”

Erick felt more flattered than he had in a long time. And yet... “I suppose… Not to be too blunt, but I suppose I never looked your way because… Field and Fertility. It’s not exactly something I worship.”

Atunir chuckled. “I suppose I’m not the most martial of gods, and I care nothing for borders or governments, but individually, I would help. My worship includes the entire world, on all sides of the Quiet War and every other war besides. Every farmer who has ever plucked a ripe tomato or gathered gourds at the end of fall, or butchered a prized cow, falls under my guidance. If you had asked for me, Erick, I would have given you paladins of the harvest. They’re very good at reaping lives, in addition to grain. I would be your major god, if you would have me.”

Erick wasn’t quite sure what to say of that, so he said, “I have greatly appreciated your blessings on the fields of Candlepoint, and for Yetta’s help for all those years.”

“You’ve given the world a lot. Chocolate. [Renew]. [Exalted Rain]. Potatoes, Erick, potatoes. You deserve more than you have been given. I know you already have a plethora of godly connections, but ask for my help sometimes, and you’ll get it.”

Erick had no idea that Atunir felt this way. “I will, then, if something comes up, I will ask. Thank you.”

“Good. I know you will.” Atunir said, “But I know you did not expect any of that, so I don’t expect any answers on that front at the moment. Let us move on to the release of my part of Yggdrasil’s seal.”

Erick nodded. He was prepared.

“By your completion of two small tasks, I can release my part of that seal. The two tasks I have in mind are nothing that difficult. One you should be able to take care of in a day, if you wish it to be done that quickly, and the other might take a little while longer, depending on how deep you want to go with it. I, for one, hope you go all the way with the second task, for I and my people have been working on it for a long time.

“The first task is to travel to Greendale in the Greensoil Republic, and to finally end this open Kill and Exterminate Quest, by completion of the final part of that Quest, the only part which has been allowed to exist for the last 13 years. The problem of Denutha Odaari; the last person of the three people who created the Daydropper Vine and almost killed the world.

“This task is solved either by her death, or by her true repentance through a [Reincarnation] and a [Blessing of Empathy]. Either is fine. Some people are even calling for justice of a sort. If she gets her day in court, and there is a solid outcome, then I will be fine with that, too.

“What I am not actually fine with is how the Viridian King has locked her up in a cage since her voluntary surrender to the Green Circle all those years ago.

“End her imprisonment one way or another.”

Erick tried to recall what he knew of that situation. “I heard that they didn’t carry out her trial because the completion of that Kill and Exterminate Quest would have granted me 10 points?” It never bothered him that those points had been denied to him because that reward hinged on the death of Odaari, who was some sort of cousin to Cyril Odaali, who was now the king of that major city of Odaali. Back then he had been the crowned prince… “I always suspected that they didn’t kill Denutha because of some political reasons— Political beyond me, I mean.”

“It’s a mess, Erick. I would have you carve through it and end the mess one way or the other. If you choose to see justice done then this first task might take a while, with you doing much of nothing while you wait for bureaucracy to act. If that is fine with you and Yggdrasil, then that is fine with me. But since I suspect that you will want to have some sort of justice happen...” Atunir moved on, “This brings us to the second task.” With a delighted-yet-hiding-it voice, Atunir said, “There is a Grand Dungeon at Greensoil located an hour north of Greendale by pub-carriage.

“That dungeon has an implementation of a Script-like magical interface that I officially present to you as an alternative to a Script in whatever next worlds may come.” Atunir said, “I would have you delve that dungeon, and I would have you tell me what you think. I suggest you go in wearing a different form other than your own, otherwise people might get too excited and they’ll try to show it off instead of allowing you to experience it for yourself. Perhaps bring another person with you? That is of no matter to me. I just want you to see the dungeon for yourself.”

“… Huh. Okay.” Erick asked, “The Gem Dungeon, yes?”

One of the Grand Dungeons of the world, and one of the very few that Quilatalap had had absolutely nothing to do with, because Atunir honestly did not like the man (thinking about that, maybe Atunir was only approaching Erick like this because Quilatalap was out of the picture for the next few years (dammit, Erick missed that big guy already)), the Gem Dungeon was one of the few dungeons that truly went all-in on making a replacement for the Script. Most of the few places that tried for a Second Script did not actually have a Second Script; they adjusted the current Script and put forth those adjustments as ‘better’ than the current system.

Most places, though, actually didn’t try to make anything approaching the complexity of a Script at all; they just imposed restrictions on delvers. That was what the dungeon at Storm’s Edge had done, before this past week.

Atunir announced, “That’s the one! Our wonderful Gem Dungeon!”

“I would love to see what you envision for the Script.”

Atunir started gushing, “My system might even work on worlds without a true Script shield at all! It’s all very low-manatech, too, and reminiscent of the Old Cosmology where the mana waned thin—” She cut herself off. “Anyway. We’re very proud of the Second Script we’ve come up with. It’s different from what you’re used to, but… It might work out really well. Our ideas —if implemented well— should cut down Yggdrasil’s seeds maturation time from decades to years, because the necessary starter mana would be so much less than what is needed now to make a Script. We could transform barren rocks into worlds for people as fast as Yggdrasil wishes to make seeds!”

Erick appreciated her enthusiasm, but… “Hopefully Yggdrasil won’t be a dad for 90 more years.”

“Right right.” Atunir said, “I can help with that restriction, too, once you get the seal removed. Denying Fertility is very much within my church of cause, Erick. You might not even need to do Wizardry yourself to keep that seal intact if Yggdrasil directly agrees to my denial of his Fertility, but then again, that would be putting the power of a World Tree into my hands, and I don’t think I want that responsibility. But it’s a thought, anyway.”

“… Huh. Well okay.”

Atunir grinned. “See you later, Erick. I hope you enjoy Greensoil.”

- - - -

“Back on Earth,” Erick began, as the pub-carriage glided along its node network railing in the sky, with nary a bump in the transit, “There were political dissidents that never got their days in court, so I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised that people would do the same thing here on Veird.”

“They like to use her as a bargaining chip with you, more than they care about her personal needs.”

“I believe I told them to let her have her day in court so she could explain herself and the Daydropper as she wished to do for all these years. And then I left… And I never followed up on that.” Erick said, “Surely there’s no ‘great big secret’ that she has on Greensoil that hasn’t been said already?”

“It’s probably not that. I’m rather sure they don’t want to bring up the Quiet War and the Decimation of Odaali, because they’re trying not to have all-out war with the Wasteland.”

“Ahh, yes. That makes some sort of sense.”

“But now you’re here to force the issue,” said Destiny, the Wizard of Chaos.

Erick took a moment to look at the woman sitting to his right. She was unremarkable in all ways. Brown hair, average adventurer build with some good tone to her muscles, and a brightness to her brown eyes that made her look smart. She was a common sort of person, who would only appear beautiful to those who knew her.

Erick knew her.

Erick smiled a little. “I failed to invite you over for the end of the Storm’s Edge business, didn’t I.”

“Yes you did!” Destiny said, punching his shoulder lightly. “A forgivable failure, but still a failure.” Destiny leaned forward and nodded to Poi, “Poi. Hello again.”

Poi nodded back, “Hello, Destiny. How long have you been here?”

“Not long!” Destiny leaned back in her seat and kicked her feet out a little, saying, “I heard something about false imprisonment and I couldn’t stay away. I just got here. Thanks for including me in your [Don’t Look At Me] aura.”

“Of course,” Poi said.

Erick said, “I’m rather sure it’s [Don’t Notice Me].”

Destiny scoffed—

“You’re both wrong,” Poi said, grinning.

Erick looked to him, as Destiny leaned forward to look past Erick, toward Poi.

Poi said, “Erick is less-wrong.”

“I’m rather certain I’m completely correct,” Erick said.

“95%,” Poi said.

“Whatever it really is, I’d rather not have anyone use it at all,” Destiny said, “But I suppose you Mind Mages have proven yourself often enough that you’re not too much of a worry.”

Poi laughed. “Thanks, Destiny. I suppose you’re not so bad for a Wizard, either.”

Destiny nodded and pretended to take Poi’s sarcastic joke literally.

Destiny wasn’t a Full Wizard yet, but she had opted for a lot more protections against other people influencing her than Erick had gone for; a [Personal Ward] that prevented all Mind and Fae Magic, was just one of her layered defenses. She even had some spells that annihilated all of those sorts of magics in a very large area.

Destiny absolutely hated authority in almost all ways, which had caused her to initially hate Poi and all the other Mind Mages, and a whole bunch of other large swaths of the population besides. But years had passed, and she was fine with some Mind Mages, Poi chief among them, and she had even taken pleasure in helping the Mind Mages to eliminate various controlling mental and physical threats the world over. These days, because of those interactions, she generally approved of the Mind Mages, and they, in turn, generally approved of her.

It had taken Destiny a while to come around to Erick, too, but she had eventually started to see him as more of a friend and less as a jailer; Erick had saved her and continued to protect her from the world for many years, even after rescuing her from Ar’Cosmos.

For Destiny was the Wizard that the dragons of Ar’Cosmos had captured many years ago, in order to transform her into a Carnage Wizard, in order to use her to free other dragons from the Dragon Curse by Paradoxing them away from normal Elemental Dragon Essence. The Houses of Ar’Cosmos had been using Wizards in that way ever since the advent of the Curse, which was still a part of the Headmaster of Oceanside, Kirginatharp, which still affected all normal dragons out here, in the real world. The Curse had no effect on Benevolence dragons, like Erick, or on any other Paradoxed dragons, of Carnage, Death, or Fae, which was why Ar’Cosmos had targeted Wizards the world over, to capture them, to free themselves of the Curse.

Had targeted.

These days, Erick could free any dragon from the Curse at-will. Those dragons automatically joined House Benevolence in a loose-affiliation sort of way, or more directly, if they wished. Most dragons actually stayed in Fairie, though, either in the growing city of Ar’Cosmos, or in any of the other cities blossoming just on the other side of reality. For those who remained in Fairie, there was no need to go to Erick for any sorts of Paradoxing solutions to the Curse, for Fairie kept the Curse away from them already.

And thanks to Erick, there were no longer any space concerns over there in Ar’Cosmos, and in the greater Fairie. [Renew] allowed Ar’Cosmos to expand the ‘Gate Space’ across all the rest of Veird… Theoretically. Fairie wasn’t much wider than the Surface these days, but even that was a great, great deal larger than it used to be, back when it was contained to one small land in the center of the Forest of Glaquin.

As for Destiny, she was done with Ar’Cosmos, for now and forever.

When Erick had taken her from that draconic land and [Reincarnation]ed her according to a grand confluence of various forces of the world, he had gifted and burdened her with a [Blessing of Empathy], and taken charge of her as both her mentor, and jailer. It was the only way the rest of the world would allow a Wizard to live.

It had taken Destiny some time to come to terms with what Erick had done to her, but she mostly blamed all the rest of the world for that these days.

It was why she had taken so strongly to emancipating all of the slave states of Nergal, which she had succeeded in doing, and which Erick had helped her with. That land was now known as the Freelands because of her and Messalina, the Lifebinder.

Destiny was rather good at several different spells, and one of them, the one she loved to use all the time, was called [Benevolent Chaos]. That spell was the one that had caused her to appear next to Erick, and which also allowed her to move practically anywhere that there was some problem of inequality to be solved. Due to her own actions through using that spell all the time, she had become known as the Wizard of Chaos.

And now she was here, for some reason.

Destiny had a certain look to her as she asked, “So what’s the full story of us being here?”

Poi raised an eyebrow, and asked the question that Erick was already thinking. “You’re going to stick around? Not ask about what’s up and then leave?”

“Maybe.” Destiny looked at Erick, saying, “You promised to contact me after the trouble at Storm’s Edge. It was unkind to make such a mess at my doorstep without talking to me afterward.”

Erick scoffed. “I sent a letter detailing everything.”

“Well it wasn’t enough!”

“It was an extensive letter. Four pages!”

“Well maybe I wanted to see you again. You’re always so damned busy all the time.” Destiny shrugged. “So what’s going on here in Greensoil?”

“Do you know about the Daydropper?”

“Vaguely.”

Erick began, “The short story is this: The Halls of the Dead was an organization from the Wasteland here in Greensoil. They made the Daydropper Vine using my Particle Magic understanding. Their first real use of that plant caused the Decimation of Odaali, with Arrox Geller and Parox Geller being the main antagonists of that whole plan to kill all humans, with Denutha Odaari as their scientist accomplice. There was a breach demon at the end of that horror, because it truly was a plan to ‘kill all humans’, and they were just getting started with the Daydropper and Odaali, but I and others put a stop to that. Denutha is the only survivor from that time, and she gave herself up willingly to the Green Circle, the assassins of the Viridian Throne. We’re here to see about getting a trial. I still have the Kill and Exterminate box around here… Here.”

- -

Atunir has identified a global danger to Veird!

Kill and Exterminate!

Denutha Odaari of the Halls of the Dead.

Reward: 10 ability points, to each of the 1000 people who most contribute to completion of this Quest!

- -

Erick said, “Denutha is the only remaining part of that Kill and Exterminate Quest; all the plants and their research and all the other people who knew how the plant worked are either gone, or not a problem anymore. Denutha is a cousin of Cyril, the King of Odaali, who was just the crowned prince back when he went with Champion Yetta into Ar’Kendrithyst to kill Shade Planter, who had decided to take up the Daydropper for his own nefarious purposes… But I suppose you don’t need to know about that part.”

“I heard that story already anyway.” Destiny asked, “She gave herself up to the Viridian Throne, yes? Voluntarily?”

“Yes. They were going to execute her for her part in all this, and especially since the Daydropper was large enough to trigger Atunir’s release of a Kill and Exterminate Quest, but back then Greensoil didn’t like me and I was headed toward capturing one of the top reward slots.” Erick said, “All Denutha wanted was her day in court, which she expected to be able to get, as she was a noble of Odaali and a cousin to the royal family. Due to whatever events happened back then, that I never really looked into, the Viridian Throne decided to drag their feet. Or something. And now we’re here.”

Erick suddenly realized that Atunir’s Kill and Exterminate Quest and its ability to ‘ping’ the world to look for daydropper seeds, and otherwise, had directly led to him experimenting with radio imaging. Atunir had ‘helped’ him with the creation of [Cascade Imaging]. Perhaps he should be including Atunir in more parts of his life; she had been there for him for a lot.

Destiny took in Erick’s words and frowned. “Let’s bust her out of jail and take her to the Freelands where she can give her testimony and we can decide her fate. She obviously can’t get decent treatment here at Greensoil.”

“That is not happening,” Poi said, unequivocally.

Destiny scowled a little—

“I agree with Poi,” Erick said, “And the plan is to keep our relations with Greensoil positive.”

“Gods and demons, Erick,” Destiny said, exhausted. “You’re too good of a man for this world of evils; you don’t need to compromise on shit like this—” She cocked her head to the left. “Speaking of which. Are you going to do anything about that?”

There were lots of little problems happening all across the city the pub-carriage passed over, but it was rather easy to guess at which one Destiny was talking about.

They had passed over an open-air market where some guards were harassing some people at their fried foods stall. One of the human guards had just pushed over the entire vat of hot oil, spilling the stuff across the cook’s legs. The cook and his wife were mostly unharmed, but they stripped out of their pants as fast as they could, before their skin fried to the fabric too badly. Base Health prevented any real injury, but their food stall was ruined, and so was their day. The woman tried to heal the little damage her husband had suffered, but the light around her hand fizzled out.

No unauthorized magic within city limits; not for the little people, anyway. And especially not for non-humans. The cook and his wife were demi, or half-incani or half-human, depending on where you lived. Here they were called half-human, and they were treated perhaps worse than the dragonkin, who were at least treated like normal people, if second class.

Erick didn’t have to think about his answer. He said, “I can’t be a tyrant, Destiny, so if you want to—”

The air had flickered halfway through Erick’s answer.

Destiny was gone again.

“… And there she goes.”

The pub-carriage had passed far enough away from the incident that Erick had needed to send an undercover Ophiel over to check out what was happening.

Sure enough, Destiny was there, but she was not a nondescript woman anymore. She was a gorgeous lady with a bright red dress and her perfect face framed by an amazingly ostentatious hat. She was already yelling at the guards, asking them ‘why they had fucked up her favorite fries stall’ for ‘they made all the best potatoes around’, and ‘Don’t you have something better to do with your lives than harass demis!’.

Erick could already see the cook and his wife getting very uncomfortable, and not just because their legs had been burned a little; the oil had done some latent damage, it seemed. That damage wasn’t a problem for Destiny, though. Destiny walked over and healed them fully, and then did some very fancy magic to fix up the food stall, while the guards and some of the other market-goers watched.

Erick almost sighed.

That casual display of perfect magic caused the guards to go from almost-angry to wide-eyed and wary.

Ever since the advent of Erick’s Node Network there were a lot of spells layered over places like here in Greendale, that prevented the use of almost all magics. Candlepoint had its fair share of Denials, too, cast by Erick himself in order to shut down violence between people. He had left Healing Magics and some utility spells alone, like [Mend] and [Cleanse], but [Stoneshape] and all fire spells (aside from [Prestidigitation]) were shut down. It seemed that Greendale went beyond Erick’s own paranoia.

However far they went with the Denials, there was a way to break them. And easily. All one needed was a Domain that could push against that automated power, and allow one’s own power to manifest.

So Destiny, casting her magics like that, was probably going to get a talking-at by the local authorities, higher up the chain than the guard right there…

Should Erick have helped?

Even though it would have broken his own cover, and gotten him involved in stuff that he did not need to be involved in, Erick felt somewhat guilty for not doing anything.

Erick asked Poi, “Should I have stepped in?”

“Destiny is way too focused on the small picture and you promised not to interfere with daily occurrences between guards and citizens or otherwise inside Greensoil.”

“So that’s a ‘no’?”

“… I get that you want to help everyone, but you agreed to certain diplomatic pacts.” Poi said, “But to be clear… I can’t be clear. I would want you to wash away all the double standards here on Greensoil if you could, but I also understand that you can’t do that, for that would be becoming The Tyrant.”

After a moment of silent contemplation on all of that, Erick added, “Storm’s Edge was rather nice, you know. In almost all the personal ways it could be. Aside from the anti-cultist stuff, but that’s like complaining that the sky is blue. The big stuff was all good at Storm’s Edge. I didn’t see a single murder or rape or otherwise. Lotta kids thieving from everyone they could, though.”

“If you saw a murder or rape I assume you would step in, because you always do.”

“Good!” Erick smiled, saying, “Because I just stopped a murder about a kilometer to the north.”

Poi sighed a little. “… I know. Do I need to do a coverup?”

“Nope. All anyone saw was a flash of light. The man who had his sword inside the other man is now inside a guard holding cell and the victim is healed. Looks like a basic crime of passion, if the crying-and-now-bewildered woman is any indication.”

“Destiny is going to be mad that she missed out on the big justice because she had to go for the small justice.” Poi said, “You should tell her that.”

Erick chuckled. Maybe he would tell her that.

The pub-carriage passed by the last of the large buildings, here in the suburbs surrounding Greendale, and ascended properly into the air, the ground falling away as the cart passed on from the city-line to the inter-city line. Erick stared out the window a little, like some of the other out-of-towners who had followed them onto the pub-carriage, headed into the main city.

Greensoil was mostly a land of farms and small hamlets and villages out on the edges of rivers, all without proper walls, for though Greensoil was a bit tyrannical with its non-humans, they protected their lands very well. That was why people of all races lived here, even though only humans were allowed to be nobles, or hold office anywhere above the rank of ‘knight’.

The land was green as far as the eye could see, with nary a wall in sight. Copses of trees sprung up here and there, looking like darker bits of green, but mostly, it was farmland down there. Rows upon rows of vegetables of all sorts. Orchards in the distance. Pastures for cows in the far distance. The wheat fields were too far to see, but they existed over toward the north of Greendale. Some of those fields were green still, but some were turning gold, getting ready for harvest.

As far as the eyes could see, it was open land out there, hundreds upon hundreds of open kilometers of farms and pastures.

The Greensoil Republic was a little over half the size of the United States and they had a comparable sized civilization, full of their own unique communities and cultures and peoples. They were actually the largest, singular civilization on Veird. There were many humans here who went their whole lives never leaving this place, for why would they need to?

Erick looked out across the land, and said, “Aside from the racism and tyranny, they do make a rather safe civilization.”

“I think you made a better one over in the Crystal Forest.”

Erick smiled. “And I didn’t have to use [Weaken Monsters] to do it!”

“That’s a terrible spell. A crutch, that if the ‘archmage’ using it misses a monster, that monster rages and needs to be put down by adventurers that don’t know how to handle the danger, because they live in this land of peace.”

“But now they have all those dungeons—”

“Which only means that the warriors here know how to fight, which means that they’re either going to have a revolution on their hands or they’re going to become expansionist.”

… Those were pretty strong words for Poi.

Erick looked Poi over, asking, “Are you okay?”

Poi frowned a little, and admitted, “I’m technically demi, in addition to being dragonkin. If I wasn’t who I was, they’d try to kill me— Okay. Yes. That was an exaggeration. Sorry.” He gave a barely audible sigh. “I didn’t think this trip would get to me like this… Kiri is the one who hates these people for what they did to her family and to her, back at Tower Academy.” He looked to Erick. “Which is a topic that came up a lot back at the House when you were gone. She’s trying to make her family move to Candlepoint and apparently her family is under a major contract and they can’t leave Odaali without defaulting on their worker contracts.”

Erick furrowed his brow. “She never… She purposefully never brought that up around me, did she?”

“Correct. It’d probably be better if you pretended you never heard me tell you about it, too. She’s trying to solve that for herself, not unlike how your actual daughter tries to live.”

Now it was Erick’s turn to sigh. He looked out at the window, at all the peaceful farmland, and said, “You know… Jane once called this place ‘feudal Europe medieval-style’. It’d be kinda nice to pretend it was just that, but that’d be pretending.”

“At least the Viridian King apologized for trying to assassinate you that one time.”

“Things would have been a lot different if Jane hadn’t caught that Green Circle assassin parasitizing the food…”

Erick thoughts drifted…

“Thinking about what the Dark said about you Establishing your own past?” Poi asked.

“Somewhat. I’m trying not to let it affect me, but…” Erick said, “So the gods live in a land that is beyond time, being both here and there at the same time— Perhaps I would have called them 4th dimensional beings back on Earth. That seems too simple, though. Anyway. Gods have a lot of power to move back and forth through time, perhaps none more so than Phagar —who never talks about it— and he said that even gods are fallible when it comes to Wizards. Melemizargo, who does talk about it, told me about this [Onward] and… I guess I never considered that I could mess up a spell that badly. That’s what’s really bothering me.”

“Perhaps you should change your perspective, if for no other reason than to alleviate your mind of this burden.” Poi said, “If Melemizargo is correct, then that means you gifted the world eleven years of peace. That doesn’t seem like you messed up at all, Erick. That seems like you sacrificed yourself in order to make this all work.” Poi shrugged. “Which is just like you.”

Erick felt a tension leave him and his shoulders sag. But he wasn’t quite ready to accept Poi’s charitable interpretation yet, because he didn’t like how, if Melemizargo had been right, then that meant that Erick hadn't actually been here for the last eleven years.

That would have been a cruel thing to do to his loved ones. That would have been like putting a repro down in his place, and then coming back to reap the repro’s work, and to take his life back, and that was itself a huge mess of moral issues.

Poi said, “That’s an unfair comparison, too. You were yourself this whole time. If anything, you were just lost to the flow— Erick. I certainly didn’t feel like you weren’t here. You were here, this whole time.”

“… Aye. Maybe I was.”

“You were.”

Maybe…

Erick’s thoughts drifted off into a hundred different tangents as he considered what he knew.

Poi fell silent, and soon, he was telepathically connecting with people outside of the pub-carriage; always working, he was, even when he wasn’t.

The pub-carriage soon rolled into the station at central Greendale, the capital city of the Greensoil Republic, and though it was beautiful, Erick’s thoughts were still turned inward—

Until Poi said, “Look lively. Seems we didn’t manage to get through the other station without tripping some sort of alarm.”

Erick scowled a little as the doors opened and people began to filter outward, into the grand central station. Under a monumental housing of glass and steel and spellwork, thousands of pub-carriages went back and forth all the time, on tens of different landings, to the outlying areas of Greendale, and also around the city itself. Erick would have enjoyed the architecture if it weren’t for the people standing on the platform, beyond his pub-carriage.

A trio of people in dark green official dress armor, which was mostly just a breastplate and fabrics, stood waiting on the landing beyond, their eyes going over every person exiting the pub-carriage. Two men, one woman. And then all three of them looked at Erick, but not at Poi.

Perhaps it was time to end this charade. Erick would have preferred somewhere less public, but that was fine. If these people were going to start shit with him, he was going to finish it, but he would be polite first.

Poi left the pub-carriage first, and waited to the side… Ah? So he was Unnoticeable, now? Right. He was playing along with Erick’s desire to see the world as a normal person, but that didn’t mean he was willing to sacrifice his own safety, and these people would surely notice who Poi was as soon as he dropped his aura.

Erick didn’t blame Poi for any of those decisions. Erick hated corrupt governments himself —always had, always will— which is why he tried to make Candlepoint as egalitarian and open and lawful as possible.

Erick confidently strode forward, to stand before the inquisitors. “Hello?”

The shorter male inquisitor gave half a nod to his compatriots.

The tallest inquisitor narrowed his eyes at Erick. “It’s not illegal to have Domains, but you are required to register them, and to not use them in public.”

Erick pulled out his Dungeon Guild badge he kept around his neck, and then let it hang on his chest. “Ashes Woodfield. I am a registered, 9-Star delver and adventurer both, in good standing with the major Guilds, and you’re lying, officer. According to the Treaty of Oceanside however long ago it was, of which Greensoil was a signer, I can use my Domains internally as much as I want, wherever I go. Which is what I was doing. Can I help you more than that?”

The tall man scowled—

The shorter inquisitor sent a telepathic message to the larger guy, which Erick was only able to understand because the shorter guy wasn’t very good about hiding the microexpressions of his throat and tongue. ‘Just checked his Dungeon Guild tag. He has a registered Domain but we’ll need clearance to get any more information other than that.’

The woman inquisitor was a bit better about keeping her mouth and throat in control as she sent her messages, but Erick was able to ‘read’ those, too. ‘His Water Domain is active. We’re looking for a Benevolence Domain. It was here, but now it’s gone.’

The lead inquisitor didn’t like ‘Ashes’ tone, though, so he said, “It might be legal to walk around with an internal Domain, but it’s not legal to erase your presence wherever you go. There’s a big line of blank from where you stepped off the Gate, all the way to here and now.”

“Ah. Trying to intimidate me, eh? That’s not going to work either because there is no law against erasing my own manasphere presence. Greensoil has tried to implement that law many, many times, but it fails to pass the house of lords every time. No law against humans erasing their manasphere, anyway. Not so true for everyone else.”

The woman inquisitor sighed, as she sent to her superior, ‘He knows the law and is a 9 star and all the [Scan]s return ‘human’. We have to move faster than we are moving.’

The lead inquisitor frowned, then stared at Erick and took a chance, “Are you The Wizard?”

After a surreal moment, Erick balked, then laughed loud. “What-the-fu—! Ha!” And then he pretended to falter a little bit. “… Why? Is he around here?”

Several nearby people were already interested in the conversation happening between the inquisitors and the strange man on the landing platform, but at the words ‘The Wizard’, a few moved closer to hear better. At Erick’s laughter, and at his own question, the nearby public got a lot more interested. They started looking around—

The smaller male inquisitor shook his head. The woman mouthed that this was a dead end, and they needed to move faster.

The lead inquisitor softly asked, “Have you seen anything weird?”

“I don’t snitch to guards who are abusing their authority.”

Erick almost said more, but the inquisitors had perked up as the smaller man telepathically told the other two that there was ‘contact with strangeness’ a few kilometers down the line from the Gatehouse. Two of the inquisitors wanted to move on the new contact right now—

But the lead inquisitor glared at Erick, saying, “We’re too close to Shadow’s Feast for this sort of shit. If I catch you flouting the law again then I’ll do a lot worse than ask you questions.”

And then the inquisitors rushed away, down and out of the station, onto a [Force Platform] to then fly away down south. Back toward where Destiny was. They’d never catch her, though; Erick was the only one who could.

Erick watched them go for a little bit, feeling kinda miffed. Maybe even angry.

And then he turned and walked into the station. Since the confrontation was over, everyone else who had been watching also got a hurried move on; everyone had places to be, and they had to be there as soon as possible!

Poi walked along with Erick, sending, ‘Sorry about not including you in the [Don’t Know Me].’

Erick smiled. ‘So that’s what it’s called! [Don’t Know Me]!’ He added, ‘And yeah, I know. You explained it to me already. You’re only allowed to protect yourself and other Mind Mages while going about normal duties, but since I’m not a Mind Mage… Yeah.’

Poi smirked, as he sent, ‘They made that law with people like you in mind— Well. You and Headmaster Kirginatharp. And since we’re going to be engaging with the law soon...’

‘Yup yup. Don’t want to make enemies before we get to the courthouse. If only everyone were as lawful as you, Poi, this world would be a lot better.’ Erick almost scowled, but he had more than enough control to keep his face completely normal, because some people were watching him. ‘That inquisitor was a complete asshole, trying to throw his weight around like that.’

Poi chuckled. ‘That’s how all the inquisitors are.’

‘You know? I wonder how much they’ll tell ‘Ashes’ about Denutha.’

‘Oh gods, Erick. Don’t tell me you’re going to go that far with this.’

‘Well… Yes. You’re probably right; this shouldn’t go much further than it already has. But also: I became a social worker because I wanted to help people, and that is why I decided to become the Apparent King, too. That desire has formed the foundation of everything I do. But Phagar and my time at Storm’s Edge helped to remind me that there are just some things you can’t see as king, so high above everyone else; some things you can only see at ground level. This little issue here has reinforced an old hatred of mine; a hatred against tyranny.’ Erick said, ‘So I’m going to push this for a little while. ‘Give them enough rope to hang themselves with’, you know.’

‘How about you push it until we get to the courthouse. ‘Ashes Woodfield’ won’t survive true contact with Greendale. That persona is probably already coming apart at the book binding, somewhere in their bureaucracy of this city.’

Erick shrugged. ‘Probably.’

Poi rolled his eyes, then sent, ‘Who do you even expect to see at the courthouse? A clerk, or something? Anyone who will listen to ‘Ashes’?’

‘If I knew I would tell you, but I don’t know, and that’s half the fun!’

Poi gave Erick a Look.

Erick almost chuckled, but he was being watched now.

- - - -

“Sorry, sir…” The clerk was confused. “You wish to know the status of Denutha Odaari’s trial?”

“That is correct.” Erick lied, “I’m doing some research for a history of The Wizard, and it came up that Denutha Odaari, of the Kill and Exterminate Quest for the Daydropper Vine, is still alive and in custody of Greendale, awaiting trial. It’s why I came out here. You know… Poke around, ask questions. That sort of thing.”

Finding the Grand Courthouse of Legality had been easy, for it was a great big building in white stone in the center-ish of the city, and the signage leading there could not have been clearer.

This place was not the courthouse, though. This place was two streets over, nearly two kilometers away from the courthouse, and was the third place in Erick’s quest to find out about Denutha Odaari without having to reveal himself as The Wizard.

The lie gracing Erick’s tongue had developed over a few different interactions, and was now rather perfect, in his opinion. He doubted this ruse would last very long at all, and he would drop the act as soon as his cover was truly challenged, but he wanted to see what Greensoil would do to him for asking these big sorts of questions. So far, there were some bored guards watching him from several blocks away with their mana sense, while everyone Erick actually interacted with were giving him the runaround. It was not quite how Erick had expected this to go, but in hindsight, of course they would give him the runaround.

He had time to kill, though. There were no official delve slots at the Gem Dungeon; any time he showed up there he would be allowed in. It wasn’t a very popular dungeon, even if it was one of the Grand Dungeons of the Surface.

And so, Erick was here, asking questions.

Poi waited outside, though, because of the ‘no non-human’ signs posted here and there. He could have walked past them and broken that stupid law, just as Erick had, for he was non-human too, but Poi didn’t want to break the law like that.

The clerk behind the counter eyed Erick. “… I see.”

Erick said, “No real rush on it. I got time.”

The clerk decided, “You need to go to the Grand Courthouse of Legality. This is the historical records building, and—”

“Don’t do that,” Erick said, smiling. “At the courthouse, they told me to go downstairs to the records office. The record house downstairs told me to go to the Knowledge Mage they keep employed for these sorts of questions across the street, at the other records house. The Knowledge Mage said he had nothing on my question, so he sent me here, to this historical records building, ‘The Archives’, and that’s you. And I’m like, the only person here, and have been the only person in line for the last few hours. You were reading a book before I came in here. I already went around and you’re the person to talk to about this; don’t try to send me anywhere else.”

The clerk put on her most professional stonewalling face, and said, “I am sorry, sir, but this is not the place to request information of that nature. You want current records, since I believe Denutha Odaari’s case is still in the courts. Or, you could go directly to the proper place to ask these sorts of stupid, traitorous questions; Please consult the Royal Palace for information regarding traitors to the crown, who are still alive and in custody somewhere in that place.”

Erick went, “Ah ha! Now we got somewhere. So I have to go to the palace?”

“… Yes. Good luck with that.”

“Is that really all you can tell me?”

“Yes. Go away now.”

“The people at the courthouse [Force Wall]ing me I could understand.” Erick said, “Even the Knowledge Mage I could believe simply didn’t have that sort of knowledge on hand, though that was a stretch. And now here you are, with actual information, and you’re not willing to share. Makes me think that the Viridian Throne doesn’t want The Wizard to get those ten points he’s owed from that Kill and Exterminate Quest, which seems really petty to me—”

“Look. Idiot. This shit is above my pay, and probably above yours, too; whoever the fuck you think you are. Grand traitor court cases are always politics and I can’t help you with those. Go yell at the shadows.”

Erick ignored that last deep insult, like he ignored all the rest. “You’ve been helpful so far. Just tell me why you think they haven’t solved her case, and I’ll leave.”

The clerk sighed, then said, “Try the Odaali Embassy. Far as I know they’ve been calling for Odaari’s head for over a decade, yet the Viridian Throne keeps denying them for whatever reason.”

Erick let his surprise show on his face. “… I didn’t know Odaali was doing that.”

“It’s rather hush-hush, but that’s the rumor.”

Erick looked the clerk over. She was a skinny woman of black hair and pale features, maybe in her late forties. Erick said, “Thank you for your time, Miss…?”

“None of your business; I won’t have my name written up by inquisitors or in some idiot historian’s notes.”

Erick grinned. “I’ll stop pestering you, Miss Unnamed Knowledge Mage, if you tell me why you’re over here and that other Knowledge Mage is over at the records house instead of you. You seem a lot more capable.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” The woman eyed Erick, and then the door. “Bye bye, now.”

Erick took the hint and walked away, smiling a little bit the whole time.

Outside the office, Poi asked, ‘Can we stop the subterfuge now?’

‘Yes.’ Erick sent, ‘Can’t very well go into the Odaali Embassy as ‘Ashes’, can I?’

Poi narrowed his eyes at Erick, for he could already hear—

Erick finished his thought, ‘Or can I?’

Poi gave Erick another Look. ‘I mean it, Erick. Shadow’s Feast is in two days and because of that, this level of security is a lot higher than usual. Higher than I expected it to be, and higher than you expected it to be. You’ve had your fun, and you’ve seen life on the ground, but it’s time to stop.’

‘Fine fine fine! It’s gonna be harder to approach the Gem Dungeon as myself, though. Atunir wants me to get the proper, on-the-ground experience there.’

‘… I suppose that is true.’

- - - -

Erick had no idea why it was called an ‘embassy’, since ‘embassy’ implied a place that allowed an above-the-board connection to a foreign power, and these ‘embassies’ were all from other kingdoms in the Greensoil Republic. Granted, the Republic was very large, and all the various kingdoms inside the Republic were sort-of like foreign powers, but not really. Not since the unification of the Republic hundreds of years ago, under the Viridian Throne. Candlepoint had a real embassy to the south, along with a bunch of other places, like Stratagold and Oceanside. That Odaali had an embassy as well… Just didn’t sit well with Erick.

It was a cultural thing, Erick supposed. A holdover from before the Republic was the Republic.

The Odaali Embassy in Greendale was a palatial, white-walled extravagance of a business-center-within-a-city, located northwest of the heart of Greendale, between a residential district filled with truly nice homes, and a business district filled with tall buildings and various eateries. The white walls of the embassy reminded Erick of the white walls of Odaali; those tall edifices of power that were one of the main reasons that it had been targeted by the Halls of the Dead for their daydropper experiment. The walls of the actual city had allowed the carbon dioxide buildup to rise to suddenly lethal levels, but those walls had been changed since then, to allow heavy atmosphere to slide out of the walls, to prevent suffocation by carbon dioxide bombing. All of the actual walled cities of Greensoil, the main kingdom cities, had been adjusted in the same ways.

The walls of this ‘embassy’ had vents in them, too, which were guarded by quite a lot of spellwork and hidden from direct sight, at the bottom of decorative pillar carvings and other decorative reliefs. Those vents were security issues that didn’t used to exist, but now they did, because the theoretical alternative was worse. No one was getting into the embassy through those holes in security, though, for those guarding spells were labeled as ‘lethal’ and protected by the node network.

The entire land of Greendale, from the overly-protected ‘embassies’ to the open streets and sewers and sky, was filled with invisible spellwork that kept all sorts of potential problems to a minimum. Without a Domain, being here was like being in Songli, where the Void Song kept magic to a minimum, and order above all.

Erick didn’t feel much of a strain for he had Domains of all kinds. Poi looked uncomfortable, though, but that was probably due more toward having to keep up his [Don’t Know Me] aura all this time. The ‘embassy’ and the streets were rather busy, with carts and carriages and lots of people rushing to and fro, all over the place. Poi had actually needed to walk behind Erick for a little while to avoid all the humans from running into him.

Because it was all humans here, this close to the city center.

Erick said, “We’ll drop the act inside as soon as we find someone to tell.”

Poi smiled a little. “Thank you.”

As Erick joined the traffic heading into the ‘embassy’, he said, “You were okay with trying the subterfuge-thing for a little while, with a caveat that we’d drop it if it proved necessary. But what part proved necessary?”

‘Everything,’ Poi sent.

Poi looked at the guards standing in the recess of the walls, on both sides of the gate. The guards wore white armor and had a professional look to them, but they mostly pretended to pay attention to the crowds; the spellwork people had to walk through to get into the ‘embassy’ would alert them if anything truly awful was getting through, like spells ready to be exploded as soon as they got inside. There were too many variables to exploit in such a system for any sort of generalized scan to be foolproof, and Erick and Poi were exploiting some of those vulnerabilities right now.

But just like they were noticed at the pub-carriage station, they were noticed here by the absence of a manasphere imprint. This was, unfortunately, necessary.

If Erick hadn’t been erasing his presence, then they would have been noticed for his Elemental Illusion-based [Illusionary Soul] [Personal Ward], that hid his core from anyone’s casual mana sense. The security here was almost as modern as the security over at Candlepoint, which was expected, because Candlepoint had exported a lot of its security measures to other nations, along with the node network and Gate Network. But what was different was that the security here was a great deal more hands-on.

They didn’t need to do that back in Candlepoint.

Back in Candlepoint, almost anything could be undone if it needed to be undone, because Erick could get personally involved, or, in a few cases, Quilatalap could do something. The Church of Phagar stepped in when necessary, too, and for everything else, they had Benevolence guiding the hands of the upper echelons of the guard, to ensure nothing bad happened in the first place. Some people called that tyranny, but the average person just got a normal life, without needing to worry about existential threats all the time.

All they had in Greensoil was actual tyranny; actual people on the ground, investigating every possible problem and keeping tabs on every possible person of power, at all times. Most of the time they tried to be nice about their tyranny, but things could always turn bad fast.

A woman guard in a professional dress stepped away from the side of the building inside the embassy, smiling professionally and motioning for Erick to come with her. She was calm and easygoing, for the moment, for there was a crowd, and no one wanted to make a scene.

Poi sent an entire information packet, because there wasn’t time enough to actually talk, ‘Their security is heightened for a lot of reasons. Some people are thinking about the Storm Prophecy over in Storm’s Edge as the reason for extra shifts, but no one in our current area knows exactly why they’ve been asked to go on high alert. Some think that something is going to happen in two days at Shadow’s Feast. Those inquisitors back at the station were on us like that because of Destiny’s direct actions, yes, but also because they’ve been waiting for something to happen, and they were expecting Quiet War events because there’s been a recent rash of demonic killings inside the city.’

Erick stepped toward the woman guard, outwardly projecting calm, but inside, he was not. He sent a quick message back to Poi, ‘Are you breaking Mind Mage information protocols?’

Poi sent another information packet between one step and the next, ‘Yes, because people have been tracking us in the sky and on the ground ever since we started asking around about Denutha Odaari. You stepped into something big here, Erick, and the only reason you haven’t been assaulted by an elite team is because I have been telling people that you’re cleared for duty from Candlepoint. We’re well past this incognito thing you wished to do. No one knows who you are right now, but I can’t stop them forever. Sorry about that; I know you wanted to be unseen.’

Erick hadn’t felt any menace coming from the guards he had noticed trailing them…

Ah.

This reminded Erick of a talk with Kirginatharp a while ago. To Kirginatharp, the world seemed even smaller these days than it usually did. You couldn’t go anywhere and just be someone new. That was a sentiment shared by many immortals the world over.

Erick finally got within a step of the woman guard with the polite smile—

She gestured to the side, toward a door into a building that was lightly [Ward]ed. “Could you join me inside for a small discussion, sir?”

Erick went right in, saying, “Sure thing.”

Poi slipped in behind Erick, doing his best not to be noticed until he needed to be noticed.

The woman paused for a moment at Erick’s easy acquiescence, her smile almost faltering, but then she perked up and followed Erick inside. Then she closed the door behind her. Erick walked down a short hallway, into a larger, very solid room, with a closed door leading off into the deeper parts of the embassy. 

This room could be turned into a deathtrap if needed, but Erick wasn’t worried.

The woman acted unworried, too, as she pleasantly stepped into the room with Erick and shut the door behind her. There was a click. The woman said, “While it is legal to walk around purposefully disturbing the manasphere so that you cannot be [Witness]ed, it is a bad look for a foreigner. Especially one who asks around the courthouse about a known demon sympathizer. The only reason that you haven’t been detained before now is because you decided to walk right into our trap, and because the Mind Mages are telling us to leave you alone. But the Mind Mages are a foreign power, too. So why don’t you tell us who you are, and if we don’t like your answers, we’ll get some better answers out of you under some light jail time.”

Erick decided to say, “Apologies, miss. My visit here has gotten away from me in a way I did not expect.” Erick said, “I’m here from Candlepoint to see to it that Denutha Odaari gets her day in court, or gets executed, or gets transformed through [Reincarnation] and a [Blessing of Empathy], because Atunir has requested something to finally happen in that regard. She’s fine with whatever outcome, but she wants the outcome done, because she wants to close that Kill and Exterminate Quest she issued over a decade ago. That can be the public answer, if you wish it to be. I have a better answer for more private locations.”

The woman listened, her breath slowing down as the gravity of the situation took hold. This strange man standing before her didn’t appear to be a malcontent, and he had a truly good reason for being here, if his story was true. She wasn’t ready to believe just like that, though. To her credit, the woman did not balk, and she did not call Erick a liar right then and there, though he could tell she wanted to. Instead, she asked, “Do you have proof?”

“A lot, yes.” Erick said, “But I ask you: how big of an event do you want this to be? Candlepoint is willing to let this be quiet, or loud, depending on how much I reveal to you and yours.”

“… If you could remain here, please. Someone will be with you shortly.”

- - - -

Erick and Poi waited five minutes before someone showed.

The man wore white robes, and had a weasel on his shoulder. He seemed about as polite as the woman who had come before, as he laid out, “I hear you’re a liaison from Candlepoint, here about getting The Traitor’s court case up and running. If that is true, then you’re about to wake up a nightmare that we’ve been wishing to put into the grave for a long time, so we might be able to be friends. If that is a lie, then the best case scenario is we kick you out of Greendale rather violently. I’m Heron Bellwood; one of the archmages here at Odaali Embassy. You gotta appease me first before I can let you see anyone in charge.”

Erick nodded. “Shall you do the Privacy spellwork, or should I?”

“I’ll do that,” Heron said, and suddenly the room was cut off from the rest of the world. “Good enough?”

“Sure,” Erick said, transforming into the Apparent King, with his crown of black horns. Ophiel revealed himself on Erick’s shoulder, and Poi pulled back his Unknowing. For further proof, Erick put a small [Gate] in the air to the side of the room, that linked to the other side of the room. “Again, I apologize for coming into this situation like this. Apparently you can’t go traipsing around incognito in the heart of Greendale. Who knew!”

Heron’s eyes were wide as moons as he was suddenly unsure of his entire life. The weasel on his shoulder had a much more instinctual reaction; the little guy gave a tiny screech and then dashed into Heron’s robes, trying to hide.

Erick let the man have a moment.

Heron glanced at Poi, and then back to Erick. “… I’m not sure what to make of this, other than to say that… Uh. Yes. I suppose… It’s time for the Ambassador to hear of this— And then… Eventually others.”

“Cyril too, I suspect?” Erick asked. “I haven’t seen him in years. I didn’t know that Odaali was actually aiming for Denutha’s head, either, or else I would have approached this situation differently. Sorry about getting your security team so wound up. If there is some way for me to make it up to you, please let me know.”

Heron rapidly said, “No trouble! No trouble! Whatever you want to do is—” Heron felt he had a fantastic idea, so he offered, “If you want to keep this ‘Ashes’ persona, it might be a good thing.” He rapidly explained, “We want The Traitor to die, but we also want to know all of her reasons for becoming a traitor and aligning with the Halls of the Dead and with the Incani Menace, but the crown won’t allow us to get her into a courtroom so we can truly expose her evil to the world. We don’t want a summary execution, or for her to be hidden away for the rest of her life. We want justice… But if The Wizard gets involved then it’ll be a summary execution or… Whatever you wanted.” Heron added, “Actually. We would prefer that The Wizard wasn’t involved at all, but I’m not sure how to otherwise get anything moving on the Odaari case.”

Erick nodded, as he transformed back into Ashes. “I understand; you don’t want foreign powers acting inside your jurisdictions. This was also my reasoning for coming in disguise, until I got here, to this point.”

Heron was gradually becoming a nervous wreck as he began to truly realize that he was standing in the same room as the Apparent King. With a practiced sort of ease that was breaking as the moments ticked on, Heron said, “Yes, yes. Thank you for understanding— but of course you understand. That’s what they all say about you— Ah! I’m blabbering. Ah. I shouldn’t have said—” Heron shut himself up.

Sweat began to pour.

Erick calmly asked, “So who would I talk to about getting Denutha Odaari’s trial up and running?”

Heron blanked for a moment, the surreality of the situation finally getting to him. And then his anxiety passed. He was the archmage of the Odaali Embassy, and he knew how to talk to nobles, and so he did just that, but with some changes. “I can put in a word for you with command, back in Odaali proper. I assume that King Cyril Odaali will wish to speak with you personally. It might take some time to get all the paperwork lined up to issue another demand to the Viridian Throne to get that trial started, but you should speak to Odaali about this.” And then he bowed almost all the way to the floor, saying, “I will ensure that you have no more trouble as ‘Ashes Woodfield’ while you are here.”

Heron paused, halfway bowed, as he looked through the [Gate], and saw his own back.

Erick dismissed the [Gate]s hanging to the sides of the room, saying, “That’s acceptable.”

Heron snapped to attention then tried to relax as he dismissed the Privacy all around. He almost said something, but other people were watching from outside the space, and he wasn’t quite sure how to play this off without sounding compromised. Heron decided to say, “Looks like we need to kick this concern up the chain of command.”

And then he left as fast as he could, running right into the other guards who were watching now that the Privacy was down. Rapid [Telepathy] passed between them, with disbelief and distrust briefly flashing on the faces of the others, but as Heron sent to them, they started to believe whatever it was he was sending them. Erick wasn’t privy to those specific conversations for all the people here had necklaces on that obscured their throats with Privacy spellwork, to prevent spying on their words.

‘Well they’re going to be a while,’ Erick sent to Poi, ‘And I get the impression that you’re going to trigger that clause about leaving early.’

‘… I never really like lying, and this feels like lying to me. I will stick around, though, because when you go into that dungeon someone has to be ready to move in and tell you to come out in case of emergency. But I would rather not do this subterfuge at all; not when there’s the Storm Prophecy happening.’

‘House Benevolence is riled up more than I know, eh?’

‘Not more than you know, but more than you’re willing to personally placate.’ Poi sent, ‘22.5 million people are expected to need to move in the next 4 to 6 months, and House Benevolence is working overtime to try and figure out the nature of the Prophesied Storm.’

‘Ah… I’m sure we’ll figure it out.’

‘You already know what it will be; It’s Yggdrasil, and his unsealing. It has to be.’

Erick shook his head. ‘If that is the problem then the ‘storm’ would happen in a lot of places besides the Archipelago. Yggdrasil is planted on the far western end, at New Towery, but if he were the cause of the ‘storm’, then there would be similar ‘storms’ prophesied here at Candlepoint, and Stratagold, and elsewhere. The ‘storm’ is not Yggdrasil.’

‘… Hopefully.’

Now it was Erick’s turn to give Poi a Look. ‘I know you don’t like adventure a whole lot, and this land is rather tense and racist, and you don’t want to walk around Unnoticeable all the time. Plenty of reasons for you to not want to be here and I didn’t expect any of that, and that’s my fault. I expected us to walk up, and for me to talk to some people and reveal myself, and then for us to go off to the dungeon, and yes, that is happening… But I get it, Poi. I can have Ophiel wait outside the dungeon if you need to get me a message.’

Poi banished his tension as much as he could. ‘Nope. You can’t get rid of me that easily. I’m staying. I might even join you on the first floor of the Gem Dungeon. And besides that, Odaali is a lot better than Greendale; it’ll be a lot better over there.’

Erick felt a bubble of mirth rising within. ‘Good. Glad to have you aboard.’ Erick turned his attention back to the guards mana sensing them through the walls, and to Heron, currently lambasting a pair of coworkers who looked —by their clothes— to be just as important as the archmage. ‘Looks like their argument is finally settling down.’

‘I’ll stay Unknowable until we get to Odaali.’

‘I like that better than [Don’t Know Me]. ‘Unknowable’.’

‘The skill has many names. Who’s to know which one is more correct?’

Erick chuckled at that—

And then he prepared to speak to whoever it was Heron was bringing with him, back to the room.

Events proceeded rather rapidly from there.

- - - -

“And you’re sure that this is only a request for Odaari to stand trial?” King Cyril of Odaali asked, for the second time.

Yetta Wheat, the Champion of Atunir asked, “It’s not about the Storm Prophecy?”

Erick said, “I even checked the Benevolent Sky five minutes ago, before I got here. The sky is clear; nothing is happening in Greensoil. There is no need to be worried about anything. This is why I came as ‘Ashes’; and not as myself. If something was truly wrong, then I would tell you.”

Yetta looked to Poi, asking, “Is that true?”

As Erick chuckled, taken aback by Yetta’s need to verify through multiple sources—

Poi easily said, “As far as we understand, Atunir wants the Kill and Exterminate Quest to be closed. However that happens is fine with her. I’ll be staying here to help with those needs, as the contact between Odaali and House Benevolence, and as a personal show of the force of this demand without Erick needing to be involved himself. Erick will be occupied elsewhere.”

Erick and Poi had decided that on their own not too long ago, and both of them were happy with that arrangement. Poi didn’t want to go die in the dungeon, and Erick didn’t want to see that happen. Erick was rather certain that he could protect himself from anything that a dungeon could throw at him, but he was less sure about protecting others.

“That is what Atunir has told me, too… I just needed to hear it from the Wizard on scene, too.” Yetta solidified her stance. “We will be glad to have you here, Poi; the kids love you.”

The four of them were in a Private space off to the side of Odaali Castle’s throne room. The sun was beginning to set over the high white walls of Kingdom Odaali outside, but there were no windows in this Private space to allow such a sight. It had taken Erick a little while to get to this meeting, and caused ‘Ashes’ true nature to be revealed to a few people in charge over at the Odaali Embassy in Greendale, but they had told Erick that they would keep his alternate persona in confidence. A lot more people knew about him visiting Odaali itself, however, because Erick was currently the Apparent King, and this was now an official meeting of nations.

The Viridian Throne would probably get involved later, but for now, this was simply House Benevolence interacting with Odaali.

Yetta and Cyril were both rather nervous and cautious at the beginning of this meeting, but Erick knew them both rather well, and he had even been a guest at their wedding, years ago. Cyril was no longer the crown prince, of blonde hair and pale, skinny features, who had been the Warder at Yetta's side when they challenged Ar’Kendrithyst, to kill Shade Planter. He was thicker, for his current duties were much more political than of an adventuring nature. Yetta was still a strong woman of dark skin and heavy braids, who worked with swords and shields every day that she wasn’t harvesting fields. Her eyes were still filled with the same bright yellow flames of divine fire, too.

Erick knew both of them well. He had only really visited once before, to see Yetta’s twin children crawl across the floor, and eat a celebratory meal with their little family, as an honored guest, but he checked in on them with Ophiel every now and then. From what Erick could not help but mana sense, Yetta was again pregnant with twins.

Cyril sighed a little, and then laughed. “Then this is good news, yes?”

“As good of news as you being pregnant again, Yetta.” Erick said, “Congratulations.”

Cyril smiled brightly—

Yetta’s cheeks heated a little, and then she put on a frown and tried to be serious with Erick, “Atunir has always told me that she wants this Denutha problem solved, however it can be solved, but the Viridian Throne always runs us around, never giving proper respect to the lives that were lost in the Daydropper disaster. Why has she involved you, though? That was never part of her guidance to me.”

Erick said, “I want something from her, and she wants to help me, so she’s giving me some minor tasks, and this is one of them. The other one is to go into the Gem Dungeon and check out the place as a normal delver, to check out her ideas for a Second Script.” He looked to Poi. “We might be going into at least the first floor together, after I check out the place myself, but Poi will be staying here as a representative of House Benevolence, for the Odaari case.”

Poi nodded.

Yetta’s shoulders relaxed. “Ahh. I see.”

Cyril turned almost jubilant. “That’s perfect, then! I’ll file a formal grievance and you can sign that paperwork, and maybe in two weeks we can even have a court date. They’re not going to do anything until the Feast is over and the Triumph of Light is one big vacation for everyone, but after that...” He smiled, saying, “Now, with you pressuring them, they might actually do something.”

Erick was only really confused about one thing, about this whole process so far, and so he said, “Last time this came up, Greendale tried to curry favor with me by offering me Denutha’s head, but I turned them down, saying she should have her day in court and be done with it one way or another. I never checked up on that, and never had the inclination to revisit this issue at all. But if you two had needed help to make this happen, then you could have asked me.”

Cyril smiled a little, his voice tainted with the barest bit of sarcasm as he said, “The Viridian King expressly told us not to get you involved with Odaari, for according to Grand King Darundi Raivo, this whole Odaari situation was his to command and control, and all that nonsense. But since you came to us, that’s different.”

Yetta was eager to move the conversation along, since nothing was exploding and nothing was happening right now, so she said, “That’s all for the paper pushers to figure out now, and I’m hungry.” She asked Erick and Poi, “Have you two eaten yet? We were about to sit down to dinner.” She said to Erick, “And the kids would love for Ophiel to play with them. Ritta asked for a stuffed Ophiel doll last Triumph and she got several.”

Ophiel perked up on Erick’s shoulder, turning to him with all of his eyes. “I play?”

Erick chuckled. “Go find Ritta and Trudy. We’re staying for dinner.”

Ophiel zipped away—

And Cyril said, “Excellent! Not to get too far into business with the day already done, and my pregnant wife needing to eat, but I heard your apprentice, Kiri, is trying to get her family out of some debts here, or something to that effect? Do you wish for me to step in with that?”

“I’ll let Kiri know the option is open, but she’s trying not to rely on my political power right now.” Erick looked to Poi as he said, “Poi would be able to help with that, though?”

Poi nodded.

Erick repeated, “Poi can help with that.”

Yetta smiled as she looked upon Poi, her eyes turning slightly predatory in a distant, golden sort of way. “Now Poi. Have you found a woman to settle down with, yet? You might have a Wizard willing to [Reincarnation] you younger whenever you want, but that doesn’t mean you should neglect your duty to the future.”

Erick smirked; he had almost forgotten that Yetta was all about Field and Fertility back when she was pregnant the first time.

Poi just paled a little, humming noncommittal as his sapphire scales turned ever so slightly less shiny.

Yetta grinned as she said, “You’ll be here for a while. Maybe someone might catch your eyes?”

“Maybe I might join Erick on two floors of that Gem Dungeon.”

Cyril laughed, slapping Poi on the back, saying, “You might find someone you like here in Odaali!” And then he added, “Gods, it was probably awful being in Greendale, wasn’t it.”

Poi softly smiled. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“Well maybe they’re better than I remember them being,” Cyril said, as the four of them walked toward the dining hall. “I have several non-human members of the court here at Odaali, and they all tell me horrible things about quite a few different nobles in Greendale. And I get told horrible things by those different nobles about my choice of courtiers all the time. It’s all kinda tense around here at the moment, but when is that ever not true. It’s probably part of why the Viridian King doesn’t want Odaali involved with its own justice against Odaari.”

Yetta grinned in a happy, vengeful sort of way, as she said, “But now that House Benevolence is involved, we’ll get our day in court, and so will Denutha.”

“She was my aunt, you know?” Cyril said, “And she helped to kill her own countrymen.”

Erick said, “Tell me about her; who she was before all that Daydropper and Halls of the Dead.”

Cyril breathed deep. As they entered the dining hall a nearby butler stepped out of the nearby kitchen space, into the room. Cyril looked to the man, and nodded. Soon, the butler was back in the kitchen and telling everyone there not to panic, but The Wizard was here for dinner. There was a little bit of a panic anyway, but soon enough, people came out of the kitchen carrying appetizers and drinks.

As Cyril sat down on his chair at the head of the table, a woman delivered him a drink at that exact moment. That server was a dragonkin maid of red scales and wearing a nice dress, and she delivered more drinks to everyone else at the table, quick and as professionally as she could.

Cyril began, “Aunt Denutha Odaari might have been my aunt, but mostly she was a branch family member who most people thought of as ‘aunty’. She was always a difficult sort of woman who liked her plants more than she liked her family, which was much more than she liked the Odaalis, probably because she was always something of a revolutionary… Which is what she ended up doing. Hard to say where her hatred started, but I remember several incidents involving plants and my father’s penchant for Fire Magics, which resulted in her desire to make her ‘babies’ fireproof...” His voice trailed away as he looked to the door to the private wing of the castle. “And that might be enough of that discussion for now, if you would oblige.”

Erick nodded—

The door to the private spaces of the castle opened and the laughter of children and Ophiel filled the air, along with a pair of nannies that looked upon their charges with calm joy. The rambunctious kids rapidly joined the dinner table, and they didn’t care at all about Erick or Poi or even their mom and dad, but they did want Ophiel to try out all the desserts that the Cooks knew how to make.

Soon, purpleberry and blueberry and red tarts exploded under Ophiel’s feathery ministrations, as everyone else ate, and little Ritta and Trudy laughed like only 3 year old children could.

- - - -

In the morning, Erick was introduced to a woman who would become the side of the prosecution against Denutha Odaari; an older human woman by the name of Ilulia Whitefield who was the royal barrister for many of Odaali’s legal cases. Ilulia spoke at length about the problems of Denutha Odaari, and of the issues with getting a court date. Eventually Erick signed some paperwork, solidifying his stance that he would be weighing in on this matter, and that he wanted a court date for Denutha Odaari to discuss her side of the events that led to the Daydropper, and the deaths of a third of Odaali’s people over a decade ago.

At the end of the meeting, Ilulia said, “It was a pleasure to speak with you, Wizard Flatt, but now I must disappoint both of us, for though Wizards work fast, the law is slow with this sort of thing. In addition, the Feast is happening tomorrow night and then there’s the Triumph, so we won’t get anywhere for at least 15 days, unless the Viridian King decides to weigh in himself, and he might, but we believe he will [Force Wall] us as much as he can. I ask you to allow the law to work as it is wont.”

Erick chuckled. “I won’t be doing any vigilantism here on Greensoil.”

Relieved, Ilulia turned a fraction toward Poi, saying, “Then if it is alright with you, I would begin some of the smaller workings with Mister Fulisade here. We’ve got lots to do.”

Poi nodded.

Erick asked Poi, “If you’re sure you don’t want to do the dungeon?”

Poi happily said, “I’m not dying today, thank you. Maybe when you’ve had your fun and you know how it works, I might join you.” He looked to Ilulia, asking, “Where shall we begin?”

Erick said, “Then if you will excuse me, I have a dungeon to check.”

Ilulia bowed deeply. Poi waved.

And Erick stepped through a [Gate], into Benevolence Itself.

After a quick change of clothes and a check on the sky (nothing new) he stepped through another [Gate], onto a Platform hovering over Greensoil, about 2900 kilometers northeast-east from Odaali. An invisible Ophiel floated close behind, and then took his place on ‘Ashes’s’ shoulder.

Erick asked him, “Do you want to be visible? You can if you can take another form.”

Ophiel wiggled his body; a ‘no’. He liked himself, and he could be invisible for a lot longer than this. He was very good at hiding.

Erick patted him, and then flew the Platform forward.

- - - -

The Gem Dungeon was one of the less popular Grand Dungeons of the world, but it was still a Grand Dungeon, and was still treated as such.

It was a compound, foremost, and like the Pit down in Storm’s Edge it had some monster roads leading to it, but this was Greensoil, and the only monsters coming into the dungeon from the outside were random slimes, or gremlins, or monsterized cats. The Gem Dungeon didn’t need massive monster roads to funnel any monsters. The Gem Dungeon just left some disguised side entrances open all across the nearby land, and monsters generally fell into those holes, trying to follow the mana.

The Gem Dungeon itself was one central building that looked like a diamond-encrusted castle, surrounded by several satellite structures. A pub-carriage rail line on the southern side of the compound led all the way past the farmlands of Greendale, past the horizon to the south, where anyone who wanted to could step through the Dungeon Guildhouse inside Greendale and come out over here. It was a bit of a trip, but it wasn’t a bad trip at all. Most people came in that way every morning, but a lot of out-of-towners took their own transport, flying into the place on Platforms, to land at the Platform Station on the north east side of the main building.

One just had to stay above the Denials blanketing the land until you got to the dungeon itself, or else you might find yourself falling out of the sky.

As the wind whipped past Erick’s face, he stood firm on his Platform, guiding the soft-blue colored Force construct onto the public landing zone. A small team of delvers left on their own Platform, but aside from them, it was just Erick and a sleepy dungeon guide. The guide was currently slumped over his desk, where the hallway to the main structure joined with the Platform Station that Erick had just landed on.

At Erick’s approach the man woke up.

Erick tried being personable, “They must work you hard around here.”

The man blinked a few times. “Ah. Who are—” He rapidly turned professional, as if he realized he shouldn’t be sleeping in public, or something to that effect. “Welcome to the Gem Dungeon. How can I help you?” And then he looked ‘Ashes’ over, and came back unsure of everything. “Are you here to delve?”

“I am here to delve,” Erick responded, though he certainly didn’t look it.

No weapons and no armor, but his clothes were of a rather solid make.

The guide nodded, almost forlornly. “Ahh… You know you won’t get rich here, right? Literally none of the things that work in there will work out here. The Gem Dungeon, also known as the Glittering Depths, and Ironcrystal, is a Second Script dungeon. It’s about learning new magics under a different Script; not about making people rich.”

“I’m aware of some of that, but not much of it at all. None of the specifics. I’m still interested.”

The guide perked up. “Well okay then. Uhh…” He got up off his chair, saying, “I’m Guide Blacksmith. A pleasure to meet you…?”

“Ashes Woodfield.”

“Mister Woodfield, then.” Blacksmith walked down the hallway, saying, “Follow me, please.”

Erick followed.

Blacksmith led him out of the Platform Station, to the grounds surrounding the main building.

The central structure of the Gem Dungeon was a collection of iron-colored crystal, shaped mostly into a castle. A lot of people were sitting or standing around, talking to each other about monsters and about spellwork, and though Erick wanted to listen, every little thing he heard made him want to go inside the Gem Dungeon even more.

He let Blacksmith say what he wanted to say, though. Hearing someone actually explain what was going on would be better than listening to everyone talk about random things.

Blacksmith began, “The main entrance is right in there, and you’ll find delvers all over the place. We’ve got leaderboards inside for depth distance and more besides, which you’ll get to see when you go in there, but before you go, I’m a dungeon guide—” He tapped the pin affixed to his coat; it was a Dungeon Guild badge, but nicer. Not every place had guides, but this place did. “—And I can almost fulfill the role of a Registrar of the Script; not in function, but in information. Any questions you have. Any concerns about how anything works. I can tell you all of that. But I know most people don’t like to listen to lengthy explanations so I’ll leave it for you to come to me or any of my fellows if you wish to know how everything works. We’re a lot more open than Registrars of Rozeta, here at the Gem Dungeon.”

Erick was already looking around the entire compound, and every question he had he could mostly figure out from context and from the small words spoken about this or that, here or there. The largest clue that this place was not normal, was that almost everyone here wore ‘ironcrystal’ bracelets, or necklaces, or belts, and all of them had differently-colored gems socketed into those ironcrystal items.

The richer-looking teams with their nice clothes and their healthy faces, and their small laughs over beer or breakfast, served at a cafeteria to the side, even had staffs of ironcrystal, or wands. One particularly impressive woman who was probably a Juggernaut based on her muscles had a full chainmail tunic made of ironcrystal that shimmered upon her upper body like a layer of diamonds in the sun. A large shield held on her back, with three large hunks of red crystal embedded in the front, like someone had temporarily made the crystal malleable and then shoved the red crystals into it.

Ashes asked the Guide, “A small overview would be good, if you could.”

Blacksmith smiled. “I would love to.” And then he held up his hand, and began to lightshape images as he spoke. The first image was of an ironcrystal hunk. “This stuff you see all around us is a simple blend of iron and carbon, and this is what happens to it when it is exposed to the real world. It’s called ‘ironcrystal’ over here. But.” The ironcrystal image shifted, like an ice cube melting in zero gravity, the lump of crystal turned into a sphere of shimmering iron. “But this is its true form, inside the dungeon. It’s called meta-iron, but most people call it metiron. This is what you use to interface with spellwork. Find a hunk inside and shape it into a form you want, like a wand or a bracelet, depending on the spellwork you want to put inside, and then use. Armor makes for good defensive constructions, weapons make for good offensive constructions.

“The metiron will naturally absorb mana from you at rather fixed rates depending on your own production of mana, which is augmented by however much natural mana you produce while inside the dungeon. We don’t have access to your Script self, though, so we estimate your production through trials inside, which is how you increase your mana production to then stick that mana into the metirons.

“To use that mana, you have to find or make a spell into an item called a meta-diamond, and then you have to stick the meta-diamond, which most people call metamonds, into the metiron, and then you can use that spell, based upon the amount of mana that the metiron is able to absorb into itself.

“The bigger the hunk of metiron, the larger your well.

“Now to get spells themselves, you have to complete challenges inside the dungeon, and you can either be rewarded with a very basic metamond, based on how you completed the challenge, or you can make your own spells using a spell creation tome. Most people opt for the tomes, because the tomes teach you how to cast higher-powered magic, and if you can manage to cast that spell yourself in one of the specialty rooms provided to you by the tome itself, then you can make that spell into a spell gem, and take it with you outside of the creation room.

“Now that might seem complicated and different from spellwork here on Veird, but it’s really not.

“This whole thing is designed to show people how to make magic in low-mana environments; other worlds, or even space itself.

“In places like that, you would have a mana-collector and then a spellwork-activator, which is already sort of what happens with the Script right now. But this would be a way to do all of that without the Script. Even the part where people make their own magic in the tome-room would be possible outside of the Script, on new worlds where mana was thin; all you’d need to do was make a room of antirhine and dense metals or other sorts of specialty spellwork to up the concentration of mana inside that room, and then you could use that denser magic to manually make new ‘spell gems’.

“We prefer the official term of ‘metamonds’, though. Not spell gems.

“This whole system is basically a simplified form of the Script, by a great deal.” Blacksmith closed his hand and ended the minor lightshow, finishing with, “And we look forward to what spells you make and what you can do in a world with a whole lot less magic than the one we have here.”

Erick was enthralled.

With a slight excitement in his voice, Erick asked, “Where did the idea for this dungeon come from? It’s a lot different than the other ones I’ve visited.”

Blacksmith lit with calm joy. “That’s a good question! No one ever asks the good questions. It actually came from when The Wizard fought Anarchy and went out into space beyond the Script. Some guys got to thinking about how to work with that horror show of no-mana he told the world about, and now we’re here.”

Erick nodded slowly. He had been afraid of that, but also very excited. “So it’s going to be like stepping into space?”

That supreme emptiness. The Lack of Everything. The pain.

Erick shuddered.

Blacksmith noticed. “Not as bad as I heard from the story. Cores don’t explode inside the Gem Dungeon from the mana pressure. Otherwise all the monsters would die! Can’t have that.”

… Erick hadn’t ‘exploded’ back then, but it had been a near thing. Sometimes stories got exaggerated in the retelling, so he let it slide. Besides, he wasn’t The Wizard right now. He was simply ‘Ashes’. It wouldn’t make sense to truly ask all the suddenly important questions he had about how this place worked at all. He loved magic, and he had to know the Rules of this place, and how it all worked entirely, and if it really was a good approximation of what a no-mana world would actually be like, but he wasn’t going to go break his cover this soon, and definitely not by asking too-perfect of questions.

Yggdrasil needed to exist in 0-mana space when he got older, or at least his seeds did—

Erick had a lot of sudden questions.

The place was safe enough to delve on the regular, as evident by all the people standing around, getting ready for the day of delving, and by those constantly walking in and out of the main building. And it had monsters inside. So Erick wasn’t worried about his own core fracturing.

All Erick really wanted to do right now was to get inside that dungeon, and see what Atunir and some humans of Greensoil thought of, when they thought of 0-mana space.

Rather more like low-mana, though. Not in a true vacuum.

Erick asked Blacksmith, “Any words of advice before I head inside?”

“Lots! You’re a great listener.” Blacksmith happily said, “But I won’t hold you up with too much of an explanation. The dungeon is free to delve for anyone who shows up, as all Grand Dungeons need to be to retain that designation. There are lines and such in other places, but not here, and that’s because nothing that you do inside the Glittering Depths translates out here at all. All the ironcrystal you see on the people out here? All of that is just to show off how far they’ve gotten inside, and nothing more, since it’s useless iron-diamond when outside of the dungeon. Only the stuff that you actually earn will turn back into metiron inside the dungeon, though, so don’t think about breaking off a bit of the castle to make your first levels go faster. There’s a reason we have a castle made of the stuff, and that’s to deter would-be thieves by showing them how little it's all worth.

“And that’s another thing: Some of the people here have fake ironcrystal, trying to make themselves look stronger than they are. But it's a small community and those sorts of lies get called out fast.

“The metiron and metamonds you get inside the dungeon are yours and yours alone. No one can take them from you and use them themselves, but they can be destroyed, so take care of them.

“And that’s it! —Well. I could talk a lot longer, but you should try out a delve. All of the spells you have active will remain that way, but they’ll erode when you get deeper, and everything except the meta-casting system is blocked once you step into the real parts of the dungeon. The first floor is more like a tutorial, where everything feels mostly normal; there’s not even a mana-pressure gradient on the first floor. There is an actual tutorial, though, if you feel like it. From there, it’s as deep as you want to go, with Script-assistance failing completely at floor 5, where the real learning ‘outside of the Script’ truly starts.” Blacksmith added, “And that’s where the gold starts growing, too. Everything a person needs to survive exists on the upper floors, of course, but actual money is to be made on floor 5 and below.”

“… I thought you couldn’t make a living here?”

With a happy voice, Blacksmith said, “Most people barely make it past the second floor. I have a good feeling that you might actually go all the way, though, for that thought came to me in a dream right before you appeared, and I trust those sorts of visions.”

Erick paused. “… A vision, eh?”

“Atunir smiles upon the Glittering Depths, delver, and we are ever in her service, even in our dreams.” Blacksmith gave one final, “Good luck!” and then he walked back toward the tunnel leading toward the Platform Station.

“Well then...” Erick said to himself, as he turned and gazed upon the grey crystal castle, rising up from the bare stone ground. For a long moment he stared at the grey crystal edifice. And then he put one foot in front of the other. As he neared the open gates to the main courtyard and spied the black portal hovering, unprotected in the center of the castle, Erick felt as if he was floating. “Time to learn some magic ‘outside of the Script’, eh? That could be fun.”

Actually, now that Erick had heard about what the Gem Dungeon was truly trying to accomplish…

Magic outside of the Script, like what he had supposedly done to drag him and Jane here to Veird, eh?

Well that sort of experimentation sounded... Really awesome.