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Clarice rapidly said, “Rebecca is the shadowcat from the first floor.”

Erick felt unmoored, suddenly lost. Fyuri was here, in Utopia? Or at least her shadow was? A lot of little facts suddenly lined up for Erick, and the truth of Clarice’s declaration became easy to verify in retrospect. Or maybe that was Erick’s sudden rage clouding and cloying to his thoughts.

All Erick could really say was, “Oh.”

Clarice looked at Erick through her slitted helmet, her eyes wide and reverential, as she said, “And you’re the Summoner.”

“… What?”

Clarice rapidly released the power in her hand, the displaced-reality-shards evaporating, as the tool in her hands slipped into the cuff of her armor. And then her full silver platemail turned semi-liquid and she stepped to the side, leaving the armor and its cape behind. The armor walked over to the corner of the room, and Erick could not mana sense it anymore, nor could he mana sense Clarice. Too many things were almost happening too fast, but Erick kept up—

As Clarice rapidly said, “Sorry for threatening you with murder because this changes everything. You need to leave the Iron Bandits right now.” She repeated, “You have to leave them. You can’t be near them. They’re already trying to control you—”

“Stop. Stop.” Erick softly said, “Stop with the ultimatums. Did you actually make tea? We could drink it while we talked. Or did you just plan on murdering me even after you invited me into your home?”

“… It’s not murder. It’s violent displacement and ejection.”

“Would a [True Resurrection] be involved?”

“Well yes. I would have churned through whatever Saves you had and then the dungeon would have—”

Erick sighed deeply, and that was enough for Clarice to stop talking. Erick said, “Please make the tea, and let us talk.” He gave a disapproving look, as he added, “I know you know about Elemental Mystical and probably Fae, too. Fae, especially, follows rather strict rules that are outside of any user’s ability to control, least of all little ‘humans’.”

Erick was goading Clarice now, because he was too furious to be the only one left angry.

His goad hit its mark.

Clarice, as a master of illusions, would have easily been able to see through Erick’s illusions. From there it would be a few small leaps of logic to conclude what Erick could see that Clarice could see. And since she had concluded that Erick was a dragon, it was easy for Erick to conclude that Clarice was a dragon, too.

Clarice fully dropped the act. “Oh fuck you, too. You benevolence dragons think you’re so much better than the rest of us. I know perfectly well how to use Elemental Fae! I’ve been using the damned element for the last 200 years!”

Now that seemed more like the Clarice who had first appeared to Erick.

The quiet one was the lie.

The loud one was closer to the truth.

Erick narrowed his eyes. “Not even going to try to lie even more to me? To pretend to be a human even longer?”

“... You didn’t fully know, did you.”

“I guessed correctly, and you confirmed, yes.”

Clarice frowned. Then she went to the kitchen. “I’ll make the tea.”

Erick saw a teapot fill with water from the sink, and a bunch of tea leaves float through the air. Maybe this time that’s what was actually happening. He asked, “Where are you from?”

“I’m not a normal dragon, if that’s what you’re worried about. No chance of the Curse activating here.”

Erick breathed out. “Okay. Good. No worries there, then.”

“I’m a Fae Dragon. What were you before you got changed?”

“A Free Dragon.”

A grunt of disapproval. “Well. I can work with you if you can work with me. I imagine you can, since you went and got yourself turned into a Wizard’s pet. What happened? Finally lost your willingness to be yourself?”

“Oh now that is too much. Are you always like this? No wonder you’re a hermit, and that I passed you on the Decoration board.”

A teapot clunked hard onto the stone counter. “If you knew anything about anything, then you would have witnessed that I hit a block on delve depth, not personal power. I got to 149 all by myself!”

“Please no alliteration, miss Fae Dragon.”

“Fuck you, Ashes.”

“No thank you; I have a boyfriend.”

Clarice came out of the kitchen holding two mugs, a big pot of tea, and a deep frown. “I wouldn’t want to make eggs with you anyway.”

“Let’s move on, please. So what the fuck do you mean Rebecca is the shadowcat?” Erick almost shouted the last words, but he pulled himself back at the last moment. He breathed deep. He calmly said, “That is very disturbing news to hear.”

Clarice’s frown softened as she set down the tea onto the table, and then she sat down herself into the chair across from Erick. “I’m surprised you still want tea from me, knowing I’m a Fae Dragon.”

“I’m surprised you think that matters to me, or that I would be powerless before you. How about this: You don’t try anything on me, and I won’t try anything on you, and we can work together to figure out these memories of the Old Cosmology we have both deeply experienced… I have no idea what to do about Rebecca and I’m way too agitated to think too deeply about what to do, so I will not act outside of full information. Let us proceed with the full information, please.”

“… That is a fair bargain.” Clarice poured tea for both of them. Steam swirled into the air as the scent of oranges and flowers filled the air. It was a relaxing and yet energetic scent. “Since you have told me your tale, I will tell you mine, but first… Do you know all about all five historical levels?”

“No. I skipped 3, 4, and 5.”

“You didn’t spy on people talking about them, too?”

“I know the general shape of those floors. I want to hear about your experience.”

Clarice grunted. “The third floor is ‘Destroy the Siphon’. The fourth floor is ‘The Mountain Under Siege’— Do I need to explain those?”

“How about you take down the hostility about 4 levels.”

Clarice frowned. “You’re the one that came after me, Ashes, with your self and then with your revelations.”

“I came at you peacefully, and you resorted to threats of murder as fast as you could.”

“That’s what a human would normally do when confronted by a dragon!” Clarice paused, then said, “But… Okay. Look. I’m… Sorry about the threats.”

“I appreciate it.”

“… So floor 3 is about 40 years after floor 2. On floor 3, there’s a Siphon that you have to attack and disable. The main threat to overcome is the complete loss of atmospheric mana near the Siphon, which drains you dry, and you’re running on dreams while you attempt to take it down, and kill the Siphoner. I didn’t have any experiences there.

“Floor 4 is The Mountain Under Siege, and it’s a cooperative effort by the Mountain… Which gets mentioned as a part of floor 2, which you probably heard?”

“I did hear of that, but I wasn’t about to go traipsing through the forest when there were enemies around. So I killed the Riamite army instead, and then cleared the Plains base.”

Clarice’s eyes widened a little. “Yeah. That’d be tough to do, especially with how few resources you can attain down there on your own. But I suppose you made your resources, so there’s no trouble there.” Clarice added, “As a note, though. I could have made better weapons, too, but I didn’t want to get too noticed by everyone… I have not made a whole lot of true friends down here and Rebecca… is a terrible person. She’s a Riamite who—”

“Please, Clarice.” Erick said, “We will get to that later.”

“… Sorry. Distracted.

“Back to the floors.

“The Mountain Under Siege is a city that needs to be rescued. It’s a week-long floor on average, and you have to kill wave after wave of monsters and monsterized Riamite forces. That whole mess occurs about 20 years after floor 3. It’s also the first major appearance of the Summoner… The Summoner is an NPC who calls down obliterating light to kill most of the red army. A lot of people complete the floor by standing back and saving the Summoner from assassins, until he has enough time to wipe out the enemy all by himself.” Clarice breathed deep. “I had my first experience of the Old Cosmology on that fourth floor, with the Summoner. I was with my team at the time, so that first viewing wasn’t that powerful, but it was what prompted me to begin solo delving.

“Tom and the others already know this but not many others do. So I would ask you to keep this to yourself.”

Erick nodded, mentally tucking away the fact that Clarice probably originally delved with Tom and his team, or at least that’s what she was implying.

Clarice said, “In the dungeon, at the end of the siege, the Summoner raises a staff and calls down Light upon the enemy. In the memory, I was a child, maybe 15, who watched as the Summoner who was just a man, stood on the tallest tower of the Mountain, shooting endless streams of Bolts at the enemy, each death sending up a streamer of golden light into the air, each streamer fueling more Bolts from the staff until it looked like he was shooting pure obliterating light.” She paused. “I went to the fifth floor by myself because by that time… It doesn’t matter.

“The fifth floor is the Calling of the Goddess.

“In the dungeon, I raced around to various ritual sites, ensuring they were able to function by clearing out the occupying riamite forces, and guiding Atunir’s priests to make those sites into strongholds, all while Riam prepared its own ritual sites…” Clarice paused. “Do you know what the goal of the Riamites was, all throughout that period of time in Insten’s history?”

Erick said, “I have some guesses. I know that in the first floor, Riam might have been contacting evil gods in order to rise to further power. I did not get the full brush of history… But I had memories of a decade spent between Riam and Insten, moving with Fyuri, and Fyuri was a High Adjudicator. And they were all into some rather terrible things. Human sacrifice...” Erick looked up and away, as he tried to remember. And then he realized he didn’t want to. Not fully. He turned back toward Clarice. “They threw the people from Insten into Siphons in order to turn them into mana which then became land and other resources over on Riam. They didn’t start with people, though. They started with taxes. Then they moved on to rules in the cities of Insten.

“The taxes became food and goods and other material things... And monsters, when they could get them. Riam hunted all of Insten’s monsters all the time; all of our Sacred Beasts and otherwise. They took everything they could from Insten, constricting what the people were allowed to know and how the people were allowed to fight back, and the people constricted. Society changed.

“And when Riam started reaping people, which of course they did, Insten barely fought back.” Erick said, “But as for their ultimate goal… it was the ultimate goal of all tyrants, right? To have control, and since other people were by definition of being ‘other people’ not under their control, they tried to control them anyway through death.

“Even Riam summoning an Evil God was just about Riam being in control.”

Clarice listened, her eyes focused hard. When Erick was done, she said, “They wanted to make a god, and with that god, they would control their section of the universe.”

Erick nodded, as Clarice confirmed the worst possible theory Erick had had.

“Could have been a Wizard, actually.” Clarice said, “I’ve talked to others and… Well. The trajectory is that Riam wanted to make an ultimate power. The exact nature of that power is up for debate.”

Erick slowly nodded. “… Please continue.”

Clarice breathed, then said, “In the dungeon of the fifth floor, I cleared out land and raised towers and made ritual spots in order to connect with other ritual spots already made by others. I cleared out Riam’s forces from some. I cleared monsters from others. I made holy places by picking up a toppled stone epitaph and righting it against the wall.

“Eventually I killed the final boss of the final tower and completed the floor.

“In the memory, I only assaulted one tower, with the direct help of the Summoner, and I was but one girl of a hundred he was ferrying around to… Many different places.

“Atunir was not yet present on Insten, or Riam, because the Riamites were actually preventing her from descending, because they were trying to create their own god, and that required space; a displacement of godly power, to allow for something else to fill that void.

“Then came the ritual.

“I was there, at one of those ritual sites. It was a lonely thing, out in the middle of the Emptying, rising a kilometer into a mana-void sky. It was also absolutely filled with Riamites. These days we would name those people as Blood Mages, and Desecration Priests, and Destruction Mages. That land was filled with horror and sacrifice and death, and it was one of the foundation towers that blocked Atunir, and nurtured the development of an Evil God.

“I don’t think the Evil God ever got a name… If it did, I do not desire to know it.”

Erick felt his heart ache as Clarice spoke, as he imagined what she had [Witness]ed. His core flickered with white lightning inside. A tiny white spark escaped from his fingers as he touched his mug, leaving a little black mark on the otherwise white ceramic.

Clarice continued, “I was a priestess of Atunir, guided by the Summoner to that bleak tower in the middle of the Emptying, where nothing survived except for hope and well-laid ritual materials. The Summoner killed absolutely everyone, and then re-consecrated the land with a tap of his golden staff. Blood carvings in the walls and floors turned into brown dirt. Cages that were filled with monsters for sacrifice suddenly transformed into mana and vanished into that staff. And then the Summoner had me kneel at the top of the tower, where everything untoward had been transformed into loam, and nothing evil remained.

“He asked if I gave myself willingly.

“I said yes.

“He tapped me on the head with his staff. Divine golden light flowed into me, and I went into a trance.

“I remained there, on my knees in brown dirt, there at the top of that tower, praying.

“I do not know how long I prayed, for time did not seem to matter. This was part of the plan. The Summoner was setting up a hundred volunteers in various parts of Insten and Riam, whereupon he would layer us with divine power. It was a plan a decade in the making, that would already take advantage of the horrors Riam had already built. It would turn their machine against them. That plan worked.

“I died. I ascended. And Atunir descended onto Insten.

“The world of Insten was turned into a lush, fertile world, with the tower of my death becoming one grand tree amongst a multitude.

“And Riam was utterly consumed, for the Summoner had reversed the ritual, and done to Riam what they were about to do to us. Ten billion souls, consumed, and the land they lived on, to give back to Insten what had been taken from us.”

Clarice finished.

She sipped her tea. Her hands were shaking a little.

Erick was freaking out a little, too, so that was probably why—

Clarice looked to the left of Erick, her eyes going wide.

… Erick slowly looked to the left.

His staff was floating there. The Staff of Divine Absolution that he had gotten on floor two, and had left at home. It was here. It had followed him. And it was floating, untouched, the whole thing carved up with words of all kinds in unknown languages, while the prismatic white gem at the top seemed to glow faintly gold around the edges. The whole silver staff had a golden sheen to it, as though it was floating in a field of golden wheat, that gold reflecting on its silver surface.

Erick touched it, and his Benevolence sparked white as he touched his weapon. He wasn’t quite sure why he said it, but he said, “You can go back home. Thank you for coming.”

The staff dipped in the air, and then vanished in a flicker of gold.

Erick looked to Clarice, whose eyes were wide as they could be. Erick said, “I would speak on the Riamite situation here in the Glittering Depths now.”

“And I would like to speak of you being The Summoner!” Clarice jabbed a finger toward the air where the staff had been. “Because I did not do that! And I didn’t see you do that either!”

“Obviously the staff did it,” Erick concluded.

“You were the one who sacrificed me! And now we’re both back here, and we’re both dragons, with you tied to some new Benevolence and me tied to the old, and now we’re fighting the Riamites again!” Clarice said, “Time is an ever repeating loop, AND WE ARE IN A LOOP.”

Clarice realized she was yelling and halfway out of her chair. She pulled back. She sat down. Embarrassment briefly clouded her features. And then came stone solid resolve.

Meanwhile, Erick was freaking out for what were likely very different reasons.

A long time ago, or maybe just a few years or weeks ago, Quilatalap had said to Erick that Xoat was often spoken about in the Old Cosmology, as some unknown savior of people, who came in with the crisis, and who left when it was done, either through death or through disappearance. Quilatalap had never put much stock in those stories because he had never put much stock in the idea of Xoat existing at all, except in the way that Erick considered the Big Bang to have been a real thing that probably happened. And then Erick came into Quilatalap’s life. It was that Shadow’s Feast, twelve years ago, that really did it for Quilatalap. Back when Fairy Moon spoke of the creation of the Old Cosmology, where her Daughter plucked a spaceman from another world and dropped him into an Endless Dark, and created a universe filled with life.

That life sometimes spawned old memories.

Memories of being Xoat, and of changing everything.

That was the primary tenet of modern day Xoatism, and Erick had, of course, seen and heard all the ways in which people were tying him to that mythical figure of the Old Cosmology. It was ridiculous, to Erick. But then again, he had ‘invented’ [Reincarnation], and given that to this world of Veird.

Erick didn’t believe he was Xoat. He was just a guy, in the right place at the right time, with the right amount of power to help when he could.

Softly, in the still of the wake of Clarice’s eruption, Erick quietly said, “We’re not in a loop. We’re in a new time. A new place. With new opportunities able to be made, and taken. There is no such thing as a loop, Clarice. There are the memories we hold, and our ability to take those lessons and craft a new time, and a new place, in this present. Even if we might be seeing figments of the past, we are still who we are.”

Clarice’s eyes went wide. Her eyes teared. She whispered, “That’s what the Summoner said to me, too.”

Erick’s heart pounded. “Clarice. It is insane to think we’re the— what? The [Reincarnation]s of those dead people? We are not that.”

Clarice laughed a little as she wiped tears out of her eyes. “What’s a little insanity among dragons, eh?”

“Clarice.”

“Fine!” Clarice composed herself. “We’re not exactly that which came before. Maybe we’re just a nugget of mana that managed to survive from there to here, and get reborn because of our own minor Wizardries, made larger by the major Wizardry of Melemizargo and Atunir combined.” She laughed. “We’re just elementals! Manifested from Ar’Cosmos! Ha—” And then she stared at Erick. “I need you to do the fifth floor. Maybe if you do, then you can uncover my name. If you uncover my name then maybe I’ll regain those memories! The full ones. It’s happened before! Marii’s name is practically stuck in the dungeon core as ‘Marii’, and every new one that people drag out of the depths is a copy of Marii, with the same memories as the other ones.”

Erick instantly said, “Absolutely not. I am not doing that.”

And then Clarice got a twinkle of hatred in her eyes.

She had already picked out a way to take Erick down if she needed to, and she was thinking about doing it, because if Erick wasn’t going to do what she wanted, then she was going to make him.

Erick realized what he had done.

And Clarice suddenly laughed.

Erick slammed a fist on the table, sending a wild crack through the wood as he roared, “YOU WILL NOT TELL FYURI HER NAME!”

Clarice stilled, narrowing her eyes, and then she rethought something. She softened.

Erick repeated, softer now, “You will not tell Fyuri her name.”

“… It was only a passing thought— No. Stop. I see you disbelieving me, but I need you to believe me, because I believe you, implicitly. I don’t even care who you really are, Ashes. I know the kind of man you are instead. And I might have fucked up with…” Clarice said, “I fucking hate Rebecca and every single Riamite. But I’m not going to actually unleash a real Riamite on this world. Not after what I’ve already seen the Riamites capable of doing when they last got up to their shit.

“I want your help to oust them from power and to turn them over to Greendale for execution; however it happens I do not care. I just want them gone. And this means Rebecca, too.

“Because there is absolutely no way that they are not behind this newest string of demonic murders happening in Greendale right now. If I can prove it, then they all vanish from this slice of heaven here in Atunir’s Dark.” Clarice frowned. “But I can’t prove it, because Rebecca is too skilled at… everything. And her record of cooperation with Greensoil is impeccable and she controls the Iron Bandits and all the dungeon masters cover for her, all the time.”

Erick did not believe that Clarice wouldn’t tell Rebecca her real—

“Rebecca probably already knows her real name, Ashes.” Clarice said, “I was just having a passing moment of what I know to be unachievable joy. I would love to see her implode with her True Name, but… I know Rebecca, and I know the Riamites.” She stared at Erick, saying, “But since she for sure already knows her name, then she’s already exactly the horrible person you know her to be. You should have no problem killing her for real, a third time.”

“… You don’t know that. You’re guessing.”

“In my experience it is better to err on the side of caution against Rebecca, because she is practically a fairy when it comes to knowing shit she should not know.”

Erick frowned… Then he realized something important. He looked up at the air. “Can the dungeon see you in here?”

“Theoretically, yes, but actually no. I am very good at making illusions, Ashes, and at seeing through them.” Clarice’s bright amber eyes briefly shifted to Springtime swirls of pastel color, with slits instead of pupils; dragon eyes. And then her eyes shifted back to normal amber. “Your illusions could be a lot better, but I doubt that really matters at this point. Everyone who knows anything down here knows you’re a dragon, and they know I’m a dragon, too.”

Erick frowned. “I’m not interested in making better illusions, but I am interested in whatever [True Sight] shenanigans you have figured out here inside the empty manaspheres.”

“I’m not trading magic tips with you….” Clarice leaned back in her chair. “… But I suppose that one is quite crucial to know going forward, and you went and sucked the Wizard for power, becoming Benevolence yourself. So you won’t be as much of a bitch to work with as a normal Free Dragon.”

Erick leveled a disappointed glare at Clarice.

And Clarice smirked, giggling. “Oh fine! I want to oust the Riamites from power. I want you to help me. I will grant you this [True Sight] knowledge now, and you will officially become my ally in the overthrowing of all current Riamite interests from the Glittering Depths. In doing so, I imagine we’d solve the demonic murders happening in Greendale, and the Inquisitors will stop bothering me, and you.” She added, “You weren’t the only one they bothered that day, when they were camped outside the dungeon entrance.”

Erick stared. “This is not my life down here, Clarice. I am not getting overly involved. So state all your concerns now, so I can know the true measure of your desires. I will decide my involvement past that; not you.”

Clarice instantly said, “I want you to go to the fifth floor and [Witness] all of that to see if you can discover my Old Cosmology name.”

Erick thought for a moment, then he said, “Perhaps all the bad Riamites were purged that last time when they ran afoul of Greendale, and all we have left are normal people—”

“This is not a redemption scenario, you soft-scaled Benevolence bastard.” Clarice said, “Rebecca only pretended to spearhead the anti-Riamite collection teams down here after their whole operation was compromised. She was cutting her losses, for sure. After the story you told me there is no way you believe she isn’t capable of doing that exact thing! Fyuri, the Head Adjudicator, is Rebecca Fellhorn, and they are both beyond redemption.”

“… I am very furious right now, and I am trying to remain calm. Everything is happening too much right now. So here’s what is going to happen. You are going to tell me this [True Sight] magic. And then I’m going to go away, and I’ll come back to you some other day.”

“Fair. I agree to that.” Clarice said, “If you don’t return in a week I am telling Fyuri her name in public.”

“… Ten days, then.”

Clarice nodded. “The secret to [True Sight] in a manaless atmosphere is Wizardry. You have to change your core to make it so that you can see magical effects all the time, through whatever medium you can sense. Instead of needing to open yourself to the mana to meditate and mana sense, you open yourself to Particle Magic, too, and all the myriad other ways that the world and magic creates all sorts of illusions and lies.” Clarice said, “That’s not something that is achievable except through brute Wizardly strength, and the ability to take reality and substitute your own Reality.”

“… Of course it’s Wizardry,” Erick sighed. And then Erick stood, and said, “It was a pleasure to meet you. I need to be elsewhere now—”

Clarice rapidly said, “Look. Ashes. I’m sorry I’m a bitch. You don’t have to run… This stuff is scaring me, too. I’m not usually this deep into Wizardry or any of that crap. It’s not healthy for one’s lifespan.”

Erick nodded. “I’m not vanishing, but I do need to go away… See you in a few days, I think. I don’t know. Several days. Don’t… Don’t confront Rebecca. Please. Just leave her alone for now.”

Clarice stood. She nodded. “I’ll do that. See you when I see you.”

Erick left. He did not run, but he did rush away.

And then he started running.

- - - -

Rebecca watched as one rookie battled another rookie in the arena of the Iron Bandits compound.

She was judging them for competency, here in this public space, where on the other side of the arena four other people fought with each other to hone their own skills. Those guys on the other side of the field? Garoi, Bairu, Harvy, and Nicchole; two practiced, longstanding veterans in the Iron Bandits, and two new people. If Rebecca didn’t already know who was who it would have been hard for anyone else to guess which ones were the veterans and which were the rookies; they were rather all skilled.

These two people displaying their skills for Rebecca were less than skilled.

She told herself that these two people were fine for their level of expertise, but that was just it. ‘Their level of expertise’ was rather lacking—

One of the kids faltered his spear as the other came in for a strike—

“Stop,” Rebecca said, and the two ‘combatants’ stopped. Though the one with the faltered spear had almost wanted to strike at the other guy, due to being shown up almost completely and not liking it. “You’re both not qualified to create a team under the Iron Bandits. You will die, repeatedly out there, and we won’t have your deaths on our heads. You may return for another trial at your request, but not until a month has passed.”

Both men wanted to fight Rebecca on that, and she almost wanted them to try it.

But they both realized the almost-error of their ways, and bowed, saying, “We thank you for your time, Miss Fellhorn!”

Rebecca said, “Good luck growing, gentlemen.”

And then she turned and went back to the rest of her work, which was mostly paperwork—

Or she would have, but a runner came up to her and handed her a note.

She read the note, sighed, and then went to go find Tom, who was two streets over at a local bar.

Apparently their #1 delver center was attempting to warm his bed with fellow delvers. This was not usually a problem. But this time it was. Rebecca headed off to crush that trouble before it could begin.

It wasn’t hard to find the giant muscular man. He was in the bar, exactly where the note had said he was (bless those people Rebecca assigned to keep watch over him), getting on with some guys and gals, and trying to bed at least two of them, but he’d take all of them if they let him. The black-haired man and the blond woman were the only really receptive ones, though, unless Rebecca’s eyes were deceiving her, and they likely weren’t. Rebecca would have made a note to keep an eye on the situation and find out their names later, but that was unnecessary, since Rebecca recognized them through their disguises, just as the observers had noticed, too.

She couldn’t let this one slide.

Tom was oblivious to the danger he was in, as usual.

Rebecca pulled her shadows back from the walls, her sight returning to her, and then stepped into the bar and made herself known.

Tom instantly saw her. He smiled brightly and shouted, “Come drink with us, Rebecca!”

The man was slightly drunk, or else he would have been more scared of her, as he had unfortunately been these last years. Honestly, she loved it when he wasn’t scared; she wished he was like this all the time. Some people didn’t like the idea of her being a boss monster from the first floor, for whatever reason, and though Rebecca was far away from those old roots of being born in this dungeon, some people, once they found out, were forever afraid of her. Tom was one of those people. He had gotten better for a while, and then the Riamite situation happened, and now he was afraid for other reasons.

He didn’t like people who went for political power, which was understandable given his background.

But Rebecca wanted to be the power behind Utopia, and she would not be denied. If only those fucking Riamites hadn’t set her plans back so fucking far! If only she wasn’t painted with the same brush as them! She had been happy to hand the offenders off to Greendale, though, for that was the right thing to do, and it created a very valuable power vacuum in the city, and Rebecca had taken over that vacuum.

Of course, now Rebecca was ousted from the Riamite community here in Utopia, which was less than ideal, since they still had a lot of power, and they organized like sailors trying to engineer their way off of a sinking ship… Which she supposed they would always be, since they were the ‘enemy’ down here, according to the narrative of the Glittering Depths.

But Rebecca still kept tabs on all the Riamites. Which was why she knew about the black-haired man and the blonde woman currently trying to get into Tom’s pants, while Tom didn’t know them at all.

Rebecca smiled, flashing fangs, as she advanced on Tom and his little drinking party.

Tom gulped.

Rebecca almost laughed at that. Tom was scared of her, but he was just as turned on. Fear got him going rather well. Rebecca didn’t look at him, though, as she sidled up to his table, and stared at the two people she came to interrupt. “Hello, Cuuri and Parizi.”

Black-hair and blonde both raised eyebrows at her. Cuuri smiled a little, acting joyful to see Rebecca, while Parizi scowled, and could not help but scowl even more when Rebecca noticed that reaction.

Rebecca told the Riamites, and Tom, “Sorry to break up this small part of your party, Tom, but Cuuri and Parizi need to come with me.”

Tom went, “Oh— Okay! Have fun you three!”

Cuuri and Parizi came along without complaint, all the way back to the company house. Rebecca got them in a room, alone. The walls were secure. No one could see them, not even the dungeon masters.

Rebecca kept her tone light, “You were moving in on my main man.”

Cuuri tried to defend himself, “We just wanted to talk about some of the bosses he cleared.”

“If we thought we could have come to you, we would have,” Parizi stated. “But you made it very clear what you would do to us all if you could have your way.”

There were lots Rebecca could say about that. From how the Riamites had dug their own graves. To how Rebecca had cleaned house and then simply profited from that space, as anyone would. To how Parizi was obviously embarrassed that she hadn’t done what Rebecca had done, herself.

So Rebecca simply said, “Ask away. What do you want to know? I can answer every question you have.”

Parizi narrowed her eyes. “You would lie to us, and get us killed.”

“I would not lie about floor bosses, because there would be no point. If I told you untruthful battle tactics, it might cost you a few Saves, but you’d be reborn in the golden wheat fields just like everyone else from down here. And then you would know me as a liar. But I am anything but a liar, Parizi.” Rebecca said, “Lies are for the weak and deceptive, and I am neither of those things.” Rebecca added, “And since we all know this, I will venture a guess as to what this is really about.

“You want access to Ashes.”

Parizi froze, her eyes filling with hate, for Rebecca had hit their real motive exactly.

Cuuri frowned a little. “We want him to make certain items for us.”

Parizi went wide eyed and almost roared at Cuuri—

“Okay,” Rebecca said, surprising both of the Riamites. “What exactly do you want?”

“We want a Name Finder,” Cuuri said.

Rebecca stilled. “No. Your request is denied—”

Parizi said, “If he doesn’t know about Names, then we’ll tell him, and he’ll make the Name Finder because he’s a Benevolent dragon, and because we want it more than anything else. We’ll even submit to a [Reincarnation] if it turns out we’re actually as evil as they all think we are.”

Rebecca countered, “Or else he could be sent here to directly stop that from happening.”

“Either way,” Parizi said, “Either way we find out who we are. Don’t you want to know who you are, ‘Rebecca’?”

“I know who I am. You would do well to remain who you are right now, too, and to stay away from memories that got Riam erased by the divine.”

Cuuri softly said, “Riam is still there, in our cloudy, imperfect memories. I can almost see my kids' faces, Rebecca. I can almost hear my wife’s laughter. The sunstar setting on the horizon. The floating islands over the Great Rift. The markets. The Wizards who granted us everything we ever asked for. The paradise of Riam still exists, Rebecca. We only need to grab it, and realize it again.”

Parizi was a cynical woman, but even she melted a little as Cuuri spoke of Home.

Something deep inside of Rebecca melted, too.

And then Rebecca controlled herself, and said, “If a Name Finder is possible, then it will take a dragon to make it, but I urge you to forget this foolishness of trying to get Ashes to make this for you. He could bring Xoat Reborn down on us, and I would not have myself face that sort of scrutiny now, or ever.”

Parizi softly said, “Well maybe it’s time we ask for Xoat Reborn to come to us, and help us get out of this place. Greendale is poised against us. The entire city treats us as second class— We were all royalty back on Riam, Rebecca. All of us lived like kings compared to this shit down here! ‘Utopia’! Bah! This is Hell by any other name!” She spat. “And not that pathetic incani-Hell; the real one, where they torture you forever for things you never did.”

Rebecca shook her head. “I’m not going to repeat myself. Don’t approach Ashes. Don’t pursue Xoat Reborn. Should he appear, and should we be found wanting, no dungeon magic or Wizard power will be able to save you from a True Death at my hands, first.”

Cuuri implored, “I believe in him! I thought you did, too! The Wizards were always good people, and good to us and… Xoat Reborn would be the same.”

Parizi did not share Cuuri’s enthusiasm, but she couldn’t speak against the utter hope in the man’s voice, for even though she knew it was stupid to believe that monsters could be redeemed, she still had hope in her heart that it was possible.

Rebecca couldn’t speak against that hope, either, because she held the same in her own heart, and core. “No, Cuuri. No. Leave it. Don’t pursue this.”

Cuuri stood tall. “I won’t actively pursue this, Rebecca, but if Xoat Reborn should appear on the tail of this Benevolence Dragon, then I will ask him for my real Name, and I hope you wouldn’t stand in the way of that.”

“It will not make you happy to know your Name, Cuuri. Everyone who learned their Name went… They had to be purged.” Rebecca said, “Don’t pursue this.”

Cuuri fell silent.

Parizi said, “They handled it poorly. I would not.”

Cuuri nodded. He felt he could handle the truth, too.

Rebecca did not have the energy to convince them otherwise, even though all evidence pointed to monsters becoming monsters once they were shown to be monsters. That’s how the dungeon had made them, after all. That’s how the people of Riam truly were.

For no matter how many good memories of Riam that Cuuri thought he had…

Rebecca had memories, too, and they painted horrible truths that no one should ever know.

- - - -

Erick stood as himself upon the bare ground of the Pit at Storm’s Edge.

The place looked a lot different than it usually did. Instead of being a kilometers-wide flat-bottomed canyon, with holes to Darkness floating among the stone, now it was a land of solid defense. The walls were one continuous castle, complete with defensive battlements that pointed outward, and layers of spellwork attached to a node network that would ensure the land remained intact, no matter what might come this way. That spellwork extended down, into the ground, and all across the canyon.

There was only one structure inside the canyon itself; A large granite stone fort sat in front of Erick, guarding the entrance to the dungeons. That black-rimmed hole loomed within shadows, and within those shadows lay undead soldiers, ready to act against any threats.

Mana streamed into that hole in the world, steady and sure.

Erick cast his sight up into the sky, to Ophiel floating over the monster roads leading to this location. Everbless hung in those skies here and there, as his Gold Taker avatar, hidden from almost all sights except for Erick’s, as he invisibly moved mana in streamers toward the dungeon entrance. A few monsters followed that thick air. When they got closer to the dungeon itself, the undead would take over guiding the monsters into the dungeon. But right now, the undead were quiet, and waiting.

Erick was waiting, too—

A skeleton stepped out of the shadows. It bowed toward Erick, then rose, and said, “Vanya Silver and Soltic Cross welcome you to the dungeons at Storm’s Edge. We are prepared to receive you.” The summoned construct raised a bony arm and gestured toward the hole in the world. “Right this way, Wizard Flatt.”

Erick had quite a lot of questions to talk to Quilatalap about, but mainly he wanted to be with Quilatalap again. Everything had been very stressful today. With his crown of black horns on display, and wearing his normal white and black robes, Erick stepped into the shadows, past the bowing undead, into the Darkness.

- - - -

A lot of things had changed in the dungeon.

For one, Erick did not land upon a floating stone barge, that wound back and forth across a floor full of water. He didn’t even land in an entrance zone.

Erick stood upon a white stone, in a small field of flowers. To the left was a familiar garden, looking like it was ready for harvesting soon. Ophiel leapt off of Erick’s shoulder and squealed in delight as he fluttered over to the purpleberry bush while Erick felt a weirdness inside, as he looked upon the cottage that he and Quilatalap had called home for the last ten years, and upon the surrounding forest. The forest was dark; so dark that Erick felt that nothing existed past that depth of shadow, for he could not sense anything out there, nor could he see anything past the dense green and shadows therein. The forest of the Grand Dungeon of Benevolence held monsters in abundance, and this one probably did too, so Erick didn’t care to explore all of that.

Besides, a curl of smoke rose from the chimney of the cottage, and the air smelled of roasting meat.

Erick had been prepared to pretend that Vanya was Vanya for a while, and not Quilatalap in disguise, but not anymore. Only a few people knew of this house, and it was always the most well-guarded location inside Quilatalap’s dungeons.

And Erick had all his spellwork, so that made him feel even more secure. With a casual twist of intent, Erick flowed his invisible aura into the air, and fired off a good twenty small spells, and then caught them in that same aura, countering them with a thought. Aside from the casual display of fireworks in most colors and flavors, it proved that there were no restrictions here. Or at least none that Erick was subject to.

Erick stepped off of the white stone, onto the grass, feeling like he was coming home, as he called out, “Hello, in there!”

“Hello!” came Quilatalap’s voice. And Erick saw him in the window, briefly, before he opened the door, and stepped out into the open. Erick loved those lower fangs of his, and his great big arms, and smile, and everything about him. Quilatalap stepped forward—

And Erick stepped into his arms, mostly matching him for size, letting the dragon out a little. He breathed in Quilatalap’s scent, and smiled. “Hello. You were busy for a while.”

“I was,” Quilatalap said, against Erick’s shoulder. “I got a lot of it sorted.”

“I can tell.”

“Dinner is ready.” Quilatalap pulled away a little, waggling an eyebrow. “Or we could celebrate our reunion in other ways, first.”

Erick chuckled. He had so much to talk about, but Quilatalap’s idea was a whole lot better. So Erick discarded his clothes. Quilatalap’s clothes vanished in the next heartbeat.

- - - -

Poi sipped his tea, frowning a little, as he stood in Erick’s house, in the main living room. He stared at the newest addition to the cloud castle, and wondered what the fuck was going to happen now.

Teressa frowned as she stood beside him, also staring at the newest addition to the cloud castle. She asked, “So. I suppose vacation is over, then.”

Poi said, “Just a matter of time.”

“Erick already came by and saw it, yes?” Teressa asked, “How did that go, exactly?”

Poi sipped his tea. “Here I was, doing business in my own offices, and then Erick came racing home, talking about a lot… I’ll tell you the full story eventually. But the main issue is that he went into a dungeon and came out with that. Or rather, more accurately, the dungeon made that for him.”

There, in the middle of Erick’s living room, floating straight up and down and centered on the nice rug in the middle of the hardwood floor…

Well. It was a staff. That much was obvious.

And it was not solid gold. It wasn’t silver, either. That iridescent white gem at the top was not a gem at all. It was surely the Staff of Divine Absolution that Erick had spoken about, but it was different. It had become different when ‘Clarice Icewind’ had spoken oddly about Erick being ‘The Summoner’. Before this transformation, it had been silver-like and the gem had been an odd sort of mana crystal. But now…

Teressa got a little closer and leaned over and to the side, to try and read the writing. And then she stood back up. “So all that writing looks the same as it did last time he showed us the staff. But the staff isn’t ironcrystal anymore. And it’s not gold or silver… That’s a reflection of golden wheatfields, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“… This is Wizardry, then.”

“Yes.”

“Can you read the writing?”

“No.”

Teressa frowned at him.

Poi sighed. “I really can’t. But I can read the general imprint of what the words are supposed to mean with [Object Reading]. This thing has killed a lot of souls… I would almost call it a harvester.”

“Fake souls inside dungeons?”

“The conjured souls that form conjured people and conjured monsters are as real as any other souls out there, but they’re the souls of slimes; it takes time for them to become people.” Poi said, “But they’re still technically people. Also, it’s not actually a harvester, but the memory of one, made real.”

“I thought the problems with Anarchy and Blue were big time issues…” Teressa took a moment, and then she confided, “But he really did [Onward] into the next big problem, didn’t he.”

Poi wasn’t quite sure what to say to that, except, “It’s more complicated than that, Teressa. I think this started… With him, at the very beginning, when he fell to Veird... Or maybe even before that. Erick is a certain kind of person who developed power, and now we’re here, at the natural extension of Erick’s desire to make a better world. Every step along the way has been Erick purposefully doing good, even if he didn’t realize how he was doing good.”

Poi almost said something else, something more.

But Teressa’s eyes glowed white, as she stared at the not-gold staff floating in the living room.

Teressa frowned a little. “I don’t see anything.” She came back to the moment. “Nothing untoward.” She looked at the staff. “But that thing… Doesn’t exist to me. I see it, but I can’t sense it.” Teressa looked around for something— She conjured a stick, and then she poked the staff.

The staff rolled a little at Teressa’s poking, jostling out of its floating stance, until Teressa removed the stick. Then the staff floated back to where it had been, hovering above the center of the round carpet in the room, taking up the most prominent space in the middle of the space.

That was likely on purpose.

Teressa narrowed her eyes. “… You think it likes floating in the middle of the room because it's in the middle of the room? Or because it’s centered on the carpet?”

Poi sipped his tea, and said, “Maybe both. The carpet is in the center of the room because it’s the center. Erick wasn’t sure why it floated where it floated either, but he left it be.”

Teressa grunted in slight disapproval. “We should… I don’t know? Uh… I am inclined to send a prayer to Atunir, since this is clearly her sort of godly artifact, but. It’s actually Erick’s, isn’t it?”

“Correct. Let Erick deal with it.”

“… Right.”

“I made tea. Want some?”

Teressa sighed a little. “Well. Yeah. I guess I do.” She walked away, asking, “That Greendale trial thing is happening in a few days, yeah?”

Poi followed, leaving the not-exactly-golden staff to hover there, as he said, “They’ll put a pause on it, for sure, and then Odaali will force the issue. Maybe not a few days, like planned. Maybe several. When it happens I imagine it’s going to be the King asking Erick to back off, and then Erick saying no, and then the Viridian throne will likely offer a private testimonial… Not sure if they’ll take that, or not.”

“Probably not, right? Odaali wants Odaari’s reasons exposed to the world?”

Poi shrugged—

And then he whipped around, right as Teressa did the same.

Poi took a deep breath. Teressa sighed, her eyes going white again as she stared into Benevolence, again.

Poi simply said, “The staff moved.”

The not-gold staff was gone.

- - - -

Erick smiled as he watched Quilatalap wear nothing but an apron as he cooked pancakes in the kitchen. The last several hours had been filled with talk, and activities, and all sorts of quiet words shared on pillows, and now they were here.

It felt like home again, even though this home was in a different part of the world, where neither of them could come or go freely, and nothing was the same—

The air flickered gold near the living room.

Erick’s Staff of Divine Absolution popped out of the air, to float exactly where it shouldn’t float.

Ophiel squeaked at the intrusion, saying, “The staff! The staff!”

Erick gestured to the staff, saying, “That’s what I was talking about. It moved with me. It almost greeted me at the door of my house in the Glittering Depths, but I left it behind. And then it was at the cloudcastle, and now it’s here.”

Quilatalap narrowed his eyes at the staff for a long moment, staring at it from several meters away. And then he relaxed, and went back to flipping pancakes, saying, “That’s a divine artifact that is locked to you, Erick. It was half-alive in the memory of the Glittering Depths, and then it became fully alive— Well. Not really ‘alive’ in the classical sense. Sentient, not sapient. Like a very young [Familiar].”

Erick sighed. “Okay. Well… We gotta talk about the memories in the dark again, Quilatalap.”

“It’s something I have tried to keep to a minimum, because that distracts from the learning possibilities of dungeons. People need to learn and grow, not ‘suddenly remember’ stuff that never happened to them.”

“So you don’t think those memories are real?”

“… The memories are real when they are viewed, but when a person recognizes themselves in the past, they seamlessly take in a part of them that is not-them and they grow and change because of that addition. This is something that exists outside of one’s control. The actual mechanism by which this realization is achieved is something like a [Soul Splice], but in a less horrific, souls-fighting-souls-for-dominance sort of way, and more of a ‘waking up’ sort of way.”

“… It seems like you’re fighting the obvious answer that it’s a [Reincarnation] of a more traditional sort; of realizing the memories of a past life.”

Quilatalap sighed a little, and then said, “Yup.”

“… Why?”

“Because you don’t want to talk about being Xoat, and about how in the old stories of the Old Cosmology it was often thought that perhaps Xoat came back now and then to help people in times of great need.” Quilatalap set the done pancakes to the side, and ladled more batter into the pan. “Are you willing to talk about that, now?”

Erick controlled his instinctual response to rebel. He tried a chuckle instead, and to gesture at the floating staff in the living room, as he said, “Hard to argue against that, I suppose—” He rapidly added, “I will argue against being Xoat, though.”

“Why? What’s so bad about it?”

“Because then none of my achievements will have meant anything; it will all have been because of Fate shit.”

Perhaps Erick had said that too strongly.

But Quilatalap rolled with it, saying, “Fate only sets the path; it does not walk that path for you. I am absolutely sure that for every individual great story that could possibly be attributed to Xoat, like this one in the Glittering Depths, that Xoat has also lived thousands of lives in complete obscurity.”

“I’d much prefer if ‘Xoat’ was just an idea and that people got their lives’ works misattributed to him or other godly powers all the time. I do not like the idea that the achievements of mortals are only possible through the interventions of gods or otherwise.”

“Gods are themselves the works of aggregate mortal achievements that eventually gain a spark of sapience and grow to full power, outside of their worshipers. This power then extends itself back to those worshipers in return, beginning a true positive feedback cycle based on those initial parameters.” Quilatalap said, “Gods are just powers of the masses manifest in holy confluence.” And then he asked, “Do you want eggs and bacon, too?”

“Eggs yes, bacon… yes.” Erick took a moment to think about the rest of Quilatalap’s words. “… And what about people misattributing things to this Xoat persona?”

Quilatalap didn’t speak for a moment. And then he went and got some eggs from the bottom shelf of cold storage while Erick watched…

The big green bastard was trying to distract him, wasn’t he.

Well it was working, Erick supposed, as he enjoyed the show.

And then Quilatalap was back to cooking, cracking eggs in bowls. He began, “It’s sort of like the Wizard conundrum. We know that Wizards are people who produce a lot more extra mana than others. This is due to them having more Dark in them than most. But outside of that fact…

“People produce mana based on various factors. Almost all of those factors lean in one direction or another. The first factor is how much of an effect that person has on society. The second factor is how much knowledge of self, of magic, and of power, that person has, outside of any outside influences. The second is an easy one to increase; go to school, play around with mana, etcetera. The first is much harder to increase, because, for example, you can only ever have one head chancellor of an arcanaeum, or one king of a nation, or one owner of a business. If that power is split, then so too is the mana generation that comes with that position of power.

“But that second situation is thrown into chaos when you get someone who has an oversized effect on society that doesn’t rely on known power structures.

“The person who invented the mana miner.

“The person who writes a really good book.

“The person who changes how banking works in a world.

“The person who invents a new magic.

“All of those people have larger-than-average mana productions. This can be a self-reinforcing system, like with the creation of a god, but different. This can be a self-reinforcing system that creates a Wizard.

“Wizards are Creation and Paradox and Destruction all at once, until they choose to focus. But maybe Wizards are just normal people, who have been changed by circumstance and possibility, into being more than they were before.

“Perhaps all Wizards become Wizards based on future actions, which are only possible because they’re already a Wizard to start with. Which is a Paradox, for sure. It’s very hard to tell where the line actually starts with a Wizard, for they are self-creating systems of power unto themselves.

“And once you get into that sort of thing…

“Mana likes mana. It likes to be made. It likes to be used. And it never goes away. It only changes form. It goes from one universe to another, planting seeds of future growth and opportunity and possibility. For mana is possibility, first and foremost. Mana is the infinite quantized into a smaller infinity that shows itself as Fire or Water or Twosday, or Springtime, or Benevolence, or Book, or me, or you, or whoever, but only because it is impossible for us to view the whole at any one time.

“So it is very possible that Xoat-sightings are misattributions only because the people who are Xoat only become Xoat in the creation of themselves, in that image of infinite generation of possibility. For what is the image of Xoat, but as ‘the enabler of More’? Not much more than that, really. This does not mean that you are Xoat, Erick. Not exactly, for it is more complicated than that. But you’re also not, not Xoat, either.”

Erick sat back in his chair, and thought.

And then he decided he didn’t want to think about that right now, because what was the point? He didn’t think he was Xoat, and that’s all that really mattered to him. Other people could think what they wanted.

And then Quilatalap added, “I would like to know why you have a problem with accepting that you are not just your own power, though. Why do you think it is some sort of weakness to have been aided by the realized spirit of Xoat, or however it happened? You have a history of helping others and accepting help in return. If you accept that the mana is Xoat, then what does it matter that Xoat wants to help you? What’s wrong with accepting that the mana itself loves you, and wants to help you along in your quest for more goodness?”

After hearing that viewpoint, Erick knew he would have needed to lie down for a while if he wasn’t already sitting.

As it was, Erick wasn’t able to form a coherent counterargument against Quilatalap. All he could really do was marvel at how much thought Quilatalap had been putting into all those words he had just spilled out here in their living room, while both of them were nude and one of them was making breakfast, and Ophiel played with some building blocks in the living room, which mostly consisted of building small towers and then knocking them over and hopping on top of the destruction, and then remaking the small towers all over again… Erick was distracting himself again.

“… Okay. Well...” Erick said, after a minute of quiet, filled with the small sounds of sizzling bacon and frying eggs and tumbling blocks. “When you put it like that, I suppose I don’t have a problem with it. I just don’t want to be labeled as some savior figure. I was only able to do everything I did because of a modicum of personal power, and a whole lot of cooperation from everyone else… Including the mana.” Erick said, “Thank you, Quilatalap… I missed you. I missed you a lot.”

Quilatalap smiled brightly, his lower fangs showing as his dark eyes glinted. “I missed you, too.” He set bacon onto plates, along with eggs and stacks of pancakes—

And then he got a large pie out of a cupboard and broke the Preservation seal on it, adding the scent of freshly baked purpleberry pie to the air. Ophiel started chirping instantly as the smell filled the room, and then Ophiel hopped up off the ground with the blocks, to hop onto the back of the nearby couch.

His many eyes focused on that pie. “PIE!” Ophiel chirped loudly. “Purple pie!”

Quilatalap said, “I was just waiting for you to show. It’s all yours, Ophiel.”

Quilatalap managed to set the pie onto the far side of the dining room table right before Ophiel dug in, getting just as much purple pie goo all over his feathers as he got everywhere else.

And then Quilatalap brought Erick his plate and set it in front of him and Erick put his hand on Quilatalap’s, and stood up, meeting the big guy halfway for a kiss. He was warm, and he smelled of good food, and he was an excellent kisser.

“I love you, Quilatalap,” Erick said closely. “And Ophiel does, too.”

Quilatalap almost giggled, as he said, “I love you, too.” He set down his plate and happily said, “So what’s going on with those mana crystals! Tell me everything again, from the top. How was it all different from what we already did with mana crystals?”

Erick smiled, and began talking. “For starters, I could actually make a crystal inside the Glittering Depths without all the Domain work that we needed to do on Veird, so that’s a big deal. I think if I dropped down the mana density of the air to 0, to start, I could even make pure crystal, but I haven’t bothered with that in that dungeon because being in a 0 mana environment is not pleasant. But anyway, What you do is you go inside a mana chamber and spill mana into them, whereupon they…”

Breakfast was great. Erick and Quilatalap spoke of crystals, and that was also great.

Being home with Quilatalap was the best of all.

- - - -

Erick stood with Quilatalap upon an open land of bare rock and scattered grasses that extended out for a hundred kilometers in every direction. There was no sky; there was only darkness far, far overhead, that was also somehow light, illuminating the ground everywhere. In six directions, equidistant from each other and on the black horizon, lay colored light. White on one side, grey on the opposite, while the horizons between grey and white held magenta and red to the left, with yellow and cyan to the right; the Six Primary Elements. This land was to become the main floor where the False Society would exist, while those lights were to become the portals to the other elemental dungeons.

It was not the main floor yet.

Erick was still impressed. “This is a heck of a lot of space so far, Quilatalap.”

Quilatalap smiled softly. “It’s not impressive at all, but thank you.”

“It’s only been twenty days since you started. This is plenty impressive!”

“Vanya and I managed to get the monster habitats stabilized and square out the space for the rest of it, but there’ve been complications.”

Erick almost wanted to ask after ‘Vanya’, the dungeon master slime who had become Quilatalap’s copy, who was the actual dungeon master of this place. But just like all the other dungeon master slimes Quilatalap had made, and who all shied away from Erick practically on instinct, Erick did not pursue that line of questioning.

Instead, all he said was, “How can I help?”

“I need you to talk to Everbless and convince him to stop trying to break into the dungeon.”

Erick winced. “Okay. I’ll do that. How bad is it?”

“He regularly gets into the first floor because he has to ‘escort the dangerous monsters down’, according to him, which was tolerable but not ideal, and very much not what he is supposed to be doing, since he’s supposed to be zero-contact with the dungeon right now.” Quilatalap said, “Not ideal, but not what he was told to do. I could deal. But in the past two days he’s been trying to get to the control chamber, to the core.”

Erick frowned. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Tell him that he will be forcefully evicted if he should try anything like that again.”

“I will.”

Quilatalap said, “I’d also like your cooperation to open portals between other nearby dungeons, so that when it comes time to weather the storm people can come in from other dungeons instead of needing to come to Storm’s Edge first. That’s only if the Gate Network goes down, of course, but a secondary way for people to get here is always a good idea.”

“Okay, sure.” Erick thought for a moment. “So that’s how you want to do it, eh? Purposefully open up this place to other dungeon incursions? What do you want, exactly?”

“Just let the nearby nations with dungeons know that I can open safe spaces for them, and leave them with options to connect in an emergency. It’s minimally invasive and easily possible.”

“You know… I never really knew that was a thing that you could do. We barely talked about it when Kiri went through from the Freelands to Grand Benevolence, but the Glittering Depths apparently has people coming in through the golden fields all the time.”

“Dungeon hopping is rare. Doesn’t normally happen at all… Or at least in my dungeons it doesn’t. There’s not even an accepted name for the phenomenon, though the fairies would call it ‘stepping off the path’, I believe.” Quilatalap said, “And Kiri only transposed between dungeons 3 months ago. I’ve been pressed to figure out exactly what happened there, but I only really have a guess, because that sort of movement through the Dark is not normal at all.”

“I guess it has only been 3 months.” Erick asked, “What did you find out about dungeon hopping? How easy is it for people to move between dungeons?”

Quilatalap began, “People don’t move through the Dark because the Dark is death for all living things.

“But since the advent of the dungeons, with all these places now settled and realized in these depths...

“In a very large, relaxed dungeon, it is easier for people to transport between them, especially if there are many, many safe spots inside those dungeons, like with the Freelands and their open lands, and with the Glittering Depths’s golden fields.” Quilatalap said, “None of my dungeons have any safe spots except for the entrance and a few other locations, so by their nature, they’re rather secure. It was weird for me when Kiri popped into Grand Benevolence, but that was more due to the Dark acting on its own, and not due to any leaks in security on my end.” Quilatalap said, “I’m rather sure I can make those inner portals happen on purpose, though… At least for nearby locations, like dungeons on the other islands of Archipelago Nergal.” He gazed out across the empty world. “It might even happen without my input, because a lot of this land will be open, safe space. I doubt I could turn this place into a hub of inter-dungeon transport like the Gate District, for that would be only at the Dark’s pleasure… But I imagine that if the Storm Prophecy should come to pass that places like this one might get flooded with people from other dungeons… Lotta weird things could happen when that happens.” Quilatalap pointed to the side. “Like that.”

Both of them were already looking at the golden staff that suddenly appeared, floating to the side, as though it was there this whole time. Erick had left it at the cottage, but here it was…

Floating.

“Hmmm, yeah,” Erick muttered.

Ophiel fluffed up on Erick’s shoulder, exclaiming, “The staff is back!”

It floated there, just glittering.

And then a few green buds rose from the ground where it almost touched.

Quilatalap easily said, “And that brings up another question. I could try for a portal between here and the Glittering Depths? You could come and go from here to there as you want?”

“… I want to say yes, Quilatalap, because I miss you. But I don’t want Greendale up in here.”

Quilatalap grinned. “I’ll be fine, if you’re worried about that. But I understand. I won’t try for that.”

Erick felt a small melancholy—

And then Erick told the staff, “Please stop spreading wheat right now.”

The green buds had managed to turn into a small patch of golden wheat, growing to a meter and a half tall in moments, before Erick’s request had slowed, and then stopped the spread of grain. The staff just hovered there now, not doing anything at all.

Erick asked Quilatalap, “A portal between these Grand Dungeons would be weird for those other dungeon masters, too, right? I’m still not out as Erick over there… It’s actually been really nice to just be myself, though Kinder already believes that I’m going to cause some huge mess.”

“You probably will, so I can’t blame the guy for feeling that way.”

Erick rolled his eyes.

Quilatalap smiled. “And yes, it would cause Kinder and whoever else to notice this place.”

“Better not do it, then.” Erick added, “I’ll work on getting the other dungeons to… Do what? Weaken their walls against this place? What have you decided to call this place, anyway?”

“All you really have to do is tell them that it might happen, and they won’t have control over it, so they shouldn’t freak out when it happens. They might be able to cause it to happen, though, if they know how to work their dungeon core properly.” Quilatalap said, “And I’ve decided to call this place The Storm Cellar.”

“Sounds good. Are you going to put in an Endless Delve?”

“Those things are too random by far…” Quilatalap looked out across the world of his dungeon. “… But I could? … They’re good for making resources.”

“Are you going to do any sort of Second Script?”

“Nope. Don’t really like those things anyway. All magic is the same, and the Script already does a pretty decent job of it all. I’m going to let that in here as it already is.”

Erick nodded. And then he stepped forward. “So what sorts of buildings?”

Quilatalap walked with him, saying, “Standard city on the Surface. Grid-based… Also your staff is following us.”

Behind them, the staff floated across the ground, following behind Erick at a normal following distance. Ophiel clutched on Erick’s shoulder, watching the staff as it floated toward them.

The staff left a small trail of lush grass where it passed.

Erick glanced backward. And then he brushed the staff with his aura, raising it up into the air a bit. Instead of floating higher so as not to spread green, the staff hopped to his side and then stopped spreading green where it floated.

Ophiel twittered in very soft, unsure guitar sounds as he stared at the not-gold staff, only a half meter away.

The staff behaved.

Erick turned his attention back to Quilatalap, who walked at his other side. “I guess I have another [Familiar] for now.”

Ophiel perked up. “Another?!”

And then he fluffed up and fluttered into the air, over to the staff. With twenty eyes and one great big eye in the center, Ophiel stared at the staff from all angles. And then he sat on the gem on the top.

The staff glowed brighter, briefly, and then it didn’t care anymore. Ophiel fluffed up, spreading his wings, and the staff briefly bobbed, before it regained equilibrium and control.

And then Ophiel leaned to the side…

The staff leaned with Ophiel’s weight—

The staff rapidly spun, throwing Ophiel into the air, and Ophiel giggled and chirped at the toss before flying back around to land back on the top of the staff, which had righted itself. Ophiel landed once again and held on tight.

… And then Ophiel leaned to the side.

The staff spun, and this time Ophiel clung on for dear life, giggling wildly as though he was on a carnival ride, and then he spread his wings and angled upward, ensuring that wind cut downward like he was a ceiling fan on reverse.

The staff went sailing up into the sky, with Ophiel giggling all the while—

And then the staff vanished from under Ophiel to reappear directly at Erick’s side, leaving Ophiel up there, still spinning for a little bit, until he realized he had lost his fun ride. The staff nestled closer to Erick, seeming in unsure distress, so Erick put his hand on it. The staff calmed right away and stopped floating, falling fully under Erick’s power, as Ophiel came back to ground level, to land on Erick’s other shoulder, for Erick had sent a gentle nudge at Ophiel not to play around with the staff so much.

“I still don’t understand it fully, Ophiel,” Erick said, as Ophiel hopped across Erick’s back, to get closer to the staff. He wasn’t about to hop onto it again because Erick had told him not to, but he was certainly going to investigate, because he could. “Look all you want, but don’t touch it again, unless it wants to.”

Erick wasn’t sure what the staff wanted, though. When it was separated from him Erick couldn’t feel it at all, but now that his hand was wrapped around that not-gold surface, it felt, a little bit, like a natural extension of his aura. Like his aura was active inside the staff, even though Erick wasn’t concentrating any power in the staff at all right now. It was an odd sort of ‘extension’ that was almost like a [Familiar]. But more solid.

Quilatalap said, “You went into a dungeon dedicated to Field and Fertility and you came out with another kid.”

Erick almost wanted to laugh at that, but instead he gripped the staff, trying to feel it out. It felt more like an extension of himself than a [Familiar], now that he was holding it, but then Erick let go, and the staff floated there, feeling like nothing at all. To his mana sense it seemed like some highly magical thing, but not much more than that. It certainly didn’t have a soul. It had a few golden glows, though, like how Erick’s Crystal Star used to have.

Ophiel and Yggdrasil both had ephemeral souls in their manifested bodies these days.

This thing had nothing at all.

“… A very new [Familiar]?” Erick guessed. “I’m not even sure how I got it.”

Quilatalap said, “Maybe simply a sentient artifact attuned to Atunir. One a bit more willing to be near you than the Crystal Star… It manifested oddly, though. The [Witness] for the upgraded version is one thing, but this form and function is a whole different beast, blipping from Grand Dungeon to the Surface, and then down into another would-be Grand Dungeon a quarter of a world away. Did you do any Wizardry down there?”

“Nothing I can think of… I am unsure if I even used my own mana for the [Witness]… But I suppose I did, didn’t I? Not like I had a [Witness] metamond.” Erick said, “The mana cost was negligible, anyway.”

Quilatalap nodded and thought as they walked.

The staff floated beside Erick. Ophiel almost hopped on it again, but Erick shook his head, and Ophiel twittered and stayed on his shoulder.

Quilatalap said, “From what I have heard, and according to what you have told me, the Glittering Depths is an incredibly restrictive Second Script dungeon. You could still cast some internal magics with your core mana, though, and Clarice Icewind had to use Wizardry to make her [True Sight] function outside of a manasphere —Which is a good idea; you should follow her suggestion.”

Erick nodded.

Quilatalap continued, “But she had to use Wizardry to do that, and she probably had to use her own mana. You probably used a confluence of your own mana and dungeon mana to [Witness] that history… Did you use a lot of your own mana to do anything else inside the dungeon?”

Erick almost facepalmed. Instead, he sighed. “I did a manual [Return] when I thought I had fucked up and people had seen the real me. Or at least the dungeon masters had. After I had already done it I realized that they could probably already see me as a dragon, so it didn’t matter.”

Quilatalap raised his eyebrows a little. “10,000 mana would qualify as a lot.”

“It was more like 27,000 and there was a tearing sensation.”

“Then there’s your answer. You held in your hand the recreation of a primary artifact of a memory inside the Dark— or at least it was attuned to you and nearby?— and then you used Time Magic around that artifact. Combined with what the Staff was already primed to do, and the fact you’re a Paradox Wizard, then that’s the full answer.”

Erick looked at the staff. It floated serenely. “… That’s the real staff?”

“Is the recreation of a painting the original painting? No. But it’s close. Think of it more like an NPC turned real.” Quilatalap added, “Clarice probably helped to make the staff fully manifest, though, since she is a Fae Dragon by her own admission, and you were listening to her when the staff fully became what it currently is.”

Erick had some rapid, mixed feelings about that. “… I don’t think she did anything except talk about her experiences… She didn’t do anything?”

“We’re in the Dark, where magic and possibility are sacred, easy things to achieve, especially when dragons and Wizards and gods and deep history are involved.” Quilatalap added, “You’re practically a walking ritual, too, so you were probably 80% of the cause of the staff, but you went into a Fae dragon’s house and ate her food, and she was already heavily invested in her own historical resonance with that dungeon. Even with all your defenses against that sort of influence, Clarice was probably 10% of the cause of that staff, at least. Atunir could have organized the whole thing, too, but most of the time people have to ask for gods to interfere in their lives, and Atunir sticks to the God Pact formed after the Sundering, just like all the rest.”

“… Should I be angry at Clarice? I don’t feel like I should be.”

“I think you should be angry if Clarice chooses to give Fyuri her true name; not for this staff thing.”

“True Names were never a problem over at the Freelands.”

“You figuring out one of your past lives was named ‘Ashes’ isn’t really a problem for you, either, right?”

“Ah. So you’re going with that interpretation, eh?”

Quilatalap smirked. “Look, Erick. I find it incredibly attractive how powerful you are, and you know it, so there.”

“Haaaa…” Erick moved on, “Should I burst in and solve this demonic murders case? In any other place I would have solved it already.”

“If you want to do good… When was the last time you checked in with the guardhouses in the Crystal Forest, and offered your help?”

“Been about four months now. Crime isn’t much of a problem that necessitates my intervention in the Crystal Forest, but it’s still nice to be able to wipe away problems that easily.” Erick added, “I want to do the same for the Greensoil Republic, but they’re a neighboring nation. Still though, it feels like I should be solving that from a top-down approach instead of this bumbling ‘not involving myself’ that I seem to be headed toward.”

“Greensoil has made their stance rather clear on your involvement in their security affairs… Aren’t you going to be having that Odaari meeting in a few days, anyway? Talk to them about it then.” Quilatalap moved on, “But for now! Can you make a starter city out of this land? [Terraforming], too, please.”

“Of course. What sort of architecture and style?”

Quilatalap held up his hands and projected light into a small model, saying, “New Highlands style, grid streets like in Candlepoint, with some riverbeds and…”

They spoke for a while, and walked beside each other for longer than that. When Erick knew the final shape of Quilatalap’s desired city, Erick pulsed with a [Cityshape], sending power out to every corner of the land like a rolling storm of white light and subtle lightning. White stone structures pulled up from the ground, and the ground dipped down everywhere else, only to rise again in some areas to form streets while deepening in others to form waterways and lakes. Towers crested into the sky, and then unfurled with balconies and holes for windows, as blocky structures peaked into roofs, and then expelled rock from every place that would become windows. Some of that expelled rock formed more buildings. Most went back into the ground.

The first Shaping was crude, base work.

Next, Erick unleashed an aura of stone control, fine-tuning what was out there into something that was actually livable. Minor cracks in the working healed over. A building that was slightly tilted got tilted the other direction, to stand straight up. The lakes and rivers got sorted.

The final working was a cast of [Terraforming], over what would become the area’s largest lake.

Rain fell heavily from a black sky, into a deep trough in the ground, where water slipped into sand and into mud, and greenery began to spread. That spell was permanent so it would stay like that forever, and eventually overtake this land with greenery. This was what Quilatalap wanted. Since it was such a major spell with permanent power, Quilatalap would eventually be able to gain control of that magic and make it a part of the dungeon itself.

Quilatalap could have cast the dungeon core version of [Terraforming] from the dungeon control panels, but having Erick do this saved him a great deal of upkeep expenses. And Erick’s magic was the real deal; dungeons just had imperfect copies of that spell that weren’t actually Permanent. With Erick having created the city, too, that was a bunch of time and effort saved on Quilatalap’s part, as well.

When Erick was done, he cast his gaze through Ophiel, high above, checked his work, and then came back to himself, saying, “It all looks good, and you have a minor field of golden grains back where we first came from. They soaked up the rain even though it didn’t rain there. Seems to have stopped at short fences that I didn’t put up there, either, so I don’t think you’ll get overgrown anytime soon.”

Quilatalap looked back where they had come from. And then he looked at the not-gold staff floating beside Erick. He frowned a little, but more in unsure concern, than in anger. “I suppose… That’s a good thing.” He lost his frown. “Perhaps Atunir isn’t as mad at me as she usually is?”

Erick smiled at that. “Maybe!” And then Erick thought about that for more than a moment, and realized that that made him incredibly happy for a rather good reason. Erick went to Quilatalap and gave him a big hug, saying, “That’s great news, actually!”

Quilatalap chuckled as he hugged Erick back. And then he whispered, “So that building over there looks like it could use some warming up.”

Erick laughed.

Hours later, Erick exited the Storm Cellar and made a brief show of public approval of the dungeon, with Quilatalap’s Vanya dungeon master slime clone bowing to him, while Quilatalap himself took the shape of Soltic, and also bowed. Erick’s formal approval was good for optics, for whoever was watching out there with [Long Range Scry]s, or [Witness]es. The Regency was certainly looking.

After Erick was done with that, he spoke to Regent Augustive for a short while, and explained away his near full-day inside the dungeon as exploring all that it had to offer. Agustive had been very worried about that; he had been about to send in the guard. But Erick assured him that everything was good.

Later, in a quieter part of the world, near Everbless and while using Privacy magics to keep away all [Scry]ing eyes, Erick had a talk with Everbless.

It went about as well as most talks with undisciplined children usually went.

- - - -

Erick spent the next few days completely ignoring everything else in his immediate life, from Clarice to ‘Ashes’ to the Staff, for he needed to prepare for a Wizarding ritual of [True Sight]. Normally, such a preparation wouldn’t have taken him long at all, but he had a certain expectation for what he wanted the end result to be, and this one would probably be difficult. He wanted to be able to gaze across the universe, where there was no mana, and yet see through all mana-illusions.

Even if there weren’t any out there, Erick was preparing for a future filled with space ships, so it made sense to get over this hurdle now, before it became an actual problem later.

And he had never even played around with a 0% mana atmosphere.

So that is what Erick did. Inside his house in the Glittering Depths, Erick turned the mana density down to 0, freaked the fuck out in a very unintentional way as his body wanted to explode but not really explode at all, and then he went back up to 50% manasphere density.

He played around with that for a while.

And eventually, he felt… Not comfortable. He would never be comfortable in a 0% manasphere environment. Erick was a Wizard and a dragon; a highly magical creature, by his very nature. With an empty core he felt like he was missing every part of his body. His brain felt sluggish. His blood felt thick and weighty. His arms and legs felt near-useless and he got tired way too fast.

But he could deal with it.

He got around to seeing Clarice once, to make sure nothing odd was happening with her yet. She was still a hermit, and still coming to terms with everything that he and she had spoken about. She hadn’t done anything at all. Perhaps she had become even more withdrawn, for Erick had not gone inside her house and Clarice had not offered him an invite. This was not ideal.

But Clarice said that she was dealing with everything and it was taking her time, which was fine. Erick told her the same.

As long as Clarice wasn’t telling Rebecca her real name, then everything was fine.

It took Erick three more days of item creation for the Iron Bandits and understanding of mana crystals and otherwise, and a bit more planning here and there with his ‘Ultimate True Sight’ wizardry, for Erick to understand exactly what he wanted to do.

And then it was time.

- - - -

Erick stood in the mana chamber in his rooms in Glittering Depths. The world was dry of mana; dead as true void. The mana chamber was darker than black.

That darkness seemed dimmer than it should be. The mana chamber was cold.

Erick was cold.

His little [Meditation] amulet was working, glowing yellow deep under the layers of his shirt, where no light escaped. Erick was using [Meditation] to see into the manasphere, while purposefully not spilling anything into the chamber. The mana chamber remained empty of all mana. And because it was empty, when Erick looked out, he saw nothing at all. No figments in the manasphere. No fake things at all.

Just…

Black.

Pure, and yet also empty.

But that wasn’t true at all. Erick was inside a dungeon. He was inside the Dark.

Erick pressed his hand over the [Meditation] amulet under his shirt.

This Wizardry would not be something that enchanted him; that changed him at all. But it would be something that would truly change the [Meditation] amulet. If the staff could be changed, and be let out into the world at large, then why not a little amulet, too?

Erick stared out at the pure black of the chamber.

He spoke,

“A plight we sight in endless night

“A scare we stare at, dark beware

“A truth, uncouth, uncovered sleuth

“Light bright, we see truth; all that’s right

“Flare breaks the night; these eyes of glare

“Forsooth, I dare, the brightest Truth.

“Let’s see what’s right; a brightest Sight!”

There was no mana in the chamber. There was no mana in Erick’s core.

But the Dark was there.

Something slipped and twisted inside Erick as some connection rearranged, as Erick spoke, his voice separating from himself and doubling. Out came one single mana from elsewhere, flowing out of Erick’s mouth like a spark of hope.

Everything else happened fast.

The amulet was suddenly not under Erick’s shirt anymore. It floated in the middle of the manaless chamber, like a tiny yellow sun surrounded by silver, almost blackish metiron, its chain snaking around the sun in lazy, zero-gravity twists.

And then the yellow turned white, prismatic. The grasping hands of the amulet’s metal flowed onto the white orb, like molten metal, and then winked open.

Briefly, Erick saw a second eye appear out of the dark, but the second eye faded, and all that was left was the [Meditation] amulet, surrounded by eyelids. It looked kinda like Erick’s own eyes when he was a dragon; pure white and surrounded by black…

Even the metiron had been transformed into black metiron.

Erick held out his hand, and the new artifact lowered into Erick’s palm. It was no bigger than before, perhaps only four centimeters across, but the whole thing looked like a dark talisman of Melemizargo, and it radiated power.

Erick opened the mana chamber, and said, “Dungeon. Increase mana density to 50%”

Rapidly his house began to refill with mana and Erick breathed easier as breathing became literally easier. His connection to the Script began to refill Erick’s core reserves, and Erick relaxed.

The staff waited for Erick, just outside the chamber.

“The [Identify] I used on you didn’t do anything except return the same wordage as before,” Erick said to the staff.

Since it was a [Familiar], Erick had decided to start treating it like a [Familiar], which meant talking to it. The Staff of Divine Absolution didn’t seem to care about Erick’s non-commanding words, but it had taken Ophiel a long time to start to respond to small talk too, so Erick wasn’t worried about that.

Erick held up his new necklace, and wondered, “But what do you [Identify] as?”

Erick used his ring on the thing.

All-Seeing Eye, attuned greater artifact, 500/500

Beware of staring too deep into the Dark, for the Dark stares back.

Erick smiled at that, knowing that he had done it right, and also that he’d hopped up another 450 points on the Decoration board. He was probably at 4650 right now, and that news was probably getting around very fast.

He put the necklace on—

Erick stood on nothing in the middle of the Dark, while the horizon was a dim white line of fire and everything else was black.

And then the abyss below opened up, in the shape of a bright, bright white eye—

Erick said, “Oh. Hello Melemizargo.”

The universe chuckled good-naturedly, and then the eye closed.

Gradually, the house came back all around Erick. But if he looked down, he would see Melemizargo… Actually, if he looked in any direction at all he would see Melemizargo. But that was just a tuning problem.

Erick focused to a lighter touch, and the amulet responded—

Suddenly, Erick was firmly in his little cottage in the Glittering Depths. The floor was there. The walls and ceiling were there. Everything was as it should be to mortal eyes.

Erick nodded. “Good.”

And now it was time to get back. The hearing for Denutha Odaari’s grand treason was starting in several hours, and Erick needed to go back to Odaali to speak to Cyril and Yetta about all that, before it happened. He was involved in that case now.

Chances were rather great the Viridian Throne would offer to execute Odaari before they offered a trial for the crime of the Daydropper, and Erick needed to be sure that it went to a trial, not an execution. That’s what the city of Odaali, the king of Odaali, and the Champion of Atunir all wanted, after all.

Atunir just wanted the case over, one way or another.

Erick left his staff in his cottage as he took to the roads, and began running back to delver square. He said hello to a few people, and as he did, the All-Seeing Eye showed him everything about those people, easily cutting through all mana sense blockers and other obscuring devices…

Erick slowed down when he got into town…

There were hidden markers on streets here and there, showing the way to places that Erick did not know of before now. That was the way to the portal to the command center of the dungeon. Over there was a hidden stairwell to… some place.

Hmm.

There was a lot of hidden shit down here, eh?

Erick managed to make it to the tower that led to the first floor before someone managed to spot him and shout out a congratulations on reaching higher on the Decoration board. Erick smiled and thanked the guy, as he went up the tower.

In a minute, he was back on the first floor.

He got out of the dungeon. The sun shone brightly. The spider at the top of the dungeon keep, with its arms spread across and around the entire space, looked at Erick a little as he walked underneath, which was normal for that spider these days.

His various metirons were already ironcrystal.

Except for his newest one. That All-Seeing Eye hung around Erick’s neck, under his clothes, and remained a bright white eye surrounded by black scales. That was probably why Erick saw and mana sensed the inquisitors of Greendale standing all around the ironcrystal courtyard long before anyone else. They were waiting for him, according to their focused gazes and readied spells, but no one else could see them at all. Erick spotted [Invisibility] and [Intangible] and other, more esoteric spellwork that had some deep flavors of Fae or Mystical, or Air or Light. Not a single person in the courtyard saw any of them at all.

They had pulled out all the stops to greet Ashes today.

Erick would have liked to believe that he would have seen all of them on his own, but there was one man standing on the far side of the courtyard that wore flowing green robes, and that man was certainly one of the Viridian King’s personal assassins. That guy’s spellwork was world-class, for sure.

Erick stepped out of the castle.

He stood ready.

He waited for them to make the first move.