Ar'Kendrithyst

Yggdrasil’s sight around his father had failed him too many times in the last few days. Mostly, when Erick went into the space between the trees. That space was tough to navigate. The mana went all sideways and stretchy in ways that Yggdrasil did not understand.

So while all of that was happening, Yggdrasil contented himself to look upon the world outside of his father’s current odd obsession. The man certainly did run through them all rather fast, didn’t he? Yggdrasil felt more ‘laid back’ than that… Yes. ‘Laid back’, a term that Yggdrasil liked.

He quickly counted himself lucky that, though he might be at the bottom of a liquid darkness that was filled with monsters and strange people, and that he was not ready to poke above the single surface that he was close enough to poke out of, he was not in the Forest. Thank the gods!

This dark place was sometimes scary when people or shadows prowled around, but that dark place was full of problems. Everything was always eating everything else, and, if he was being honest, shitting everywhere. So much shit! Why so much?

Yggdrasil suspected that living trees liked all the fertilizer. Currently, Yggdrasil just liked the mana, and the light. Maybe, when he grew up, he’d like all that poop on his roots, too, but right now? Eww.

The other trees made the space for other things to live, though, and Yggdrasil liked that whole idea a whole lot.

… And not only because it involved a lot of him ‘being himself’, and ‘going with the flow’. He wasn’t lazy. He was just going with the flow! Exactly like his creator.

… His… Father?

Eh. Yggdrasil wasn’t sure if he approved of that designation. That other archmage’s former [Familiar]s seemed to call their creator their ‘father’. Seemed kinda needy, if you asked Yggdrasil.

… Such strange thoughts flowing through his trunk these days. Maybe, next week, he’d like to call his creator his ‘father’? He didn’t know right now. Maybe he’d never know.

Meh. He’d know, sooner or later.

Oh. Wait. He had already thought of Erick as his father, didn’t he?

Well there’s the answer, right there! Or maybe not. He’d think about it.

What he certainly knew, is that he didn’t like it when the shadelings or anyone else came down to look at him. It made him feel all weird. One of them was doing so right now, but whoever it was, was disguising himself like a pile of mud, slowly drawing closer. That tumbling bit of mud couldn’t fool him! Yggdrasil had [True Sight]! But why was this person trying this? Hmm.

‘Bout to find out.

Yggdrasil’s white roots were arced into the muddy soil all around, like the bones of creation, holding him steady atop a plateau deep under the surface of the lake of Candlepoint. His trunk was a growing, twisting curve the size of a tower, while branches spread out, filled with neon green leaves. Light spread into the dark waters all around, like rainbow glitters.

And a person, little more than the size of one of Yggdrasil’s leaves, in the form of a mud slime, plip-plopped across the silt, drawing closer to one of Yggdrasil’s further roots like a mosquito coming in for a snack. It extended a small glass vial from itself, moving quick but hidden, thinking itself beneath Yggdrasil’s notice. It was beneath the tree’s notice, in truth. Or it would have been, in most other cases. But Yggdrasil’s sight was on his surroundings at the moment—

Oh. This mudball had come before today, hadn’t it?

Yggdrasil had forgotten. They had taken leaves. Just… Pluck-pluck! Snatchy-grab. Those leaves had been about to fall off anyway, but they hadn’t actually fallen off. They had been taken. Not a big deal, now that Yggdrasil thought of it. But best to discourage theft. This mudball was obviously not a monster trying to eat it. Yggdrasil had chased off plenty of those. It was more like the fish in his boughs that swam around in his light and leaves like they were birds.

Except… A bit more parasitic.

This required a small touch. How to defend…

Now where was… Oh. His twisted silver shield had been broken? Or maybe it had drifted off? Maybe Yggdrasil forgot to hold onto it. Yeah. That was probably it.

And. Huh. He should remake his [Prismatic Ward] around himself. He had outgrown that warding a while ago. Somehow, though, he got the impression that he couldn’t make it much bigger than it already was. Maybe he could sculpt it to the shape of his body? Yeah. That would extend the range by a lot.

The mudball scraped off some bits of tender, newgrown roots.

And then it retreated, fast as it could.

Ah. Too late. Yggdrasil missed his opportunity to defend himself.

Oh well. Besides, grasses and fishes and all sorts of life were growing up all around him, anyway. Big deal if some person takes some roots! How long would they even last outside of his body? He was a [Familiar], after all. Nothing remained once it was cut from him. Even the fish that tried to eat his leaves only found themselves munching on glimmers of light.

But, still! Fish were one thing, but Yggdrasil didn’t like being poked by mudballs, and he had a solution to this problem. He recast his [Animadversion]. A twisted hunk of silver metal took form out of the waters, to hover in front of Yggdrasil’s trunk. That shield slowly began to circle Yggdrasil, like a slowly orbiting moon.

… He liked it like that. It reminded him of the Silver Star in the sky.

His father had called him a ‘World Tree’. Maybe one day he’d have a real moon of his own!

That sounded pretty ‘cool’.

Yggdrasil liked that word, too. It did not mean exactly what it meant! How cool was that!

The mudball came back the next day. The mudball struck at another root with another glass vial. The vial bounced off of Yggdrasil’s white roots; reflected! The little vial must have been a lot of magic to actually reflect like that. How odd! How funny!

Ha! Yggdrasil laughed a little as the mudball kept trying.

His laugh sent vibrations through the lake.

That mudball froze as the fishes that swam around Yggdrasil all suddenly billowed out of the [Familiar], like flocks of birds disturbed by a great threat. The mudball seemed to look up at Yggdrasil.

Yggdrasil popped open a [Scry] orb, big as the mudball and as shifting as a kaleidoscope, right on top of the mudball, staring down at the camouflaged creature.

The mudball blipped away.

… But would it come back?

Whatever!

Yggdrasil turned his attention back to his ‘father’, and realized that he liked that term the more he used it. ‘Creator’ was too… was not… was inadequate. Yes. ‘Creator’ was inadequate. Creators created and then did whatever. Fathers raised.

He watched his father try to understand [Gate].

He copied some of what he saw with his roots, and branches, but he didn’t understand what he was seeing, either. Oh well!

- - - -

Justine walked along the shores of Candlepoint’s lake, her shoes tapping on the dark stone boardwalk as her new dress fluttered in the breeze. It was a nice day, made nicer for the fact that her current guest was a rather pleasant person, most of the time, and that the boardwalk was actually ready to be visited. It did not look this good yesterday!

Princess Weilux pointed out a restaurant, saying, “That was a pile of bricks. And now it is much more than that.” She sniffed the air, and smiling, said, “Now it smells like lunch. Let’s go!” She walked off, her pace quicker than before.

Justine kept up with the younger woman, saying, “Of course, Princess.”

The princess’s guard scowled, as always, but said nothing, as always. She was a rather taciturn woman with too many scars upon her face and enough plate to her fullplate to mark her as a rather high-powered warrior, but she moved without making a sound, keeping right up with her charge, and with Justine. There was another hidden bodyguard not ten meters away that kept up with the princess, too, but that bodyguard was more of a nightmare figment than an actual presence on the field.

Neither of the Princess’s charges spoke, for whatever reason. Justine had asked after the princess’s guards, once. She had tried to make the three of them comfortable when they arrived two days ago, but for all of the 19 year-old’s child-like acting and niceties, the Princess of the West Bank, daughter to King Rashi and second in line for the throne, only acted like this to put people at ease, before she went for the throat.

She did not see to the comfort of her subordinates. She did not actually care for the desires of other people. She was probably a sociopath, according to the dossier that Mephistopheles had put together for Justine. Or maybe she was just exactly as much of a ‘princess’ as she had to be, which, in her case, was pretty damned scary. She had gotten even more scary after it was revealed that her younger sister had been Converted, and then unconverted.

But for all that, Princess Weilux was not as scary as a Shade, for she was first and foremost a diplomat.

The only power she truly held was the ability to angle the entire Wasteland toward war with Candlepoint, or away from war. So, she wasn’t as scary as a Shade, but all-out war was scary in its own way, for there was no way that Candlepoint could survive. Oh, sure, they could all run away and hide like they were cultists, or some shit like that.

But Candlepoint was the chance for shadelings to live in the open, under their own power. And sure, Justine wasn’t a shadeling anymore, but that had been a large part of her life, and she would never abandon her people. Even if she hadn’t been reborn under Koyabez’s power and charged with bringing lasting peace between shadelings and the rest of civilization, she would still be here, still doing exactly this, but in some other, unknown way.

The princess stopped at the outdoor settings, just outside the restaurant, where other people were already sitting down and eating. The Princess looked to a seat that was occupied, near the waters; the perfect seat, hence the current occupation.

… And then she chose the second best seating, a bit closer to the water, a bit more in the wind. The table had yet to be cleaned, but that didn’t bother the princess. She threw a [Cleanse] at the space and sat down, then organized the now-cleaned plates with a quick [Telekinesis] and moved them off to another table.

Other people watched this. So did Justine. But Justine sat down across from the princess and said not a word. The entire action had taken less than five seconds.

Princess Weilux was a dangerous person, because she tried to put you at ease. Justine recognized this. Unlike how Erick tried to put people at ease because he wanted peace and prosperity for all, Princess Weilux wanted power for the Wasteland above all, and she wasn’t afraid to murder to get it.

Her dossier put her first murder at age 7, when a nanny came into her rooms with poisoned cupcakes.

Princess Weilux snapped her fingers at the waiter looking at her, who was likely wondering ‘who the fuck this bitch was’. But he got with the program fast enough. Most shadelings could do that, if given enough context clues, and there certainly were a lot of those clues going on around here right now. For starters, Justine was well known, and she would have been in Mephistopheles’s position if fate had been slightly different.

The waiter ignored his other shadeling guests and came right over, saying, “What may I serve you today?”

“A nice wine, purple, if you got it, and three of your best fish dishes.” Princess Weilux asked, “And how did you get a clientele when you weren’t open yesterday?”

“Right away ma’am.” The waiter noticed that the Princess was testing him, though he did not know the test. How could he know the test? He couldn’t. So he said, “And our cook and a few of us have been cooking in the neighborhood for a while, just trying to make it, but then the lake happened and then all the fish, too. It’s been going well, and so we decided to open this place. We got our approval for this place a few days ago, but it wasn’t till last night that the building crew got to us, and so today is our first day. Thank you for blessing us with your business.” He waited.

Princess Weilux smiled; a mask. “Good luck on making your fortune. You’ve certainly got a good location.”

The waiter smiled, also a mask. “It is our good fortune.” He bowed a little, then said, “I’ll go put your order in.” He walked away; not too fast, not too slow. He ignored the people at the other table that he had been serving. Those others were just more shadelings, like himself, and there was a hierarchy in all the world that demanded he serve this unknown incani guest, first.

Or at least get her order into the kitchen before coming back to the tables.

Princess Weilux said, “I know it was seeded a while ago, but fish do take time to grow, especially in a new lake.” In a way that was both casual and not, she asked, “You didn’t even have a fish restaurant open in this city when I booked my trip. And today, you do. Are the fish old enough to be served?”

There were many ways this could go. Justine considered telling Weilux that her known love for fish dishes was considered by Mephistopheles and herself, and thus this restaurant was fast-tracked through the system, all in an effort to make the princess feel more comfortable. This was the most truthful statement.

Another ‘truth’ would be that they were hurrying to develop everything that they could develop, and that included restaurants on the boardwalk. This was closer to a lie. Despite all of the bounty that was available to Candlepoint, utilizing that bounty would require trade and resources that the city just did not have. Restaurants with luxury food were low on the list of necessities. This new fishery was an extravagant endeavor. It would have been better to spend resources, both in the collective manapower and time of Candlepoint’s residents, on developing the cottonfruit fields and the textile industry. Now there was an industry. Something that could be exported. Restaurants? Not so much.

But people gotta eat, and bad food is one of the ways that people just stopped caring about everything else, and retreated back into that servile fugue-state of the before times. Justine had seen that specific backslide many times when she was a shadeling in Ar’Kendrithyst, and a few times more recently.

Justine chose a middle ground, deflecting the answer into another way that would entice Weilux to learn more, and explore more. “Our sewermaster, Ava Jadescale, is spearheading the development of the luxuries of Candlepoint. One of those luxury items is good food, but we could all use some good food. This fishery is just one such place.”

“Hmm.” Princess Weilux nodded, then asked, “How much is this meal going to cost?”

Another question with a few good answers.

Justine picked out the best truth for the moment, saying, “We don’t operate on a gold-currency right now, so this makes a normal economy difficult at the moment. All the people you see here are here on work-vouchers. Anyone who works gets vouchers; the darkchips that Candlepoint started with. A lot of people work in the fields, but I’m sure that once the fish start truly populating the lake, then we’ll open up that industry, too.” She added, “As for how much this meal will cost? It’s free, for you are a guest of Candlepoint.”

“… Adequate.” Weilux asked, “But how much would it cost, in gold, if you had access to the economies of our Wasteland?”

“3 silver for a good meal. 5 silver for a meal here.” Justine said, “We are working to provide luxuries, but this is as good as we can do at the moment.”

“I suppose it would have been rude of me to expect a 10 gold fillet.”

Justine did not respond to that except to put on a tiny smile and pretend like everything was okay.

The waiter brought out three dishes and set them before Weilux. Each of them was normal fish fare, dressed up as nice as could be, given the circumstances. One was breaded and fried, with some fries on the side; lotta grease, there, but it was a popular meal and a nod toward Erick bringing potatoes to the world. The other fillet was steamed, and served with citrus from Erick’s Myriad Citrus trees; that would be the best one, in Justine’s opinion. The third was some sweet sauced fish on rice; a staple dish of the Wasteland.

Each of the dishes were made of singular fillets of fish. Each of those fillets were barely half the size of Justine’s own hand. They were full fillets, too. Young fish. Too young. Justine winced, internally.

Weilux smirked at the fish, saying, “Young fish. Too young. Oh well. They’ll grow up, I’m sure.” She gestured to the dishes. “Would you like one? I had expected to share, but I didn’t expect to need to share quite this much. If I like one, I might have to order another, if that’s okay with your voucher system?”

Justine zeroed in on the citrus one, saying, “That one. I love the citrus trees that Erick— that Archmage Flatt has provided us.”

Weilux slid the plate toward Justine, saying, “You were a part of his household for a little while, I understand—”

The waiter rushed out with the wine, his white eyes too wide. He had panicked and not served the wine first. A mistake like that would have gotten him killed in Ar’Kendrithyst, but here—

Weilux did not look to the man, as she said, “Wine generally comes before the meal.”

“A thousand apologies, Prin—” He shut up.

Weilux brightened, though. She turned to him, saying, “So you do know of me!”

The man, who was named Grett, and who Justine had known for months, now, said, “Uh.” And then he left the bottle and got out of there as fast as possible.

Not the best strategy, in Justine’s opinion, but he didn’t have to deal with Weilux anymore if he wasn’t actually here anymore. So? If it works, it works.

Weilux served herself some wine, happy as a cat who caught a mouse, as she asked, “I know that Candlepoint is poor, and that you throw resources at diplomats in order to make yourself look better, or to woo us, but I’d like to not do that anymore. If we’re to trade, I need to see Candlepoint for what it is.”

Justine shrugged, going with the flow as she grabbed a lemon slice and squirted it on her fish, saying, “Sure. You know, I expected your tour to break down yesterday when we were walking through the threadspinner fields. Some people barely know how to raise a good spider, but we’re learning.”

Weilux held up her wine glass, asking, “How much did you learn under Archmage Flatt?”

Without missing a beat, Justine said, “Enough to know that he’s a man too good for this world, and so he’ll make some new ones, for sure.”

Weilux paused, her drink halfway to her lips. And then she took a sip. She set down her glass, not taking her eyes off of Justine for a single moment. She said, “You really think that.”

“It’s a fact.” Justine said, “I could stop the whole tour right now, if that’s all you want to know. One day, Candlepoint will be the gateway to the stars. Do you want to get in on that? A lot of people have, so far. A lot of people have decided otherwise.”

Weilux hummed, then ate a bite of her fish. She smiled, saying, “This is rather good sweet-sauced fish for 5 silver, even if the portions are rather small. Ripping xerix, if I’m not mistaken.”

Justine said, “We’ve got fields and fields of million fish grass out there, and yes, ripping xerix. Several types of xerix, from silverscale to pin to zorut. We’ve the three reservoir fish going strong. Rainbow flits. Goldscale slippers. Striped silvertail. Bountiful fortuna, too, but those will take years to mature to a proper sport-size. Right now they mostly hide out in Yggdrasil’s underwater boughs.”

Weilux asked, “Is Yggdrasil on the tour?”

“If you want him to be, though I suggest you just look at him from afar, with a [Scry]. People started to gather around him too much and he didn’t seem to like that. I can point him out on a map for you.”

“You give out his location so easily.” In the most non-threatening manner, Weilux asked, “You’re not worried that someone will just [Dispel] him, erasing Candlepoint’s future at the same time?”

In the same non-threatening manner, Justine said, “Not an issue. People have tried to [Dispel Familiar] him along with a whole mess of other erasing magic. None of it worked. We’re not sure of all of his protections, but there’s a lot of them.”

You’d need a Wizard to [Dispel] Yggdrasil, but Justine did not say that.

Weilux smirked.

They resumed their lunch.

- - - -

It had been three days since the older archmage had fallen ill after a sudden scare. The Senior Rockys had come to Tenebrae’s Estate and made themselves at home, though not many of them were willing to speak to Erick, or anyone else in Erick’s party. Jane and Teressa had decided on the second day of inactivity that they wanted to explore the Forest, or rather, Jane had decided, and Teressa looked like she wanted to go, so Erick made the suggestion that Teressa go with Jane.

Teressa readily accepted.

What was there to explore? Erick had no fucking idea, and the excuse of ‘more monster forms!’ seemed pretty damn thin. The two women weren’t going into the Green Labyrinth, though, which was the most dangerous place around, so they were probably fine. Erick sent along a pair of Ophiel with them so he could watch and rescue them, if needed, but he shouldn’t have bothered. All he ended up doing was making himself a worried mess.

The two women were absolute powerhouses. Lesser Armed Sloths came out of the trees, slamming into Teressa from every angle, hitting her shield, or her armor, or getting blocked by her mace, failing to harm the Juggernaut at all. Teressa just roared, flickering with grey light as she taunted the beast, drawing the monster’s full attention as Jane moved to kill.

His daughter was a blur of shadows and ethereal armor. The sloth struck toward her with two long, multi-joined arms, claws ready to pierce and slash. Jane ghosted through the attack and clipped off the offending arms with a snicker-snack of her meters-long sword; her usual weapon.

Erick had yet to see her pull out her [Prismatic Body], and he doubted that he would. The monsters around here were deadly, yes, but Jane and Teressa were both outfitted with artifacts on their fingers, boosting their Stats to powerful heights, and they both had lots of experience with dark places and big monsters. Were they actually in danger?

… Erick told himself that they weren’t. That they knew their limits, and that neither of them were using their major spells or abilities. Teressa moved like she had eyes in the back of her head. Erick watched as she sidestepped poison darts that exploded from vines twining up trees in the dark; her mana sense was active, for sure. Jane did much the same, as she bobbed through the suddenly-there spider webs from a particularly red, person-sized spider that was hanging on the tree, and that had not been red before that moment—

Erick’s heart caught in his chest as the unmoving spider threads suddenly moved, detaching from where they anchored, twisting up and around Jane like—

Jane turned prismatic, easily slipping out of the spider threads. In a quick click of movement, Jane was suddenly standing in the air beside the spider, her longsword embedded in the bark under the spider.

The bottom half and then the top half of the spider slipped off of the tree, falling down to the loam below. Jane turned back to human, laughing, eyes wide. Teressa’s eyes were wide, too. They gave each other some mental back-and-forth in their telepathic connection, no doubt. Jane shrugged.

The red spider was dead.

Jane turned into a black spider and began eating.

… Erick looked away.

Erick read over a particular account of Tenebrae’s trip through the Green Labyrinth for the tenth time, the words mostly flitting in and out of his head as he tried not to worry over something he shouldn’t even worry about. Jane and Teressa were fine. Everything was fine.

- - - -

One of the fun things about being a Polymage, Jane thought, was that with her Class Ability, Shifting Form, she could integrate most any piece of any Familiar Form into any other Familiar Form. Some things just did not translate, though, like the High Flier of her Frost Owl and any form that did not naturally fly, like the new barnacles she got at the auction.

It was rather difficult to integrate the camouflage ability of her Prismatic Octopus into any other form, too, because that particular ability required malleable skin and a malleable body. Shadow Spiders did not have skin, for instance. She could partially integrate the Octopus’s color changing ability into every form, but in most cases, all she could do was to make herself be able to change color. Great for having options, but it was not the best.

But having two Familiar Forms that were as close as her Shadow Spider and this new Red Thread Weaver? Brilliant! This new spider form had [Telekinetic Threads]. It was a much improved version of [Telekinesis], but only with regard to the threads that Jane laid, and much cheaper on the mana. A lot of man-eater spiders had this ability, but Shadow Spiders did not; they were more tarantulas than other species.

Jane had almost picked up a Ballooning Spider form to get this Ability, but those ones had an ability that was more air control focused than the [Telekinetic Threads] of this beautiful Red Thread Weaver.

And with Shifting Form, she was even able to give herself a red hourglass on her butt! How cute!

And thus, some childish part of her was overjoyed!

Teressa spoke up, “You’re cackling, Jane. It’s disconcerting.”

Jane abruptly stopped cackling. And then she slipped through the shadows to stand a few meters from Teressa. “Boo!”

Teressa inhaled sharply. She did not break stride. After a moment, she sent, ‘So why the red triangles?’

Jane ‘walked’ alongside Teressa, but it was more like floating. Her black legs held onto wispy threads that moved her along like a bacteria with a thousand well-controlled flagellum. [Telekinetic Threads] was pretty cool! As soon as the next monster appeared, Jane was gonna wrap it up with her already-prepared threads.

Jane sent, ‘It’s called an ‘hourglass’ pattern, and it’s the marker of one of the deadliest spiders on Earth, though the spider on Earth is only the size of your smallest fingernail, and it’s not all that deadly with modern medicine. Also, I’ve taken a lot of liberties with the form. The original spot for the hourglass is on the abdomen, but you can’t really see that, can you?’

‘It’s certainly making you stand out.’

‘… Yeah… Maybe it’s not the best.’ Happily, Jane sent, ‘Still, though! I didn’t expect to find a Red Thread Weaver out here.’

‘We could find you a Furry Stalker if you want something truly deadly.’

‘… Um. I’m not sure I like the name of that one.’

‘What is this hangup?’ Teressa smiled as she bent down, just a little, then vaulted five meters up, onto a fallen tree that blocked their path. She looked down at Jane. ‘What’s wrong with Furry Stalkers? Do you even know it? I assure you, it is deadly!’

Jane guided her threads to move her up the tree, like a queen on a palanquin. She rejoined Teressa, and sent, ‘I heard of them. They spread fine fur in the air that chokes and kills.’

Teressa nodded. Then she leapt off the other side of the fallen tree, landing in a mound of deadfall and sinking up to her knees. She trudged out of that like it was nothing, breaking rotten branches and making way too much noise, in Jane’s opinion.

Jane decided to try something. She expanded her threads outward, catching the air, falling much quieter than the orcol woman, but much less controlled. As her threads left the solid surfaces all around her, Jane slipped left and right in the air. She sent threads back to the tree behind her, guiding her controlled fall. She landed beside Teressa.

[Telekinetic Threads] did not mean [Air Threads], apparently.

… Maybe she should have gone for one of those Ballooning Spiders when she had the chance, but they were all underground, now.

Teressa gave words to Jane’s newest thought, seconds before Jane had it, ‘There are lots of spiders out there with lots of special abilities.’

‘Despite my fondness for deadly things, I don’t want to be a Spider Polymage,’ Jane sent, deciding that right there and then. ‘I did consider going into Ar’Kendrithyst and plundering the Weaver’s Quarters. But… No.’

She didn’t need [Air Threads], either. She might have tripled her Familiar Form slots to give her the capability to hold 33 forms, but each of those slots was precious. Another slot used on another spider? No thanks.

… And yet...

Teressa suddenly opened up, saying, ‘My old team, back when we were starting…’ She smiled behind her fullplate helmet. ‘One summer, we were finally old enough to help clear the way forward, so that the rest of the tribe could be safe as we trekked to the summer valley. That was the first year that we got to actually join the veterans out front. My brother… He was just learning how to be a Druid from the Elders.

‘Long story short, we found some Furry Stalkers, and we killed them exactly as we knew; from a distance, and with fire. As all young idiot adventurers have done long before us, we missed some.’ Teressa’s mirth came through as she sent, ‘My brother got facefuls of fragmented hair. Ahh. Ha.’ Slightly more serious. ‘Course, he could have died if we didn’t have the Elders there. That hair burned through his Health like it was nothing. I got a small exposure and even that dropped me to minimal Health. It’s just constant, small bits of damage. If we’d have gotten a Variant Furry Stalker with a Decay effect, my brother could have died. Easily.’

‘… Okay. You sold me on the idea. I need a Furry Stalker.’ Jane sent, ‘I can make the Decay effect myself.’

‘Did you see that giant spider back there, a few days ago?’ Teressa sent, ‘It hasn’t moved! Except to eat what it catches, of course. Did you think about that spider?’

‘I did, actually. It looks like a Woodshaper Hardspine, behemoth variant. The normal ones are only person-sized.’ Jane sent, ‘A lot of monsters are person-sized. You’d think that the Cult would make smaller monsters. Horde-types.’

‘They do, occasionally.’ Teressa sent, ‘Smaller monsters don’t get the same levels that larger ones do, so they’re naturally weaker. A good [Chain Lightning] from any decent mage would take out a good forty smaller monsters, and the larger monsters have abilities like that. Have you considered a Spark Skitterer?’

‘I have not even heard of that one.’ Jane asked, ‘How many spider species do you know of?’

‘Not all, but a lot.’ Teressa said, ‘I can shrug off a lot of damage as a Juggernaut, but you need to know roughly how much damage some monsters will do so that you know if you can have fun, or if you need to fight properly, or if you need to run.’ She added, ‘Spark Skitterers have electrified webs. It doesn’t do as much damage as [Chain Lightning], but it can do a lot, and it recharges. I could step on one just fine, but a mage probably couldn’t… Erick could.’

Jane laughed. The sound came out like a grating cackle and endless chittering, filling their small, insignificant part of the Forest, echoing into the darkness all around them.

Teressa said, ‘Wow, is that creepy.’

Jane laughed again—

She stopped.

Something chittered up above, and it was not an echo.

A low buzzing filled the gloom. Bits of moss and bark fell to the Forest floor.

Teressa noticed, too.

“Whelp!” Jane said, loud as she could, for there was no avoiding this monster. “Here comes a lot of things!”

Teressa hefted her shield, happily sending, ‘Forest Wasps! Just in time for your web control.’

Jane released a minor storm of webbing into the air, suddenly spreading out threads from every nearby tree, blanketing the roof of their small, shared space. And then she controlled that thread to part, like opening holes in a trap. She waited for the wasps to get closer, and when they did, that thread would wrap them tight.

As the first person-sized wasp descended they completely avoided the webs by flying fast and whipping around to attack from the sides that Jane had not covered in thread.

These were not normal wasps. Ah. Shit. They were spider hunters. Probably parasitic. Shit.

Suddenly serious, Teressa sent their prearranged ‘Oh Shit’ command, ‘[Beautification Aura].’

As Teressa bounced three wasps away and smashed another one to the ground, Jane flitted to the side, an untouchable shadow, avoiding wasps that were eager to inject their venom. She twisted her form, casting a partial [Polymorph]. Brilliant twists of crystallized light erupted out of the first joints of her long legs.

The next second, the land filled with light. Flowers sprung up from the ground. The dark Forest had transformed into a sunny spring meadow, and Jane and Teressa were nowhere to be found. Nothing was to be found. Only the meadow.

Wasps still flew through the space, though they were blinded and lost. Almost all of them crashed into each other or into the ground.

Others were not so lucky.

A wasp fell to the ground, smashed. Another tangled in webs that they couldn’t see. The main swarm arrived, diving into the meadow, vanishing from their own sights as they did, and suddenly, ten wasps were tangled in invisible webs. Another three became splatters on the ground, or against an unseen tree. The wasps attacked anything they could. Sometimes, they attacked each other. They died from unseen enemies, lurking in the light. A spider leg tipped with spears. A mace, powerful and swift. A [Fireball], unseen by all, but felt by the breeze of heat that washed, unseen across the meadow.

A few more [Fireball]s, just because they could, and the flames from the first one already destroyed all the webbing. Jane already had ideas about how she could counter that; she just hadn’t gotten to them yet. Shadow Spiders could already spin fire-immune webbing —and they also had magic-blocking webbing and magic-blocking venom which were ostensibly better options when fighting magical enemies— but, like so many monster abilities that came from their diet and biology, those options were not manifested by the standard [Polymorph] spell. Jane knew what she had to do to get that power, though.

She needed 10 points for a Class Ability Slot Increase Quest, and then she needed to get Healthy Form.

She was only level 71. All she had to do was find the right monster, then kill it, and she could get those points. Or, she could do Quests. There was more hope for the second option since she would be lucky to ever gain more levels, and her father did have that Quest Board. Jane just… had to ask him for some Quests. Yeah…

Anywho! The wasps were dead. It would have been a horrific fight, except for all of Jane’s nice little abilities. Polymage truly was awesome!

The meadow vanished.

Teressa opened her eyes again, happily saying, “Gods damn, do I love having a mana sense!” She sent, ‘Holy shit. Uh… Haha! We could have died there! Not Forest Wasps. Deep Forest Wasps! Ha! Good fight.’

‘We were fiiiiinnne. Wanna find the nest?’

‘Very much; yes. No need to search, though. It’s right there.’ Teressa pointed upward. ‘About a kilometer up. HUGE nest. I just tracked them with [Witness].’

‘Awesome.’ Jane laughed. ‘Ahh! I need a mana sense.’

Maybe she should ask her father to make a Perception necklace or something to unlock that Stat. One New Stat couldn’t hurt, right? … Truthfully, though, Jane was still torn about which New Stat was the best. Practically free spells, or practically immune to damage, or the ability to see and react to everything that came her way, or … free attacks. Okay. Dexterity was probably not worth it. Jane was on the fence between Perception and Intelligence. Both would lead to better magery, but a mana sense, according to Tenebrae, would enable an easier understanding of aura work, and aura work would lead to better spells...

Teressa smiled as she sent, ‘Time to try out this spell—’

She stepped into the air; surefooted, but unsure. And then she kept stepping into the air. She giggled. Jane followed, except she stepped on the shadows in the air.

‘What spell is that?’

Teressa sent, ‘[Personal Ward], [Force Platform], and [Force Wall], make [Force Step]. Only thing that could hold my weight! Gridwork is amazing.’

‘You should get [Lightwalk].’

‘Yeah. I talked to your father about that. We’ll head over to Oceanside, eventually.’ Teressa looked up, toward the nest, sending, ‘Lots of places to go and things to kill!’

‘World tour, wooo!’

‘World tour!’

- - - -

Erick watched as [Fireball]s tore apart a wasp nest the size of a small mansion that hung between three trees, halfway between the Forest floor and the canopy. He also watched as a meadow of flowers grew near that nest, in the middle of the air, and wasps fell out of that meadow, burning.

[Beautification Aura] seemed like it was cheating.

… Unless you had some of the many, many Sight spells, or even a mana sense, to see through it all. Wasps did not have that, though.

Erick paused in his reading.

Were there, perhaps, illusions in the [Gate] designs that Tenebrae had seen before? Erick flickered through his memory of everything he had read in the past three days—

He shot up from his chair.

“Ah. There’re illusions in the Green Labyrinth.” Erick said, “I’m sure of it.” He paused. “Or maybe that’s too simple. Poi? How would you know if you were afflicted by mind-blocking magic?”

Poi looked up from his book, taking a second to replay what he had just heard. He went back to reading, saying, “You’re not afflicted by mind magic and you’ve never been.”

“Okay. Okay. I realize now that that was a bit rude, but how do you know?”

“Mind Mage secrets.” Poi added, “Tricking the mind to miss a piece of reality is easy to check, Erick. Hiding such a trick is difficult, but also doable, except in your case. You are highly visible. I won’t let anything affect your mind. I promise.”

Erick felt a warmth in his chest at those words. “Thank you, Poi.”

Poi nodded, then said, “A much safer method of obfuscation is to make a piece of reality not be able to be seen in the first place. I can’t check for that. Jane’s [Beautification Aura] falls into this category. There’s also obfuscation through false positives.”

Erick considered all of that, then he said, “That’s all well and good, but what about memetic threats? Take, for instance, Jane’s Prismatic Octopus. She can flicker the skin to induce seizures and disorientation-like effects in prey. She told me it was called [Hypnotic Pattern]. What about physical magic effects that work in similar manners, that erase itself and other parts of itself from the brain, the second they are conceived?”

Poi looked up from his book. He frowned. “Yes. Those types of threats exist. But we do a good job of picking them out whenever they’re found. All you have to do is behold small parts of the whole and then recognize those smaller parts—” He paused. He said, “We have departments dedicated to erasing memetic threats. I regularly submit myself for decontamination to ensure I haven’t been compromised. I did so last night. Nothing is wrong with anything I have seen.”

“But what about what I have seen?”

“Okay.” Poi stood up. “Let’s do a scan.”

Erick clapped his hands together, saying, “Excellent!”

Three minutes and one longer-than-usual scan later...

Poi said, “Clear.”

Erick frowned. “Clear? Why’d it take so long?”

“Intelligence complicates scans.” Poi looked to Tenebrae’s [Gate] tomes and wardlight images, saying, “There’s no trickery, here. Or at least none that Tenebrae recorded. I doubt he would submit to a scan, though.”

“So much for that easy answer.” Erick frowned. “I just don’t see how these twists of mana and intent make [Gate] work.” With a smirk, Erick asked Poi, “But since you now know everything I know…”

“Sadly, I cannot talk to you about [Gate]. That would be violating the Mind Mage credo.”

“But it wouldn’t be divulging the secrets that other people know! Just talking to me about my own. Like a sounding board.” Erick knew he was doomed to failure, but he asked anyway. “Please?”

“Nope.”

“Bah! Fine. Then let’s go bother Tenebrae. It’s been days and he should be somewhat better, right?”

- - - -

“Absolutely not.”

Rock came out to meet them when they approached the door to Tenebrae’s tower before they even had a chance to knock on the door. After Erick’s inquiry about a visit, Rock emphatically declared his decision.

“You will upset him and I cannot have that.” Rock said, “He is recovering.”

Erick countered, “I won’t purposefully upset him.”

“Very few people go around purposefully upsetting Tenebrae, and those that do, don’t upset him for very long.”

“… I still want to talk to him.”

“No.”

Rock shut the door in his face.

Erick went over to the cafeteria, searching for his other way to get to Tenebrae.

Palodia’s room was beyond the kitchen, beyond the dining room. Erick had been in the kitchen a few times to get a few items, which he then brought over to the guesthouse to prepare in their kitchenette since Palodia was mostly watching over Tenebrae and not cooking that much.

But he had never knocked on Palodia’s door.

He did so, now.

No answer.

… He’d try again later.

On the way back to his guestrooms, he met Palodia in the courtyard beside the tree. She had just come out of Tenebrae’s tower. She locked eyes with him the second she saw him.

“Just the man I wanted to see!” Palodia went back to Tenebrae’s tower, motioning for him to come along. “I brought him his early dinner and he asked after you. Saw you down here. Saw Rock shoo you away, too.” She re-entered the tower, saying, “Tenebrae does want to talk but his kids are overprotective.”

Erick smiled, as he walked into Tenebrae’s tower. A few floors up, he noticed Rock and Slate standing together in the room labeled for ‘Rocky’. They glared at Erick, as Erick ascended past them, up to Tenebrae’s room.

Tenebrae sat up in bed, surrounded by pillows. A covered dish sat to the side; dinner, waiting. The old archmage didn’t care for that dinner. His eyes focused on Erick as the younger archmage came into view.

“Erick!” Tenebrae demanded, “What have you made of my notes! Tell me. Sit. Speak your mind.”

Palodia had a much calmer voice. “He’s juiced up on several different potions right now—”

“I am fine, woman!”

“— so he might not be all there, but he still noticed Rock rush downstairs to shoo you away and he wanted this conversation—”

“Yes! So you can go away, now, too, woman!”

“—but I’m going to stay in case he needs more medication.” Palodia sat in a chair beside a window, saying. “Don’t mind me. Try not to upset him.”

“I am perfectly in control of my own facilities, wretched woman!” Tenebrae ignored Palodia, and locked eyes with Erick. “What do you think of my notes? Speak, dammit!”

Erick said, “How likely is it that you’re missing something in your various scans and reproductions of the Gates?”

“Extremely!” Tenebrae said, “Hundred percent! I’m missing a lot in those scans and there is degradation in the wardlights, for sure. I doubt I captured 60% of the various Gates I have seen in the Green Labyrinth, for I got chased off every time, except for once, and that once was around a twisted Gate that barely functioned as a [Gate]. It flickered off and on every few minutes. You read about that one, didn’t you?” His voice raised, “You did read what I—”

Before Tenebrae could make himself angry, Erick interrupted, “I read everything at least three times.”

Tenebrae relaxed. “Good.”

Palodia scowled at Tenebrae, but said nothing.

“Why do you think you’ve missed something, physical?” Erick said, “You have pieces of thirty seven Gates, and each of those pieces come together to form a whole. Theoretically, you should have a full Gate in your notes. So why do you not? I cannot believe that you missed this potential answer. So… What is happening there?”

Tenebrae relaxed further. “Good. We are here, then.” He said, “Yes. I have a whole map of a ‘complete Gate’, if you take the pieces of what I’ve scanned and put them together.” He held his hand out. A book flew to his hand. He held the book toward Erick. “Here.”

Erick opened the book. It reminded him of graphpaper notebooks, for it was a book of gridwork. Flipping through a few pages, he recognized that this tome was the culmination of Tenebrae’s attempts to stitch together all the individual pieces of the Gates he had found into a coherent whole. It was exactly as Erick had guessed; it was the next step to the work he had already seen.

While Erick read, Tenebrae said, “I produced two of these objects, for each side of the [Gate].” He added, “I produced one. Then I had the Headmaster [Duplicate] it. Didn’t work. Likely because I didn’t have [Gate], and the Script does not let you enchant spells that you do not have.” Like a sad story, he continued, “And then I went and helped an enchanter I trusted to get him [Gate] by him paying the 10 points, and then I helped him to learn [Duplicate] from the Book Binders. All things being equal, that should have worked. It did not.” He added, “Incidentally, that enchanter died a few years ago.”

Erick asked, “What metals did you use?”

Tenebrae waved him off. “If you are looking for small problems that we could have missed, you should spend your attention elsewhere. We did everything we could with top-quality materials, and none of it worked. Deep Sky Silver, [Duplicate]d so I would have enough to make the first Gate, made wrought-quality through the best methods. We also did gold and silver and all sorts of metals. Nothing went wrong, there.”

Erick considered speaking of using [Duplicate] in a Restful space, to automatically make metals wrought-quality… And hell. He went for it. “Did you use a Restful space? [Duplicate] your Gate inside of there?”

Tenebrae smirked. “Yup.”

“Ah.” Erick said, “Then have you considered that there were illusions on the various Gates you found?”

“Of course.” Tenebrae said, “I also considered the fact that the Green Labyrinth can confound my scans through the power of its Domain. All of that has been mitigated as much as it could have been mitigated.”

“Okay. Then. Did you ever talk to Apogee, the Wayfarer Guildmaster of Spur?”

Tenebrae scowled. “I have spoken to the Wayfarers more than you could ever know. They have a theory about how the two spaces have to be ‘perfectly similar, so you can walk from one to the other’. That’s cowshit, too. I did all that, as well. Never managed to make [Gate]. With regard to Apogee in particular: Yes, I did talk to him. At length. He never helped me, and he still—”

Erick smiled.

Tenebrae spat, “What’s with that dumb look!”

Palodia spoke up, “Don’t make me knock you out, you old bastard.”

Tenebrae sighed. He repeated, softer, “What’s with that dumb look?”

“You’ve done a lot of legwork, here. And I agree with the Wayfarer theory, but from a different angle than how you probably see the problem. So. How about this?” Erick laid out his current top-contender for ‘how [Gate] works’, saying, “Have you considered that the creation of a [Gate] is the linking of two spaces through their vibrations? That all of everything vibrates at certain frequencies and strengths, and that duplicating that same resonance in two different locations might be the secret to [Gate]? To make them resonate, and therefore make their spaces become ‘perfectly similar, so you can walk from one to the other’? Maybe the Wayfarers are onto something, but— You once told me that you believed that Force was responsible for Sound, and therefore you didn’t truly understand what ‘sound’ was, so maybe your entire approach to [Gate] is wrong, too, at a fundamental level. Maybe everyone’s approach is wrong.”

Tenebrae frowned, and then he looked away. After a moment, he turned back to Erick. “Are you talking about resonant Force? That’s an obscure field of magical study. Not much power to it. I suppose… There could be something to pursue in that direction.”

Erick was instantly dumbfounded. He wasn’t sure what he expected out of his unfounded theory on [Gate], but he did not expect Tenebrae to call ‘resonant Force’, whatever that was, an ‘obscure field of magical study, without much power’. Erick said, “Resonance should be really strong. Like. Stupidly strong.” He instantly reevaluated his idea. “Or maybe Health blocks it. That could be… Hmm.”

Tenebrae scrunched his eyebrows, disbelieving. “How much Sound magic do you have?”

“Ah. Just the one.” Erick said, “Actually. That’s a really good thing to make. I need to make a resonant sound spell. I’m going to work on that, and then come and tell you when I’m ready, if you want to watch me create the actual spell?”

Tenebrae raised a bushy white eyebrow. “I would be delighted to see that. Tomorrow?”

“Actually… I just thought of everything I needed to make the spell, right now. So? Want to go now?”

Tenebrae started laughing—

Palodia spoke up, “Nope! He’s had enough excitement for a day. He’s going to crash after he eats dinner.”

Tenebrae scowled again, saying, “I won’t leave the bed. I can [Scry] him. I can even eat while he does his cowshit singing magic! It’ll be like my own personal court clown. Everyone needs entertainment in their life, Palodia.”

Rock came up from outside, where he had been listening, saying, “Nope. Eat. Then sleep. If you don’t need potions to wake under your own strength tomorrow, then you can watch Erick make his magic tomorrow.”

Erick’s eyes widened. “It’s that bad?”

Tenebrae called out, “I am FIN—” He clutched his chest.

Two sudden, frantic minutes later, Tenebrae was awake, but barely. Rock and Palodia had moved the fastest, but now, they just looked down at Tenebrae, and said nothing. Slate organized the potions on the shelf for the third time; a nervous tic, no doubt. Obsidia stood in a corner, a curled hand nervously covering her mouth while her other hand was held tight against her chest.

With lidded eyes, Tenebrae stared at Erick. A ferocity lurked in those powerful grey depths that was not present in the rest of him. He said, “Tomorrow, Erick. I will see this magic… Tomorrow.”

Erick said, “I’ll be waiting.”

Rock turned, glanced at Erick, then turned back to Tenebrae.

Erick excused himself.