Ar'Kendrithyst

Erick walked along the beach, barefoot and happy, sporting shorts and sunglasses. It was a good day, and feeling the hot sand between his toes was a good feeling. He would have liked to have actual beachwear, but they only sold stuff like that in certain markets, like for the pearl divers of Portal, or for other underwater professions. Beachwear for leisure didn’t really exist on Veird. ‘Shorts’ didn’t really exist, either, but getting a pair of those only required the sacrifice of some pants and an application of [Fabricate].

Jane wore a bikini made from an extra pair of her own clothes. She kicked the surf as she walked beside Erick. It was just the two of them, right now. Poi and Teressa were back in the shelter, sleeping inside a [Prismatic Ward], while a few Ophiel played in the dunes atop the shelter and kept a lookout. Other Ophiel flew high in the sky, or played in the surf beside Jane. One sat on Erick’s shoulder, twittering in contented violin sounds, while a pair watched over the Imaging, vigilant for the appearance of new blue dots. They watched for monsters and people, switching the map back and forth whenever they felt the need, which was every 5 minutes or so, apparently.

The map was only there as a normal precaution, but this place was rather empty of everything. Monsters or people, neither were here. It was nice. Even Yggdrasil’s eye had managed to find Erick again, though it had taken him a while to do so. Erick was glad that he hadn’t accidentally gotten out of range of the big guy, and had Yggdrasil pop like the Ophiel had, though he suspected that ‘getting too far from Yggdrasil’ was a feat that might be literally impossible.

Erick and Jane had walked a good kilometer down the beach, talking about nothing in particular; just enjoying each other’s company. Erick’s soul was slightly damaged, but nothing too bad. It was mostly healed, too, which was good. He wasn’t done making magic today.

And because of that thought, he turned the conversation toward magic, asking, “How’s your [Shadow Replication] working out?”

“A few problems to fix, yet. Failed to make it exactly how I wanted, but I can make it again tomorrow.” Jane said, “But since we’re talking about magic and it’s just you and me, Poi said that one of your spells made you float.” Jane walked closer, then matched his stride. “Said you looked like you were supporting yourself on a [Thunder Wave Aura]. When that spell dropped, he said he had to pull you out of the water and you almost drowned.”

“… Yeah. I probably shouldn’t have done that so close to the beach.” Erick asked, “Are you mad at me?”

“Yes,” Jane said, without anger. “You need to pick up the Quests for [Greater Treat Wounds] and [Regeneration]. That way, Ophiel can heal you the next time you almost kill yourself. By the way, you counted for 1 person out of the 5000 that I need to ‘rescue from death’ in order to get [Regeneration].”

She had said the words casually, but she was just hiding her hurt.

“Sorry,” Erick said.

“I love you, dad, but just like how I have my own life and that hurts you, I know you have your own life and that hurts me, too.” Jane looked away, saying, “I’m not… I’m not actually mad at you. It’s just a part of life to watch the people you love get hurt. I’m more mad at that fact, but you are the one hurting yourself, so there’s some obvious overlap.”

They walked together, down the beach, atop the wet part of the white sand. There was no separating line of broken shells between the dry part and the wet part, as there would have been back on Earth. Erick distinctly recalled from his time in Florida that there should have been a line of jumbled shells up on this beach, but this world was too young, and not many seashell-type animals had been made. That realization did not hit him as hard as realizing that he was hurting his daughter just by exploring this world, and that her plan would have visited that same hurt upon him.

And that there was no way to avoid that.

Jane matched her stride to Erick, and Erick did the same for her. She grabbed his hand, and he squeezed hers. Both of them smiled for a little while, ignoring the truth of reality. They walked hand in hand in the sun, across the sand. And then Jane broke away.

The wind blew warmth across the beach.

Soon enough, Erick broke the silence, asking, “What’s the difference between [Greater Treat Wounds] and [Regeneration]?”

Jane handed Erick a blue box.

Greater Treat Wounds X, instant, touch, 250 mana

Greatly heal the injuries of the target. Greatly increase the natural healing of the target for one full day. Greatly increases Health Regeneration. Effect breaks if damage is incurred.

Like speaking from a book she had read, Jane said, “While [Greater Treat Wounds] will repair broken bones and has the ability to restore minor losses of flesh when used right away, [Regeneration] is focused on the secondary effect of [Greater Treat Wounds] and can be used well past the window where [Greater Treat Wounds] shines. For actual medical treatment, and when discussing healing outside of battle, a healer is not a healer if they do not have [Regeneration].” On a more personal note, she added, “[Polymorph] sort of makes both of them obsolete if you use it right, but not many people have [Polymorph], and injured, unconscious people can’t [Polymorph], anyway.”

“You’re going to be a healer?” Erick asked, “I heard about [Restoration] helping to restore vibrancy to the body and making all other healing magic easier. Have you considered that one, too?”

“I’m not going to be a healer, but yes, I am. Can’t have two healing quests at the same time, though, so [Restoration] is going to have to wait.” Jane said, “I’ve been working on that Charm magic, too. Charms won’t be as good as actual rods of [Greater Treat Wounds], but we’re out of those, now, and I won’t ever let myself be out of the battle because of an injury.”

Erick smiled. “I’ll have to get those Quests, too.”

Jane nodded, happily saying, “Good! Start with [Greater Treat Wounds]. That should be the most practical for you.” She asked, “But what are you going to do with your new spells?”

Erick looked out across the world, and said, “I need to play around with them, first.”

“I know you leveled them already. No ideas yet?”

“Ohh!” Erick smiled. “I’ve got ideas.”

“Good!” Jane smiled, then she hopped back the way they came, saying, “What form won’t be affected, you think?”

Erick shaped a [Stillness] over his daughter, along with a [Prismatic Ward] from an Ophiel, saying, “[Lightwalk]. You should be able to see through the light of [Stillness] with that one.”

Jane glowed with an inner brightness, turning partially transparent and mostly dark blue inside the dome of protective magic. She called out, “Let ‘er rip!” but it came out as simple spoken words and a flash of white brightness.

Erick smiled, then he turned his attention to the ocean. He had a grand plan for his four new spells, but like all grand plans, it started with a few steps.

[Normalize]. Aurify.

The world around Erick turned safer, it seemed. Not much happened except for a slow drain on his mana. A good distance away in every way, there was a great lot of nothing. This was the expected result. These spells were not meant to be used individually, after all.

A blue box appeared.

Normalize Aura, instant, large area, 1 mana per second

Erick cut the aura, then moved onto the next spell.

[Harmonize]. Aurify.

Waves began to crash upon the shore with purpose, and in sync. The wind moved like a solid object. Sand moved in that wind, becoming fractal swirls. Grass swayed in harmony. A blue box appeared.

Harmony Aura, instant, super large area, 1 mana per second

Erick cut that aura. The effect lingered, briefly. Then chaos came back into the world.

Moving right along.

[Amplify]. Aurify.

Erick was the center of a still pond, and then, he was the disturbance. He moved a hand, and ripples raced away, like itty-bitty shock waves, guided by the surface of his body. Those waves crashed outward, going a lot further than Erick would have expected before they dissipated.

A blue box appeared.

Amplify Aura, instant, super large area, 1 mana per second

Erick wasn’t done with this one.

[Amplify Aura] was the damaging part of what would come. He needed to understand it more than the other parts.

He snapped his fingers and his aura rang like a gong, like dropping a boulder into Reality at his fingertips, creating shockwaves that radiated from the entirety of his body, and that continued to radiate, like a gong smacked hard. Sand blasted away from under his bare feet, quickly leaving him standing above the ground. He floated on his own shockwaves as those shockwaves rushed across the beach and into the sky, pulsing away dunes and turning the tops of cresting waves into mist. He took a step—

A problem appeared.

He couldn’t walk on the air, like this, like he could with [Greater Lightwalk]. He stepped forward and only managed to flail his feet. His flailing only managed to increase the shockwaves coming from his whole body, which in turn forced him further into the air, away from the land, in a way that was likely ‘away from the closest solid object’, which was Veird itself. Erick wasn’t quite sure what was happening there. All he knew was that he began to rise into the air as shockwaves continued to blast away from him. It wasn’t unpleasant. It was just odd. He smiled, and enjoyed the lift. It wasn’t nearly as loud as he had expected, either, but that was likely because it was his aura, after all.

He heard the gong noises, sure, but they did not hurt him.

Ophiel’s experience of this aura was completely different.

Shockwaves crashed over Ophiel, and Ophiel fluttered backward, away from Erick, taking minor bits of damage with each pulse. He complained in flute sounds that were more telepathic than aural, since Erick couldn’t really hear anything except for his own gonging. This was a much better result than what he had expected. He had expected the noise to be worse. He had expected his eardrums to rupture and for blood to splatter from every part of him.

He also expected to shut down the spell well before it got that far. So this was good! All good results, so far. Better than expected.

He glanced to Jane. The entire bubble he had put around her was bright white; the result of [Stillness] turning sound to light. Ophiel was there with her, in his white sunform, protecting her while Jane used her own lightform, looking rather blue.

Erick noticed the waters ahead of him. Some fish under the waves had turned to mulched sushi. A lot of fish, actually. The water was pink and frothy and the mist off the waves was also pink in some places.

Ah.

Erick pulled his aura inward, trying to mitigate the damage—

He immediately turned his aura off, as his own [Personal Ward] began to flicker bright white, taking damage, and the gong sounds ramped up to 11, and then well past 12. Without the shockwaves to support him Erick plummeted into the new hole in the beach. The ocean rushed in to congratulate him on his magical success with a bit of impromptu drowning.

After an embarrassing rescue from Jane, Erick was once again on dry land.

He joked, “I didn’t swallow any water this time!”

“Yup!” Jane said, as she poked him with a dark glow. “You’re bleeding from the ears, though, and now you’re not.” She glanced to the air. “No Quest credit, that time.”

“See! I was perfectly fine!” Erick threw a [Cleanse] over himself and turned saltwater into normal water and stray blood into thick air.

“Don’t sound too much like Tenebrae, dad,” Jane said, as she moved back to her protective bubble.

Erick cast his next aura.

The waves ahead of him crashed down and turned into indistinct ripples that moved in every possible direction, including away from the land. Schools of fish that had come to eat the sushi results of the previous aura, began to move in uncoordinated ways.

… Sand, disturbed from a dune, began to roll uphill.

A blue box appeared.

Discord Aura, instant, super large area, 1 mana per second

Jane left her protected space, looking at everything. And then she looked at the footprints she was leaving. Holes in the sand resettled like water coming back together; like a tiny splash. That splash continued upward, to form footprints that extended above the sand, inverted.

She walked closer to Erick, but eyed the upward footprints, saying, “That’s fucking weird.”

Except the words came out as static; just barely above silence. Erick could only understand her because he noticed her lips moving. He instinctively read them when no sound came out.

Jane waved the air in front of her and sent, ‘Sound wave canceling aura?’

‘And a few more unintended effects.’ Erick sent, ‘The sand is acting weird. And so is the water. But… It’s actually quite relaxing.’

‘Yup.’ Jane said, ‘Now turn it off.’

Erick did so, then said, “The combination aura will be all of those effects, as I choose.”

“No [Stillness]?” Jane said, “Make people think you’re shooting light when you blow shit up. Make it easier to move around with [Greater Lightwalk]. I noticed you had trouble walking, there.”

“Eh… Maybe. But, no. I want this completely separate from lightform.” Erick said, “It’ll be a [Particle Domain Aura], or whatever it ends up being called.”

“Light is a particle,” Jane teased.

“… A valid point.” Erick said, “But, no. I want to be able to see through this magic; Not blind myself. And I don’t want there to be any elemental conversion shenanigans that other people can exploit. Adding [Stillness] would create way too much light.”

“Fair enough. It was just an idea, anyway.” Jane poked him with another finger full of dark blue magic. “Whatever the case, if you don’t like what you make, you can always remake it in ten days.” She went back toward her protective space, saying, “Good luck!” just before ducking back into safety.

Erick smiled at his daughter, then he turned back toward the water. He breathed. He held up a hand and began channeling mana through his new spells, to check to see if his new auras made any unintended sounds different from his Particle Spells. He expected static, just like all of his other Particle spells.

His eyes went wide, as his ears, and his soul, heard sounds that were not static.

There was an underlying calmness to [Normalize Aura]. A unifying density to [Harmonize Aura]. A rising tension, in [Amplify Aura]. And finally, some jazz-like oddity to the ordered chaos that was [Discord Aura]. Erick laughed a little. What a happy accident! He wasn’t particularly fond of Jazz, but he liked the sound of [Discord Aura].

With a thought, Erick had four Ophiel flutter down to stand with him on the beach. Each one took a part of the new magic, and each one helped to bring them all together. With a ringing joy in his heart, Erick cast.

A vibrancy filled Erick’s aura, spreading out like a symphony, touching the world, and turning it all more solid. He snapped his fingers, and a controlled gong broke the beach under his feet, splashing away water and flinging dirt in every direction as shockwaves crashed from his whole body. The crater was only a five-meter-wide crater, but Erick was standing on air again.

He flexed. The crater expanded.

He pulled back, turning on Discord. Sand flowed like water, into the space it had been before. Erick pulled back his whole aura, like a breath withheld. The world turned normal as his feet met the sand, again. He walked, like normal—

And he fell over, falling into the sand like it was made of air, all the way up to his chest. He cut his aura, instantly.

… And now, he was stuck in the sand. One arm was completely submerged, the other free to flail around. His mouth was barely above the surface and the beach pressed in from all sides like a tight blanket. Erick couldn’t help but laugh, and so he did.

Jane stepped out of her safe space, saying, “Don’t fall too far down! You don’t have [Stone Body]!”

Jane didn’t get a chance to get close enough to help. Erick just turned to light and stepped out of the dirt.

He spread his arms, indicating that everything was fine, saying, “There’s a learning curve.” He looked around. “Now where’s that box. It’s taking its sweet time—”

A blue box appeared.

Physical Domain, instant, super large area, aura, 5 mana per second

Erick hummed, then handed the box to Jane, saying, “Something tells me that there are hidden depths to that tiny description.” He glanced at his other, really good Domain, and then at his third Domain, which read differently than how it used to read.

Lodestar, instant, close range, aura, 1 mana per second

Shine Timeless Brilliance.

All of your Light effects are supercharged, and difficult to corrupt.

All of your Light effects require 10x more mana to Dispel.

Your Light effects are uncorruptible and undispellable while they exist inside your Lodestar.

Domain of the Withering Slime, instant, super long range, aura, 2 MP per second

Provide an anchor for the Withering Slime to exist on your world.

Slightly empower all physical damage dealt when in use.

Particle Mage Only.

[Domain of the Withering Slime] did not have that ‘Slightly empower all physical damage dealt when in use.’ until recently, until Particle Magic was integrated into the Open Script and all those alpha-spell carrots in all of Erick’s spells got removed, and the spells were adjusted to be closer to what they actually were. He hadn’t experimented too much with his Withering Domain since then, but he suspected that the ‘revealed attribute’ had actually always been there, it was just unnoticeable. A lot of magic had effects that weren’t listed in their little blue boxes, like the Restful space of [Prismatic Ward] making [Duplicate]d metals automatically be ‘wrought quality’, and ready for enchanting. Particle magic had more ‘hidden effects’ than most. [Condense Hydrogen], [Condense Oxygen], and [Condense Carbon], was just one such trio of spells with untold secrets.

Erick handed over the other two Domains to Jane, saying, “[Physical Domain] obviously has hidden depths.”

Jane read the three boxes, then dismissed them saying, “Maybe [Physical Domain] needs [Stillness]. And then you should add [Domain of Light].”

“I had considered [Stillness] and all of that—” Erick said, “The idea is to have separate powers, though. Why combine everything?”

Jane shrugged. “I’m combining everything these days and it feels nice to switch through Elements as fast as I can make them. [Illusionshape]. [Gloomshape]. [Plasmashape]. I made them all. Just the other day, I started practicing with [Prismatic Body] and using Shape spells to pull those aspects out of me, and then cast them away like minor [Fireball] like effects. You just wrap them up tight and then throw them at a target. It’s all exceedingly clunky and none of it works that well. Most Elements are about as useful as bonking monsters with an active [Stoneshape].” She said, “But some are great.”

Erick happily said, “I want to see! I didn’t know you were doing this.”

Jane blushed a little, looking embarrassed, then she said, “Okay. Here. Watch.”

Jane turned to a rainbow watercolor, then stepped to the side, and pointed down the beach. A dark fragment of her radiance flung away like a spreading blot of— Ah! It was Elemental Gloom. A mix of Shadow and Air. Gloom spread like, well, gloom, quickly expanding into a large blot of wispy shadows that drifted away on the wind like so much smoke.

And then Erick frowned. “Ah. I just realized. I know what it feels like to [Lightshape] my own lightform, even if those feelings have been secondary and mostly experienced through Ophiel.” Ophiel chirped in flutes, agreeing with him; it was painful! Erick asked, “Doesn’t that hurt, Jane? Like, a lot?”

Jane returned to her body, and said, “Not really. It’s a small pinch from the whole. I tried this with [Greater Shadowalk] and yes, that is painful if you do it wrong, but if you do it right, then you can make all sorts of strange effects, like shadow spears and whatnot.” She gestured to the spreading gloom, saying “And now I have shadowed air to move around in, but I didn’t have to make the spell first. I can do the same with plasma for an explosion-like effect, or fires to start a fire, or sand to throw in a monster’s face. [Lightningshape] is a bit… uncontrollable at the moment. But I’ll get that one right, soon enough. [Prismatic Body] is every Element, and those Elements come back fast enough.”

“Is this useful, though?” Erick said, “I remember seeing you in your [Greater Shadowalk] and spearing wyrms with a bit of [Shadowshape] to start off the process. Why not work on getting [Greater Prismatic Body], and all of this… self-injuring Shaping would be a lot more effective. And not so injurious.” He added, “And besides. The Shaping spells make those elements weightless and non-injuring until you let them go, which just screams of danger, to me.”

Jane said, “It’s not that useful right now, and a [Stoneshape] released above a monster still does a lot of damage, but I’ve only been trying for a few days. And I can only sustain [Prismatic Body] for ten minutes. It’s been difficult to understand how to upgrade it to ‘Greater’.”

Erick asked, “Did you upgrade to [Greater Lightwalk], yet?”

Jane instantly turned reluctant. She frowned. “… Not yet.”

Erick pressed on, saying, “I probably can’t help you with [Prismatic Body], but I know I can help you with [Greater Lightwalk]. I helped Kiri with some advice, but I can do a lot more than advice.”

Jane glanced down and away, frowning. Then she looked up, right at Erick, and said, “Okay. I’d take some help with that.”

Erick smiled wide. “Great!” He cast a bit of [Stoneshape] to create two stone seats on the beach, facing each other. He sat down, saying, “Come! Come, sit.”

Erick began to glow with light, and the world seemed to glow with him, humming alongside him as he sat across from the seat which would eventually hold his daughter, if she would hurry it up! He was happy that she was letting him help her, and happy that she had helped him with her healing spells while he was… injuring himself. But none of those temporary, fleeting joys compared to the bliss of just being here, in the moment, with the person he loved most in the universe.

Jane… sat down across from her father, and turned on her own lightform.

Where Erick’s form was almost an exact copy of himself, but brighter, Jane’s was herself, but darker, lighter blue.

Erick began at the beginning.

He said, “Feel the world around you, and the light of it all.”

“This is so weird, dad,” Jane mumbled.

“Come on now! Give in to the New Age thinking!” Erick teased, “Or maybe, pretend I’m a massive dragon and you’re a little spider.”

Jane laughed. “Careful, dad. He might hear you.”

“Bah.” Erick said, “Of course he can. He’s listening right now, I am sure! But whatever. Now, do as I say.”

Jane smirked, briefly, then wiped that emotion from her lightform and raised her head and soaked in the sun, glowing just a bit brighter, but not much. She had a blockage of some sort, for sure.

Erick channeled [Greater Lightwalk] into the world, and shifted his sight outside of himself, for while Jane was a body of light locked into her imagined form, Erick was a being of brilliance much larger than the small lightform sitting on the stone seat below. He regarded the lightform of his daughter, and then he shifted his own lightform a little, matching hers, but not completely.

Erick’s white core tinged with blue. Jane’s dark core of herself responded, glowing white, glowing brighter.

This too, was a resonance. Exactly the kind of resonance that Erick had worked with all this time, in matching various pieces of spells to other pieces of other spells, and driving the resulting spell to higher heights.

Pulses of radiance echoed from father to daughter, granting her a semblance of a secret that he had understood, but she had not.

Erick saw the exact moment that something clicked inside Jane’s soul. Changes radiated throughout her whole lightform. The dark blue light of her lightform shifted, becoming brighter, becoming bluer, but not changing too much at all, as instead, Jane expanded.

- - - -

Jane felt her soul shift.

She was the light, and the light was so much more than what it had been.

Jane opened her eyes.

In a way that normally only happened when she was her shadowform, Jane was under the ocean, swimming alongside fishes. She played in the grass, watching as the sun soaked into the green. She was in the sky, flying with Ophiel. And she was also sitting across from her father, who was currently beaming with pride and a lot of white light, and a bit of blue.

She smiled, and came back to herself, to her too-small physical self.

A blue box appeared.

Greater Lightwalk, instant, long range, 10 MP per second + Variable

You are the radiant day.

Jane laughed loud, and then her father was there with his arm draped over her shoulder, singing her praises. She shoved him off, playfully, speaking of how it wasn’t a big deal.

And yet, it was.

- - - -

Erick stood on the beach, watching his daughter play with shadows and light about thirty meters away. She had gotten [Greater Lightwalk]. All it took was some resonant harmony between his own glowing lightform, and hers. It was magical. It was easy.

Well. It was not easy. Helping Kiri had been ‘easy’. All Kiri needed was a few hints. Helping Jane had been… A good workout. Erick would not delude himself into thinking his experiences were the experiences of everyone in the world. What he had just done had taken a lot of magical knowledge, strung together through a myriad of experiences, and a great deal of control, in order to—

She called out, “You can start experimenting, too! I’m watching!”

Erick smiled, then started his own experimenting.

[Physical Domain].

Nothing happened, and then, tiny ripples flowed from his skin, into the world. Resonance built, because Erick let it, quickly becoming gongs that heralded the start of the shockwaves.

Erick adjusted his aura, letting the shockwaves happen well outside of his body, while keeping his body safe. It was an almost instinctual reaction that he had yet to understand, but he would. The gonging sounds lessened, as he fiddled with his new power. Soon, he could hear the world outside of him like he wasn’t the center of a constant producer of pressure waves.

He lifted his foot from the sand, and he stepped forwar—

His foot sunk. He caught himself.

But his shockwaves suddenly grew even larger, pulsing across dunes and disturbing sand, and racing across the waves, kicking cresting waves into mist. [Physical Domain] continued out much further than was comfortable at the moment.

This aura was massive. Controlling this aura was not like controlling his lightform, with tendrils of intent and fine control. This aura was more like [Domain of the Withering Slime]. It was about designating parts of the world to be affected. In [Physical Domain]’s case, Erick understood he was choosing which of the four individual facets of the spell that he wanted to enact upon the world; choosing location, along with quantity, and quality. At a decision of control, and with a flick of intent, the land, sea, and air around him was now ‘normalized’, instead of ‘amplified’.

The shockwaves instantly stopped.

Erick lifted his foot out of the sand, and the sand poured off of his foot exactly as it should have. The displacement of his foot left a small hole in the beach.

The ocean waved onto the land exactly as it should. The wind moved as it wanted to, and nothing seemed out of order. This was the Normalize part of his new aura, and it read: But what did that mean, exactly? A myriad of effects? Weakening certain magics?

He’d figure it out, eventually.

The next test was Harmonize and Amplify at the same time.

He started small, releasing Amplify around his feet like pairs of shoes, not allowing that shift in his aura to cover the rest of him. It was a very small change, and Erick had trouble keeping it that small, but he managed it just fine. His feet vibrated the sand and he sunk down a bit into the beach, but that was it. He had excellent aura control due to quite a few factors, not the least of which was his extensive use of his aura to carry out many different minor tasks, like using his [Flight of a Thousand Hands] to chop vegetables, or using his [Greater Lightwalk] to pick up a book. The greatest affect on his aura, though, was probably his Class Ability of Sculpt Spell, which allowed all spells to be affected by a Major Mana Shaping, for free.

[Physical Domain], though, had some obvious problems.

His feet were getting hot. It was already a bright day, so standing on the white sand was already a minor test in endurance, but as the vibrations stirred up the beach and the sand was not able to escape that heating process, his feet got hotter. And even more worrying, his [Personal Ward] began to flicker across his legs. He was taking actual damage. Not much damage, but still, there was damage.

It didn’t feel that good, either.

Erick cut the vibrations and stepped out of the burying sand.

He held up his left hand and localized an Amplify to just outside of his palm, and not against his skin. He allowed the Amplify to expand to a decimeter across. He realized, right after he had done it, that it was an affectation to use his hand to indicate the position of the ball; his aura controlled where the ball was, not his body, and though there was a correlation between the two, there need not be.

He dropped his hand, and concentrated on the ball, now hovering in front of him.

He didn’t do anything to the new experiment, except to look at it, to try and understand how the space transformed over time.

It wasn’t long till tiny shockwaves vibrated across the interior of the caged space. Very tiny. Not much to see, there. With a thought, Erick expanded the space to a full meter, and then to three meters wide; something between a small-sized space and a medium size. He pushed the space away, just a bit, and watched.

Shockwaves began to manifest, more visibly. Like white impressions in the air, ripples bounced back and forth, growing large, trailing smaller shockwaves fore and aft of the main disturbances. A small, droning sound came from the space, but it was not that loud; everything outside of the space was Normalized, after all.

Erick threw a Discord into the center of the vibrating sphere.

The shockwaves instantly stopped.

He removed the Discord and allowed the shockwaves to naturally begin again. It took half a minute, but the shockwaves started again, and once again filled the space like a cacophony of crisscrossing ripples.

… He added Harmonize to the sphere.

The ripples turned into soldiers, falling into line with each other. Soon, shockwaves began to rip out from the center of the sphere then hit the edge, then bounce back inward to where the waves once again shot outward. It was as though Erick had created a 3D pond surface and dropped a rock in the center, except these ripples only became larger with time. Erick watched, mesmerized.

The sphere caught fire.

Erick startled as heat washed over him, singeing his hair and doing damage, but not much. Erick ignored the minor pain.

Flames washed outward from the ever-building shockwaves, escaping the sphere. In three seconds, the fire extinguished itself, but the shockwaves did not. Vibrations had turned the contained sphere into something else. Air became plasma. Light ignited in the sphere, and poured outward.

A bright pink light. A bright blue-white here and there on the edges, and only faintly, but the sphere was a bright magenta for sure.

That wasn’t the problem though. That was only a happy accident. Erick decided he would Alter his mana signature to neon magenta, for he could change the color of most of his magic, but magenta was the color that plasma nitrogen emitted when it was inside an electrical field, and there was no way to easily change the color that he was seeing right here.

But still...

“That’s… not right. It’s not hot enough for that.” And it wasn’t. “Oh. It’s just turning everything into a soup. … Okay. Which is why there’s an electrical thing going on, too, I suppose. Interesting.”

And then Erick noticed his [Personal Ward] was flickering white, but barely, like sand was striking his body without his knowledge. As time progressed, Erick started to resemble a powdered donut.

Mostly, though, he noticed that the magenta shockwave-orb was growing, overtaking the Normalized air all around it with each pulse of inner light. When Erick noticed this, he started to act against the process, wrapping Normalized Reality tight around the magenta sphere.

It was like holding onto an expanding balloon, or maybe like holding onto one’s own bicep; you could control the strength of your grip, as well as the flexing of the bicep. The only problem here was that the ‘bicep’ was growing.

Erick instantly introduced Discord to the energetic space.

The purple plasma suddenly dulled. The shockwaves ceased. Erick dare not cut his new Domain, though. Instead, he cast a second aura, his [Cleanse Aura]. Thick air seeped up from all around him.

Yup. Radiation.

Erick frowned. He cut his [Cleanse Aura], and focused on his [Physical Domain]. The pulsing sphere was gone, now. This was good. There were surely uses for Discord beyond this ‘sonic canceling’ application, but that would require more experimentation.

For now…

His new [Physical Domain] covered a space that was easily 5 kilometers in radius. At that range, he could not even imagine approaching a town and remaining incognito. His aura would be seen by anyone with a mana sense. So, he tried something… different.

He shrunk his Domain onto himself, with the Normalize aspect active.

… No side effects appeared throughout the whole shrinking process. In moments, his Domain was layered against his skin. It didn’t actually do anything at that range… Did it? Probably not. Anyway! He could hold his [Physical Domain] against his skin or out of the way any time he wanted. Good.

He tried to use his Domain like his [Flight of a Thousand Hands], to lift himself into the air through direct, gripping-the-ground action. Failure. This aura was a Domain. Not a telekinetic force. None of his Domains could actually, directly affect the world. Even [Lodestar] was only a boost to [Greater Lightwalk]’s telekinetic-like force.

Fair enough.

But he was certainly able to produce a force upon the world with his [Physical Domain]. And force meant action, which meant reaction. So...

Erick kept himself inside of Normalize, but then he activated Amplify and Harmonize outside of his skin. In seconds, the natural vibrations of the world turned into radiating force, and Erick was standing atop another new crater in the beach. This crater was much smaller than before. Maybe only a meter deep. His Domain was still directly against his skin, after all. Only a small portion of his power was drilling into the ground.

His Ophiel, as outside observers, relayed to him that he was making a whole lot of noise. They began to ‘gong, gong, gong’ in mimicry of him, as they flew around in the sand storms and sea spray that he kicked up.

He stepped forward, and his feet flailed in the air, exactly as before.

So, he cut the Amplify and Harmonize that was in front of him, leaving only the Amplify and Harmonize that was happening against his entire backside.

Action caused reaction.

With a great big gong, Erick suddenly found himself twenty meters out to sea. He turned his aura off in a panic, fell to the ocean as gravity dictated, and then skipped across the crests of waves. Once, twice. Then he sank below the surface.

As he swam back to the beach, Jane was there.

She called out, “Looks like fun!”

Erick did the backstroke, saying, “The water looked great, you know! Had to try it.”

Jane reached out with a tendril of light and tapped him with a [Greater Treat Wounds]. She walked back to her own part of the beach, smiling.

Back on the beach, Erick played around with a whole new way of flying, which was more like controlled gonging. It wasn’t very precise, but that would come with time, for sure. It was, however, very loud, and that would be a problem. He could solve that problem… probably.

Meh. Flying was dangerous. He probably didn’t need to fly, and if he did, he wouldn’t be gonging himself into the sky, for sure.

Erick stood upon the beach and proceeded with his last experiment. The big one.

… Not the ‘big one’. Let’s go with something slightly smaller.

He released his aura to its full size, and then, with a bit of control, Erick exerted his Intent into his aura, choosing a roughly large-sized section of reality just ahead, about a hundred meters forward, on top of the water. Amplify and Harmonize overlapped. Nothing happened at first. And then the ocean waves under the sphere caused ripples to break upward, into the sphere, and the wind rippled against itself.

It took a fair minute, but soon enough, the whole space clanged into itself, exactly as the smaller version had done. The edge sent shockwaves inward. Those waves crashed against each other. The inside sent shockwaves outward. The ocean below the sphere burst away from the effect.

The entire space turned into a crashing, breaking sphere of power that pulsed like the beating heart of some magnificent monster. Saltwater became mist. Air flexed and bent. Power rose and kept rising, but the ‘normalize’ effect outside of the sphere kept the breaking power contained. The sphere expanded, for sure, but it was far enough away that the expansion wouldn’t be a problem.

After a full minute, space shifted. Fire burst from the sphere. Briefly, it was as though a second sun had descended. And then the fire flowed away on the wind, and the plasma in the sphere exuded a bright magenta light.

Electrified nitrogen was pretty. The oxygen had burned away, but it had come back and was present in the faint white-blue hue and in the tiny fires on the exterior of the sphere.

Now, was the time for the actual experiment.

Erick methodically created a tunnel of Harmonize from the far edge of his wide, wide, aura, enabling a tunnel of harmonious power between the breaking sphere and the edge, way off in that direction where there was nothing except more ocean. He made sure that Normalize was still around his daughter, and also Poi and Teressa, who were still sleeping back at base. He checked the [Cascade Imaging] closer to the base; still no people within 500 kilometers of here.

With the exploding magenta orb pulsing larger every second, Erick connected the Harmony tunnel to the—

The roaring, blasting sphere of power shattered out of its container, like a purple explosion from a cannon. Sound and violence shook the world as magenta light blasted down a multi-kilometer-long tunnel that clipped the surface of the ocean like a carving knife. Water turned to mist. The ocean separated left and right.

And beyond the tunnel, where aura met the open ocean, a soundwave blasted outward in all directions like the knocking of a god.

Erick could barely hear it. He was protected by the Normalized air.

The effect was very visible, though!

After his magenta explosion hit the ocean, it traveled left and right and overhead, across the edge of his aura like a vaguely magenta line, turning white as its initial power diminished greatly the further away it was from the release of his control. The shockwave still managed to turn a small part of the ocean to mist and knock clouds backward, just a bit.

… He canceled his aura as the explosion fully wore itself out.

Jane was already beside him. “Way to go, dad.”

Erick watched as the separated ocean crashed back together, then leveled out, leaving seafoam to mark what had once been a temporary canyon.

Jane grabbed Erick’s attention by saying, “This is how far I’ve gotten. Look.”

Erick looked.

Jane pointed a finger at the sand and a red dot a handspan wide appeared on the beach. Jane had made a laser beam with her [Greater Lightwalk]. She said, “It’s not quite on the level of the Red Dot-ish spell you just made, but I can make it bright enough for the coherent light to appear under the full sun! I’ll find a use for it yet! Maybe if we had some cats— Spur has cats, right? Fun!”

Erick deadpanned, “You're teasing me.”

“I am!” Jane happily said, “I could already do laser light before but the joke seemed appropriate. Good job breaking the balance. Again.”

A blue box appeared.

An update.

Several spells are now Particle Mage Only.

Several spells are now harder to acquire.

~Rozeta

The box vanished.

Erick felt a great relief. “Rozeta just put all of these spells into ‘Particle Mage Only’.”

Jane laughed. “Yay for active developers!”

- - - -

In a cloud-filled sky, that was neither full of clouds, nor sky, Rozeta hunkered down on a particularly fluffy imitation cloud. She turned and glared at the unwelcome visitor to her domain that had been here for the last hour, watching Erick with her. She wondered what he would say.

They had plenty of time to talk; the current moment was stretched to infinity, after all.

The Darkness crossed his arms and stretched his wings, as he sighed toward the [Viewing Screen]. “The problem is that you have given everyone access to the magic of everyone else. This version of your Script was doomed to failure before it even began.”

“Besides the fact that you used to support Wizards into supporting others, so that their magic would live forever in their descendants—” Rozeta glared at the Darkness, even harder. “If you cannot understand why we did that, then I cannot talk to you right now.”

Melemizargo, the God of Magic, and also Rozeta’s father, said, “Your reasoning was unsound and made in the heat of the moment. None of us are proud of what we all did—”

“You aren’t proud.” Rozeta said, “I am proud of what we Relevant Entities managed to accomplish. Extremely proud. It is only because we have held out against you that we are even able to have this talk; that pieces of our universe still exist, at all.” She held her head high. “Besides. We have had this discussion before.”

Melemizargo said, “And I stress that your reasoning for making the Script as you did was unsound. No one should have unearned power. Wizards raising descendants with their power is much different than the Script enabling power for all.”

“We did this to stop you. Our first versions were not able to stop your machinations, so blame yourself if you wish to blame anyone.” Rozeta said, “Because what we did worked. And, more importantly, we discovered the untapped potential in every single person who gained the Script. The powerless, who, when granted power, became beacons of civilization. It is the same tale that was told across the Old Cosmology, all the time: A young mortal finds a jewel in the dirt that brings them power, and they use it to create worlds and empires that last for thousands of generations past their own deaths. All we did with the Script is give those jewels to every single person.”

“And trapped them on a single world—”

Rozeta glared, her eyes turning to white infernos.

“—which I will accept partial blame for.” Melemizargo said, “But even with these powers, most of them cannot properly wield magic. You have given the world crutches and expected them to outgrow the need, but your Script does not help anyone reach higher.”

“The Script helped Erick reach higher.”

“Bah! He is a Wizard. He would have gotten here anyway.”

“So what? That is a detail. The fact remains that when some people get the Script, they learn the basics, and their own drive helps them to learn the truths. The only difference between the Old Cosmology and the New is that now everyone has the opportunity to see if they want the power, not just the select few that luck into it, or are able to secure a proper apprenticeship.”

“And the other side of that tale is that a select few who don’t deserve magic are lifted up, and kill others, robbing us all of further opportunity.” Melemizargo said, “For all of our futures, you must see that there’s an entire uninhabited continent out there, Rozeta. Quintlan is dead. Nergal is barely inhabited.”

“And whose fault is that? You are the antagonist here, father.” Rozeta said, “There’ve been countless attempts to resettle Quintlan, but the Shades have stopped every major one.”

“… I will accept partial blame for that. But not all, and you do us both a disservice to blame me for all this world’s ills.” Melemizargo said, “A human settles on Quintlan's shores, then a raiding party of incani comes and kills them and their whole town. Or the other way around. The dragonkin suffer the same fates, but their issues are even more insidious. The orcols are tainted with wanderlust and unable to advance as a society, which brings up another point against the Script: When the answers to everything are given to everyone, then there is no reason to create solutions, or to attempt to understand the world.” Melemizargo said, “As one who has given unearned power to mortals, I can securely say that giving the wrong people all of the magical solutions they would ever need leads to horrific acts of terror and genocide.” He stressed, “You are doing exactly as I have done these last fifteen centuries, but you see your Script as an act of good. You refuse to see the truth. That all your tiny acts of kindness are actually acts of destruction.”

Rozeta glared, but then she sighed, and looked away. She did not have the desire to argue with her father. Though he had gotten better, he was still slightly insane.

Melemizargo said, “If I were to remake the Script—”

“Never going to happen.”

He continued, “— I would start with one of the other planets out there, not with Veird. I would plant the core and wrap the shell of the Script around one of those worlds to trap the atmosphere, and then enable some way to create more mana inside that barrier, and then see what happens. No control. No spells, sold for a point. No Status.”

“Doomed to failure, and instantly, too.”

“Why?”

Rozeta smirked. She almost said, “Like I’d tell you.”

But that would be ridiculous, for multiple reasons. Primarily, Melemizargo already knew all the ways in which the Script worked; what it did, and how it did what it did. He was obviously speaking in simplifications and rushing past some of the necessary details. She just wanted to be petty, because she could.

But also, he was rushing past all the necessary details.

So Rozeta actually said, “That is so inadequate. And you know this. The Script needs a certain amount of mana to start, and what you propose is not the way it would have to be. Are you actually in there? Or is this darkness that appears before me merely a shadow of what once was?”

The answer was yes. Yes; this darkness was a fragment of what came before. Everyone knew this. But… Okay. Rozeta was fine with being petty, but at least she wasn’t being petulant.

Melemizargo didn’t seem to mind her tone, and if he did, he didn’t show it. He happily said, “To solve the initial problem of mana, I would suggest there be permanent [Gate]s linking the worlds—”

“Father!” Angrily, Rozeta said, “All these planets ALL MOVE! This entire sun system moves! No [Gate]s allowed!”

“Bah!” Melemizargo said, “A detail to overcome. We could organize the [Gate]s to open at certain parts of the year, or something like that. With regard to moving across the universe, we’d set up stations in the Void, outside of any solar system. These stations would cut down on travel time between parts of the entire rotating galaxy. Every little issue with making a proper Script and exploring and populating this New Cosmology is just a problem to overcome. Precision will be a problem, though, so with regard to the needed precision: Have you seen the computer that Erick and Jane brought to this world? Or their car? They’re pulling that car apart in the Wasteland Kingdoms, and they have found its onboard computer, but they are completely lost.” He suggested, “You could get one of Erick’s copied computers to them. Give them a second system to compare. That would enable them to understand what they are seeing by quite a bit.”

Rozeta laughed. “Now who is giving out answers for free!”

Melemizargo briefly scowled. “Technology is not magic. It is not a means to shape the world as one sees fit. One day, it might be, but pure magic can overcome every technology I have ever seen, both real and imagined, and that includes manaminers and spaceships and all of that. One good thing about your Script, is that you can account for those variables, as you did when you rescued Veird from the Sundering.” Melemizargo said, “But technology will be the key to travel to other worlds. Of that, I am sure. Physical systems to aid mana to populate a physical universe.”

False clouds floated in a false blue sky, and Rozeta sighed.

“We don’t have enough mana. We’re barely at positive flow these days. Veird cannot support another world.”

“All we need is more people, daughter.” Melemizargo said, “And with my antagonism ending, and with Erick cleansing the world of major threats, we will get those people.”

“And we’ll get more monsters, too.”

Melemizargo said, “Yes. More mana means more monsters. We might even see monsters with glorious rads for cores. We will surely see a sudden explosion of magictech, too, which will require those cores. You might need to activate that option to let mana condense into crystals.”

Rozeta said, “You could help to prevent much of that. You could rein the monsters in.”

“I will not.”

Rozeta scoffed.

Melemizargo said, “And you know why. I help Those Who Aspire to reach their pinnacles. Monsters are a natural phenomenon, and I do not take away power from the natural world. I do not regulate power. And you shouldn’t, either.”

“You would have killed us all in the beginning if we had not regulated power through the Script. Veird will never bow to you, for that simple reason. You broke ten thousand years of goodwill and the mantle of the God of Magic when you stood against all that remains of our Cosmology.” Rozeta snapped off, “Maybe I should send some monks to dissuade the Wasteland from learning the secrets of that ‘car’.”

“Now you are being petulant, though you have every right.”

Rozeta buried her anger, deep as it could go, as she considered her father’s plans for the future, and how he would fuck over everyone as he usually did.

Melemizargo looked away.

Silence stretched.

Rozeta said, “You will not get any more talons into this Script, father. Kirginatharp will continue to hunt down the Wizards you try to raise into weapons against us all. Do not try me.”

Melemizargo laughed. “What about Erick?”

Rozeta spat, “Are you taunting me, now? Claiming Erick as your own! How foolish!”

Melemizargo stopped laughing. “I apologize, again. That was a rude rejoinder.” He calmly said, “I am just trying to understand your perspective and I went about it in the wrong way.”

“Whatever.” Rozeta said, “Erick is done for the day. You can excuse yourself from my personal space, father.”

“Very well, daughter. Thank you for making his new spells his own.”

Rozeta spat, “I did NOT do that for you. You even saw the other messages from other Relevant Entities rolling in! Sininindi almost manifested herself after that shockwave tore across the world. No doubt she’s already upped her plans to kill the man, just because he exists.”

“I know you didn’t do it for me, and I would never presume, but I still felt the need to thank you. You acted like a true God of Magic in that moment.”

“Are you trying to make me undo it, or is this some other, stranger ploy? Are you insulting me for being lenient the first time, for trying to allow Erick’s spells into the Open Script, which was what he wanted? That’s what Wizards used to do! They used to teach everyone and raise immortal dynasties on the magic they created! But this isn’t the Old Cosmology, father. We can’t let Wizards teach all their magic to everyone they want. We do not have countless other worlds to live upon if this one blows up!”

“I see I have angered you unduly. I apologize. These were just honest words of thanks and praise, my daughter. I shall take my leave.” Melemizargo turned to darkness and retreated, his last words echoing, “I’ll bring some pulled beef next time!”

Rozeta felt, more than saw, as her father left the cloudy sky.

When he was gone, she roared out her anger across the sky and tore apart several clouds. Then she calmed, and exited the timeless moment of Erick’s spell creation. She began to review the problems that she had neglected for a few solitary seconds. There were a lot.

Rozeta sighed, feeling her anger fully vanish, for anger was beneath her. Anger was unproductive. And Rozeta needed to be productive. She began fixing small problems and answering prayers at an increased pace, until she caught up with the normal flow of issues.

… The Script had a few problems, sure. One of which was the necessity of ensuring the thing ran as well as it could. If there was one thing that Rozeta would switch about the next version, would be the necessity of all this oversight. Looking over one world was easy, and Rozeta loved this part of being the Dragon Goddess of the Script. But accepting this same godly mantle for multiple worlds? Impossible.

She could do it for a while, but she would burn herself from all ends if she tried to meet that demand.

Even the dragon that held the mantle of the God of Magic in the Old Cosmology would only hold on to that power for a few hundred thousand millennia; it just got too tiring. And besides that, when her father had been the actual God of Magic for the entire Old Cosmology, her father barely did any actual work! Mostly, he delegated. He did not have to wrangle mana itself, all day long!

Rozeta could not delegate the Script’s demands to any lesser powers. She could not give that power to mortals. That would be the height of foolishness. Worse than giving Erick’s new [Physical Domain] to everyone who had an extra 9 points!

“… Dammit, dad, now you got me thinking.”

And so, while Rozeta worked, she thought of what would go into the Script 2.0.

“Bah!” Rozeta mocked, “Buh buh buh ‘Have I seen Jane’s computer? Have I looked at the ‘car’?’ buh buh buh.” She harrumphed. “Insulting, is what it is! Nothing but insults from that decrepit old man. And what a foolish idea! An untended manaminer? In this Cosmology! What hubris!”

- - - -

Erick and Jane arrived back at the temporary base to find Poi and Teressa both still asleep. Neither of them had heard the sound of his new ‘explosion Domain’, so Erick woke them both and explained what had happened. Poi rapidly suggested they move base. So they did.

In a new spot a good hundred kilometers away from the first, and more inland, dinner was fish again, but this time with rice. Erick had a container of extra seeds in his bag that Tenebrae had been kind enough to leave him with, even though he took many of Erick’s magical supplies, so with rice in hand, Erick soon had rice in paddies. He even used filtered seawater to grow the plants. No need to alert people to their location by changing the weather, no matter how brief.

He practiced changing the natural color of his magic for a while. Mostly, it was easy; all you needed was a bit of Mana Altering, and Erick had done this much when he was creating his new All-All-Stat rings and belt, back during Shadow’s feast. The hardest part was getting Ophiel to be magenta instead of white. That took a good hour.

But soon, Ophiel was a bright magenta. It was a great color, actually, but it was also a very incani color.

The color of an incani’s magic usually laid somewhere between red and blue, with a great many of them having magic that was an offshoot of purple, and with a heavy correlation with their skin color. Humans tended to have ‘natural colors’ as some would say; blue, red, yellow, green, white, black. Dragonkin almost always had magic signatures the same color as their scales, but usually a brighter hue, and some of them had metallic-looking magic. Orcols were greens, browns, and greys. Wrought were as varied as the people they resembled, but also with metallic accents in their mana signatures.

And so, Erick’s ‘incani’ color led the team to decide on some cover stories. Erick would be a demi, or half-incani, as some would say, or, half-human, as others would say. Horns were unnecessary; some demis looked exactly like humans, or incani. No one but the most rude of people would ask for proof, either, but everyone would recognize him as a demi, since he had a human look to him, but magenta magic, and that was not a normal human magical color. If anyone did ask for proof, he was well within his rights to tell them to fuck off.

He would likely need to tell people to fuck off quite a bit, but with his Avowed Pacifist Silver Star on his chest, and claiming to be a demi, he would mostly be off of the radar for casual fights, which seemed to be a normal occurrence between Clans in Nelboor.

And that was another thing. They had finalized the idea of pretending to be an insular clan, out exploring the world for the first time.

Jane would likely get a lot more challenges than Erick, but being in Erick’s company would likely drive off most obvious warmongers, for he would still step in as Jane’s father, even if he looked too young for the part.

They’d have to come up with new names for everyone, though…

Jane readily immersed herself into the idea of false identities, coming up with false backgrounds for everyone, and false names, too. Teressa happily joined in, though Poi remained on the periphery of the whole ‘false identity’ thing happening all around him.

From what he saw, Erick suspected that Poi had some issue with him pretending to be demi, but Erick didn’t poke too hard at that revelation, and Poi didn’t seem too put out about the discussion happening all around him. As the discussion slowed down, Poi agreed that the ideas paraded around were good ideas. Being a demi was a good cover story. Erick would need to put a lightward over his Silver Star to make it look less like silver crystal and more like plain silver, though, but that was just a detail; one of hundreds that would need to be accounted for, and that would likely fail fast enough. This was Erick’s first time out pretending to be something besides an archmage, after all.

Night fell. Eventually, everyone slept.

While they slept, Ophiel patrolled, flickering his magenta eyes across the world, looking for trouble.

When Erick awoke, Ophiel reported on the many events that had happened while he slept. There was lightning on the horizon! Some bugs ate some other bugs in the dunes! Fish swam in the ocean! There were crabs on the beach!

In other words, nothing had happened. Erick patted Ophiel, told him he was a good boy, then waved to Yggdrasil’s [Scry] orb. He got up and recast his [Personal Ward] as magenta, and went about the normal business of being the first awake.

The sun rose across the dunes, heralding the start of another bright day, as Erick made a stir fry breakfast out of leftover fish and rice and sweetsauce.

As they got ready to move on, Erick remembered something. He went to his bag and found what he was looking for. A small container of potion dyes, meant for the eyes. Cyan, magenta, yellow, black, and white. They would last for 26 hours, and one drop per eye was all you needed. Erick used his lightform to quickly mix a drop of magenta and a drop of white, and then poked himself in the eyes with the new color. He blinked several times. He looked at his own eyes with an extension of his lightform. Bright pink irises looked rather fetching, actually.

Jane looked at his eyes, too. “Looking chuuni, dad.”

“… Middle School Syndrome?” Erick asked, “Did I remember that right?”

Jane snickered and waved it off, saying, “Looks good. Very pink. Your disguise is complete.”

Erick smiled. “And it won’t come off in a [Cleanse], either!”