Ar'Kendrithyst

Breakfast was spicy sausage patties, fluffy pancakes dripping with caramelized cactus syrup, freshly ground coffee, piles of scrambled eggs, and an announcement from Jane, after she woke up and joined them at the table.

Jane set down three folders on the table, saying, “So I didn’t want to bring this up when you were working, but the Knowledge Mages around here are giving out packets of info on you. I think it’s propaganda in your favor.”

Erick paused in his bite of pancake. After a moment of thinking, chewing, and swallowing, he said, “Yeah. I know.” He added, “Well. I did not know that, specifically. I knew that information was going out through official channels, of which the Mind Mages are one, and then Treehome was another, and information was getting out there. I didn’t know that the Knowledge Mages were a part of this, but in retrospect, they must be. I’ve never actually been to one before… I try not to think about being under that much scrutiny.” He glanced at the folders. “What sort of propaganda?”

Jane said, “Great things, actually. How you saved lives. How you worked with Songli. Stuff like that.”

Teressa smiled. Poi said nothing. They both ate breakfast without interrupting Jane.

Jane continued, “I think they’re making you a national hero.”

“Ah.” Erick stabbed another bit of pancake, saying, “In the most rational sense, I am a national hero.”

Jane frowned. “I did not expect to hear you say that.”

“I’m either a hero who helped them push back against Terror Peaks, who helped to clear out thousands of hidden killers, and who cleared out the borders of even more hidden threats, or I’m a plot from Melemizargo to— I don’t know. Take over the world? Take over the next one, for sure, if Yggdrasil works out like I hope he does, and just lets anyone through anywhere they want to go. Or something.” Erick thought for a second, then said, “Melemizargo’s plan is more complicated than that.

“Melemizargo’s goal is to make Shades palatable again. His story would be that all the old ones needed was a Blessing of Empathy in order to stop them from working to harm the world, while the new ones would be much better. A part of that plan is him making me look good, else wise my Blessing upon the old Shades means nothing.

“I am not sure if Songli is playing to his tune because they must, for it is in their own interests, or maybe Melemizargo worked to make it so that their interests align, or… I should probably try to find Goldie or Queen and ask them what the fuck they’re doing, but...” He added, “Anyway. I expect Melemizargo to swoop into the scene in fifty or a hundred years and start making new Shades, when no one but the immortals remember how much pain they caused.”

Teressa had stopped eating the second the Darkness was mentioned.

Jane frowned, thinking.

Erick’s words had unsettled them both.

Poi simply nodded, though, saying, “That’s in line with our current expectations of the future.” He added, “By the way. We would like to search for puppet minds and masters, spinal spiders, putrescent slugs, and book slippers.”

Erick exclaimed, “Oh my gods! How did I forget about that? Yes! Let’s do that. Today. Talk to whoever needs talking, including Songli. Might as well start here, right?”

“Thank you, sir,” Poi said. He started sending out tendrils, as he said, “It should be considerably easier than counter-Hunting, or at least require fewer resources. Eradicating these monsters is a specialty of us Mind Mages, but finding them is a lot more difficult than you would think.”

Erick asked, “Is it because of antimemetic defensive mechanisms? Or whatever it is? Or some other reason?”

Jane came out of her thoughts to look at her dad, saying, “Where’d that come from? Antimemetic?”

Poi, on the other hand, froze, even as Erick was speaking his words. He unfroze, and said, “We don’t like to speak of Mind Magic protocols.”

Jane looked at Poi with sudden curiosity. “Is it because thinking is okay, but speaking activates latent thoughts? Or something?”

Poi said, “You both should stop... Talking about memes? Huh. Okay. Whatever. Do what you want.”

Something was obviously going on there.

Jane got a funny, happy look in her eyes, and turned to her father, asking, “With that super high intelligence you must remember some memes, right?”

Erick instantly said, “It’s been 84 years, Jane. I don’t remember all the ones you sent me.”

Jane chuckled, then said, “Okay, okay. This is so surreal for me. It’s like—”

And then small numbers and functions and math started to swirl around her head, written in white light as Jane’s mouth dropped open a little.

Erick responded, “To be fair, you have to have a really high IQ to remember more than a handful of memes.”

Jane laughed once, loud, then did something else. Her eyes went wide, her mouth opened a little, in an ‘o’. And then her skin turned yellow, with red patches on her cheeks.

Oh!

“I know this one!” Erick exclaimed, “Surprised pikachu!” He laughed, saying, “I shared that one around the office when you sent it to me in an email. It was cute!”

Jane chuckled, and turned back. “I could have gone full pikachu, but you never go full pikachu.”

“I liked the o’rly owl, too,” Erick said, “But that one was before your time.”

Poi simply nodded at this exchange.

Jane almost said something more to Erick, but she noticed Poi. She turned to him, asking, “Those aren’t the memes you meant, were they?”

“Not at all.” Poi said, “And I won’t be elaborating on the kind I did me— dammit.”

Jane was already smiling. She said, “A meme which deletes itself and specific memories upon the speaking of it. All you have to do is get someone to say a thing, and something is deleted in them. I imagine it works like a temporary memory wipe, perhaps wiping out the previous hour, or maybe whatever sort of object you link to the wipe, with the potential to wipe anything from a specific person to a monster infection out of the mind of the recipient.”

Poi frowned, and said nothing.

“Am I right?” Jane asked.

Teressa had resumed eating at this point, but she paused to tell Jane, “You shouldn’t poke fun at what the Mind Mages do. Be glad you lived through your encounter with the one meme you did find.”

Jane’s good humor vanished. “Ah. Yeah. The moon reachers.” She frowned, asking Poi, “If you don’t want to talk about it, then fine.” She turned to her father. “But we should talk about you being made into a hero of Songli.”

Teressa nodded. “They’re gearing up to formally woo him to the Highlands.”

Poi said, “Yup.”

“I’m not sticking around here,” Erick said, frowning a little. “I like them well enough, but I need a smaller community. I like being able to theoretically disappear here, but it’s too… It’s too stuffy. I think. I’m not sure. I certainly didn’t get all of what I came here to get, though, so that’s a bit of a bummer.”

Jane said, “Kaffi seemed… alright. At the end, anyway. Still highly suspicious, though. I don’t know. That’s probably just me.”

Teressa said, “They’d do anything you want of them, including giving you a whole space for the shadelings of Candlepoint.”

“Well. Probably. But so what? I’ve got plans for Candlepoint and the Crystal Forest. I still need to make that place livable again.” Erick added, “And you know what? Maybe [Polymorph] needs to be harder to come by. Less crystal mimics means less [Polymorph] means less Hunters and face stealers.” As soon as he said it, he knew that he had to do it. Turning the desert into livable land, getting rid of all the crystal mimics, would be a major blow to the various evil uses of [Polymorph] around the world. But… “The Crystal Forest is the only place that [Polymorph] comes from, right?”

“The major source.” Poi said, “Alchemists with the spell can make the potion themselves, but without mimic ingredients that potion doesn’t always work right. Much, much less success rate.”

“I spent a lot of money on my first potion, and that failed. I got curious to know if that first alchemist cheated me, so I went back to check out his operation ready to see malfeasance, but the man was making potions properly; using the mimic parts people brought him.” Jane said, “Even back when I got my potion from him, he had a great big warning over his counter, and then he personally told me that it's not a guaranteed potion. But I hoped it would work anyway. It didn’t. Ramizi told me the same thing, but his potion worked. I kinda felt bad about assuming I was cheated that first time, but it was nice to see I wasn’t.”

“That potion is a dice roll.” Poi said, “With mimics, you get a proper potion half of the time. Without mimics, you get a successful potion 2-3% of the time. But what’s worse, is that without mimics, the price of that potion flies into multiple grand-rad territory. 20 or 30 grand rads, actually. Economically non viable for all but the most dedicated. From there, the price would only get worse as time moved on and the mortals capable of making [Polymorph] potions passed on.” Poi said, “All of that is listed in the definitive [Polymorph] potion book; ‘A Study of [Polymorph] Potion’. A banned book, just so you know.”

Teressa said, “Some immortal or whoever would keep around some mimics, though. Just for that reason. That’s a mountain of gold; a massive investment in the future.”

At that, Erick had a funny thought.

He said, “Spur could regulate [Polymorph].”

“We’ve tried.” Poi said, “Didn’t work.”

“It would work if only one nation of the entire Crystal Forest controlled all the mimics,” Jane said.

“Yes.” Erick said, “That.”

Poi frowned. “I don’t think Silverite would want to do that?”

“Maybe she would.” Teressa said, “I hadn’t even considered the end of the Crystal Mimics bringing the end of easy [Polymorph]. It always seemed like such a far-off idea. Make believe; nothing truly real.”

Breakfast continued, and ended.

Erick decided to try his hand at making brownies, afterward. It was a nice diversion from his current responsibilities, and he felt he deserved it, so he was doing something nice for himself while he could. Later, he would send Ophiels to the Tribulations, to farm mist stone gluttons for their cores, to make up some of the money he had spent on the university. Later, he would talk to Tsung, and hunt for the Mind Mage threats, and see what was happening with the Warlord Clans.

Later.

Poi, who had been sitting at the kitchen table and sipping his coffee while he read, looked up, and said, “The Mind Mages are ready for Imaging. They’ve got samples and Songli has given the go-ahead.”

Erick laughed as he spooned brownie batter into trays. “You guys work fast— Ah. Oh. You probably had this ready for a while. Sorry about forgetting.” He paused, then said, “Songli worked fast, too. Were they ready for me to offer something like this?”

Poi smirked, then said, “I couldn’t say.” He added, “But for all their speed, only 9 targets in Warlord Clan lands seemed low. Were they actually doing everything they could, there? I’m not sure. They could have added more as the time wore on, but nothing more came.”

“Yeah. Something fuckey is going on there.” Erick put his three brownie trays into the oven, saying, “I think I may need to go out there my—”

From the other room, Teressa roared, “SOMETHING BIG IS COMING!”

For a long second, Erick blanked.

Then his instincts kicked in; [Hunter’s Instincts], specifically.

In the next flickering second, Erick focused on the world through Ophiel and his own mana senses. It took precious seconds, but he soon saw the attack. It was coming from the Ophiel he had floating ten kilometers up, in the billowing clouds above.

It seemed not to care for the [Alarm Ward]s it floated within, triggering with its presence.

Green scales. A long body, like a snake’s. Thick arms and legs. Horns with bits of horn floating around themselves. Spiked scales that rose along the back like a mountain ridge, as the entire body undulated downward. The dragon was the spitting image of Rozeta, except in green, and with its face pointed down at Erick’s temporary house. Its flesh was perfect; it was not a wyrm. It was a dragon.

The dragon was much, much larger than the Flare Couatl, or the Black Dragon that eventually killed the Flare Couatl. Its jaws were opened wide. If it were near Erick’s house, it could have swallowed the whole three story mansion on its own.

Why was it so big? Dragons weren’t usually that big. It had to have come empowered. Perhaps it had only just now dropped its various [Invisibility]s or other such obscuring spellwork. Erick guessed this much because as he watched, more and more of the dragon was revealed, as power began to gather in its mouth, like color draining from the world. Like mana draining from the world, to gather in a point of light between massive fangs, above a curling, forked tongue.

Three seconds had passed since Erick spied the beast. In that time, he had erected three spellworks around his house, and across First Devouring Nightmare Mountain. [Prismatic Lullaby] became a shield across all of the mountain, defending from the attack from above. [Spatial Denial] was a bubble around his house, but no further. [Domain of Light], supplemented by his own [Lodestar] Domain control, went across the entirety of First Devouring Nightmare Mountain.

He felt some Domains try to expand within his own, but he locked them down, and kept his own strong and active. High Clan Devouring Nightmare was trying to respond, but they were doing a poor job of it.

Erick would protect them.

So Erick flew an Ophiel into the dragon’s mouth, into the gathering spell, armed with a sunform and [Animadversion]. Ophiel flew right into the spellwork, not even triggering a shift in the light of what Erick now saw was an illusion of impeccable quality.

Erick came back to himself, saying, “The dragon is an illusion diversion. Look for the true attack.”

It was a very well made illusion. Ophiel was already loaded with Sight spells, and Erick still didn’t notice the dragon was fake. Now that he had interacted with the spell, though…

The dragon charging its attack still seemed real.

Poi was already talking to a dozen people on the other end of thought tendrils. Teressa stood a step into the dining room, wearing full armor and with her eyes closed in concentration. Jane stood in the doorway wearing her own conjured armor, ready for anything.

A few defensive spells went up around the clan mountain, but nothing large enough. There was no City Shield here, for some bizarre reason. Why wasn’t there a city shield? The dragon might be fake, but something was going down.

“What do you see?” Erick asked Teressa.

Teressa said, “Something is still comin… No?” She frowned, and opened her eyes. “Something was coming. I saw it! I know I did. It was a massive shadow in the manasphere, occluding all forward paths. Explosions? No. It wasn’t. You have to believe me!” Her voice was strained, with Teressa trying to keep it as level as possible.

“Of course I believe you,” Erick said, wondering why she sounded half-desperate. “This is likely a case of counter-Prognostication. Redarrow’s notes said—”

The dragon released its spell and a beam of power the width of Erick’s house lanced down through three intervening Ophiels, each with their own active [Animadversion]s, each poised to reflect whatever came their way.

The dragon’s spell went through the Ophiels without doing anything at all.

Then the illusionary magic struck against Erick’s [Prismatic Lullaby], and Erick felt, as much as saw, a terribleness turn real. The dragon wasn’t an illusion. It was Illusion. Elemental Illusion.

Light and shadow spilled in every direction, fountaining up and out of Erick’s [Prismatic Lullaby], but also punching through that barrier and reaching the [Domain of Light] underneath. Erick felt the attack against his Domain like someone was stabbing into his heart.

But he was prepared for it. The small pressures of the other small Domains of High Clan Devouring Nightmare were like tiny tests. This was the true exam.

Erick pushed back with the light that covered the clan mountain, straining against the power of the dragon’s Illusionary beam. Light and shadows burrowed into his power like an unceasing drill, like splattering acid. Like fakery made real.

Erick held.

The beam stopped after ten full seconds.

As the attack ended, the dragon vanished into the clouds like fading imagination.

It was then that Erick saw that he had not fully defended the mountain.

It was as though veils of obfuscation were lifted from every surface of every building, revealing exposed rooms and missing walls and blood and harm. The dragon’s Illusion Magic had not punched far into Erick’s Domain, but of the twenty one pagodas that reached up from the top of the white plateau, every single one had lost something. Some upper floors were simply gone. The lower floors were wholly intact, though. Most of the damage had been done to that which was close to the edge of Erick’s power.

It was as though droplets of Illusion had turned to acid across much of the rest of the mountain, eating away at gold decor and floors and gardens and—

Erick said, “Teressa. Tell me if you see anything else. I’m going to help people.”

He was already reestablishing his Domain of Light, and recasting the Lullaby.

Erick went into emergency healing and helping mode. The entire rest of the hornet’s nest that was Devouring Nightmare responded almost as fast. Before he knew what was happening, Poi stepped into Erick’s mind and helped him to coordinate with everyone else.

After five minutes, nothing else happened.

After ten, Devouring Nightmare was prepared for war, with defensive spells blossoming all across the mountain. A few nearby mountains had responded in kind.

After thirty minutes of nothing, people started to relax.

An hour later, with the mountain looking like a cake of various colored icing and gold decorations, everyone who needed to be healed had been healed. Casualties were counted.

Zero deaths.

Erick had to hear that a second time to believe it.

Zero deaths.

A good hundred and twenty close calls, but no deaths. Even the old ladies who watched Erick make magic had been perfectly fine, even though they spent a lot of their time on that porch, watching the world. They had been exposed to the dragon’s breath, which was what everyone was calling the attack, but they knew what it meant when Erick’s spells spread across the mountain. Everyone got to ground as fast as they could, as soon as they saw the air fill with power.

Most people were gracious and polite enough to thank him for his warning. Not a single person told him off for casting such large scale magics across everyone around him, though he could tell some of them wanted to yell at him. Erick had been prepared to apologize, and he had done so at first, but everyone was quick to tell him that he needn't worry about that. He was obviously working for the good of them all. What need have he to apologize to those below him, and especially because he saved their lives with his actions?

It rubbed Erick the wrong way.

- - - -

In a caravan to the north, a man sat in a yurt on a chair, waiting in the green darkness, waiting for good news, waiting for his contact to get back to him. Suddenly, the flap to the yurt opened, spilling light into the darkness, haloing a woman in sunlight and illuminating the green furniture of the room. The man smiled.

The woman came inside, and shut the flap. Shadows swarmed, but held back from the woman.

The woman was not smiling.

The man’s demeanor crashed. He tried to reevaluate the path forward, but this woman had been his primary source of hope. And now she came to him, reeking of problems added to his hoard.

The woman sat down, saying, “Failure.”

“How?”

“Some anti-magic shield and his own [Domain of Light].”

“You assured me that you could get through the [Domain of Light] and his reflections.”

“What we actually said was that we could carve through a [Domain of Light] unless there are other tricks. There were other tricks. New tricks, too. We did get through his reflective magic, though, so that was nice to know.” The woman said, “There are counters to every magic out there. This is what it means to live under the Script. You knew that assaulting Erick would only ever be a chanced affair.”

“Fine. New plan. Let’s—”

“No.”

“… No?”

“No. We’re done. You liquidated your bargain of trade for an assassination attempt on Flatt. You’re on your own, now. If you wish to continue, then we will be discussing a new bargain of trade.”

The man stared hate at the woman, calmly saying, “The bargain was for a favor owed. Any favor at all. The favor demanded was an assassination. Not an attempt. We agreed that you would do whatever it took.”

“According to what we’ve seen you’re not going to be alive much longer when Erick gets here, so what do we care about upholding bargains with you?”

“You care, because if we survive, then we will bring papers against you in Ar’Cosmos.”

“So it is in our interest to help Erick, and to have him kill you, then? We are glad that we used your illusion in the attack, then, just as we knew we would need to do.”

The man reeled in his anger. “… Do not give in to our Cursed nature. We shall work together, for that is what we have always done. You merely need to uphold your end of our bargain, as we have always done. As we will always do.”

“Times are changing. Everything is changing.” The woman said, “Even bargains of trade are no longer as inviolable as they once were, especially when it comes to World Trees and new worlds.”

“The Storm Woman has a World Tree, too.” The man said, “Even if that man walks the Path, he will never last the hundred years it would take for Yggdrasil to become real.”

The woman smiled. “And so, we come to an option; the creation of another bargain. One much more conducive to our needs. Both of our needs.”

“… We had thought we were of one mind, but then you failed to uphold your bargain and now you come at us with this new demand.” The man deadpanned, “What do you want?”

“We want the World Tree in mortal hands. It will be much easier to use this way. We know this. You know this. Let us not argue this point.” The woman stared at the man, her red eyes glinting in the light. “Instead, help us to understand your true problem. It is in the fact that Erick is coming this way, and you want him to not?” She needled, “Is there some true reason why you don’t want him coming here and clearing away the Hunters and the face stealers? He’s not even targeting our kind, though with how we enacted your bargain, that might change.”

“Why did you even do it that wa—! Unimportant.” The man frowned. “Flatt’s magic will eventually find us. He is culling the world of threats, and Kirginatharp already has him in his claws, and so, Flatt will come for us, sooner or later. Now that he is coming my way, his existence has become a problem we cannot overlook.” The man explained, “Our bargain was for a solution to Flatt’s longstanding, major threat against all of our kind. This is how we presented it when we requested the assassination. It was under these understandings that you agreed with our reasoning. What changed your mind?”

“We see we are talking across each other and not actually conversing.” The woman said, “Shift your stance to come at us directly, and honestly, or this conversation ends now. Why not clear out the rats and trash inhabiting your lands? Were 9 kills too close to home? Or was it the fervor with which those 9 were judged that made you uncomfortable?”

“This conversation is over unless you can see that you have wronged us, and that you have failed in the enactment of our bargain.” He spat, “Shift your own stance, and talk plainly.”

The woman laughed. “We will talk plainly for you, and only you. Erick needs to walk the Path, and then he needs to be hidden from the world for a hundred years. Defended, ideally. Sequestered, less ideally. If you want to talk about actual solutions then bring the man to Ar’Cosmos of his own volition, and let us work at single purposes upon him. In the worst possible case, we can lock him into a time-shift, and ensure that he survives long enough to ensure Yggdrasil becomes what he is meant to be.”

“This would be a fine solution if we were not having a problem with him right now.”

“Learn to live in a city, and your ‘problem’ will go away.”

The man huffed. “If you will not assist us in how our bargain demands, then get out of our home. We will be bringing charges against you in Ar’Cosmos.”

“If you survive!”

“Remove yourself.”

The woman got up and left, shoving wide the flap of the domicile, briefly illuminating the shadows, revealing green scales and claws that were not truly there. And then the flap shut again.

The man was alone in the green darkness of his yurt.

The man blinked. His green eyes turned brown, and the shadows turned black. The man shook his head and blinked his eyes, and got up. What time was it? Had he really had another daydream about the dragon he met when he was three? That hadn’t happened in a while. The man was having too many of those dreams lately. There was work to be done. He got up and went outside. He wasn’t highly ranked in his clan, but he was a warrior, and it was important he was there for the talks happening in the gatherings of Ooloraptoor.

The lake filled half the horizon. The parade grounds and the people filled the other half.

Companions called out to him. The man went to join the discussion.

They spoke of face stealers.

- - - -

In a comfortable but large meeting room in one of the main structures of First Devouring Nightmare Mountain, where the table could support ten people, and the opulence was just shy of ‘too much’, Erick sat down for a quick meeting with Patriarch Hangzi, and Elder Varo. Both of the clansmen seemed vaguely unhappy, about what, Erick had no idea, but they were easily able to hide that surface emotion behind training and experience.

And then there were the Dragon Stalkers in the room; a redscale and an orangescale.

The Dragon Stalkers was an organization of people that pursued and killed known dragons, for dragons went to war with each other whenever they recognized each other as dragons, and the collateral damage was always massive. No one liked dragons for that reason, and more besides. Dragons had a habit of hiding who they were through true uses of [Polymorph], though some went the face stealer route when it came to getting new Familiar Forms. Dragons were monsters. Dragons were the height of selfish evilness. Dragons ate their own in cannibalistic rages. Because of this, Dragon Stalkers had tendrils in every society the world over, but Erick had never heard of them before Poi had mentioned them the other day, and that was the first thing Erick mentioned.

Erick sat down as Elder Varo introduced him to the Stalkers.

And then Elder Varo introduced the Stalkers to him, “Mister Ruddy is an archivist on loan from Oceanside, but Miss Favia is an enforcer of a local branch of Stalkers. They are both here because of the unusual nature of the green serpent.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of the Stalkers before,” Erick said.

“Then we’re glad that we can be your introduction to our organization, Archmage Flatt,” said Ruddy, the redscale.

“We try to keep out of everyone’s business,” said Favia, the orangescale. “We have one goal, and one goal only: to make the world safe for non-dragons. This line helps us to operate the world over, and sometimes on both sides of various conflicts, for no one likes dragons.”

“Very true!” Ruddy said.

“We don’t get involved unless there are dragons or a dragon fight,” Favia said. “We hardly ever get involved in the affairs of Songli, either, for around here, there’s a peculiar red dragon that shows up whenever there’s a draconic incident. Red is rather dominant and relatively decent, for a dragon, but for whatever reason, this green dragon’s reveal did not demand a visit from her.”

Erick asked Ruddy, “Does the Headmaster send you out to find targets for him to eat?”

Ruddy said, “Not at all. The Stalkers are an independent organization that has offices all over the world. One of those offices is at Oceanside; I am here because of the green dragon, because of his unusual presentation. We will not work with dragons of any sort, and that includes Kirginatharp. All dragons should die.”

Erick was briefly taken aback. Ruddy had used the Headmaster’s real name. To openly speak of the Second to Rozeta was a clear breach of propriety, as understood by everyone else on Veird. But apparently the ire of Dragon Stalkers went rather deep. Deep enough to break cultural norms.

Favia spoke up, “Dragons get their claws in everything. If it were up to them, they’d rule the world. All dragons must die.” She added, “Though, with Rozeta as Goddess of the Script and Kirginatharp positioned as next in line… That statement is a bit too simplistic for real world applications. It is still mostly true, though.”

Erick understood something more, in that moment.

The first half of the meeting between Devouring Nightmare and the Dragon Stalkers had been about stuff which Erick was not privy to and that he didn’t need to know; probably defensive stuff, probably understanding of the attack. With Erick here, the agenda had gone simpler. Hangzi would probably ask for something specific. They would likely give him something in return. There would be a bargaining.

And from the Stalker’s shared enthusiasm, Ruddy and Favia wanted to make a good impression of their organization to Erick. They probably had something they wanted, too.

That last ship had sailed, though.

Erick tried not to let his simmering anger show. Poi was doing a much better job at this than he was. The only consolation Erick had was that Ruddy and Favia were in their thirties, and probably had nothing to do with the murder of Poi’s mother or sister.

Ruddy said, “There are several dragons across the world that operate semi-openly. We have—”

Elder Varo got them back on track. “Let us discuss the green serpent. It was overlarge and had Illusion-based magics. I doubt it was what it appeared to be, at all.”

Ruddy’s mouth slammed shut; he was angry he had been interrupted, but he controlled himself well.

Favia nodded, saying, “Elder Varo is correct that illusions were widely employed in this latest attack.” She turned to Erick. “Archmage Flatt. You got the best view of the creature. What did it look like to you?”

Erick decided to be helpful, for at least a little while. He rattled off, “Three to four times the size of a wyrm. To Blood, Mana, Soul, True, and heat Sight spells, it all appeared real. Green scales. Ridgeline back. No identifiable markings as far as I know. Its attack appeared real. It was obviously not. Illusion Breath is what I heard the attack called.” On a whim, Erick held up his hand and began conjuring a lightward, saying, “It looked like this.”

Light coalesced above the meeting table. The green dragon appeared out of conjured clouds at a fraction of its true scale, with as much detail as Erick could carve into the conjuring.

The Stalkers’ eyes went wide as they took in the spellwork, perhaps because it was a perfect recollection, or perhaps because some switch had been flipped and they now knew the target. Erick suspected it was the second one. Elder Varo had a calmer reaction; one of inspection and contemplation. Or perhaps he was only pretending to know what he was looking at.

Erick might have been the only one to notice that Hangzi had gone fractionally paler.

Hangzi had survived the dragon’s Illusion Breath, but random chance put the disintegrating-like effects of the dragon’s attack straight through the room Hangzi had been in, at that time. Spots of disintegrating Illusion had chopped off one of his arms and half a foot, and sent him tumbling down to the floor below. Hangzi was better now, obviously, but he was one among many who could have died. Everyone had been very, very lucky in the attack.

Erick hadn’t experimented much with Illusion, but the little Illusion magics he had done informed him that Illusion was like that; it carved and harmed randomly. It seemed to him, though, that the Illusion Breath had carved and harmed a bit too precisely. No one who could have died from being hit, had been hit. And no one had died.

Ruddy said, “It’s the Mirage Dragon. It has to be.” He smiled, showing fangs.

“Certain factors point that way.” Favia said, “But who is she mimicking? Someone she wants retribution against, obviously.”

They knew the target.

Hangzi spoke up, “You postulated it was the Green Fire.”

“Oh, yes. But it’s not. As I said, there was too much mana used up top for a proper [Witness], but I trust that Archmage Flatt’s lightsculpture is perfect, for he has a history of being able to do this, and because of that trust, I can infer a few things about what we are seeing. Look to the horns. You can tell it’s her based on the way her horns have those floating bits around them. All dragon horns are different, and based upon elemental powers. Even if she mimics whoever this green dragon is, her horns give her away as Elemental Illusion, for dragons are highly egotistical and they would be fine with laymen not knowing who they are, but they want everyone else to know who they are.” Ruddy said, “This is the Mirage Dragon, for sure, your grace.”

Elder Varo instantly, and slightly imperiously, said, “That is a Glaquin term. We do not use it here.”

“Apologies,” Ruddy said, not meaning it at all.

Erick could almost respect Ruddy’s dismissal of authority, if only he was from a different organization.

Varo almost said something else to the red dragonkin, but Hangzi silenced his man’s rejoinder with the casual flip of a hand.

Ruddy didn’t care. Ruddy continued, “The Mirage Dragon. She —we think it's a she— she goes around the world hiring herself out for assassinations and theft. She operates like a Shade op—” With a sudden joy on his face, he continued, “Like how the Shades used to operate.” He continued, “She stirs up trouble. She reveals other dragons in the area. When those other dragons move out into the open, and people like we Stalkers or other organizations come in to kill the beast, the Mirage Dragon tries to come in at the last moment and kill the revealed dragon. She rarely succeeds. She’s been active for the last thousand years, and though we have killed her four times over, it never takes. This right here, though? This massive dragon that uses Illusion Breath? It’s not confirmed, obviously, but it is as close to confirmation as we can get. I believe this is the Mirage Dragon. This recent action fits her style, perfectly.”

Erick frowned. Ruddy was glossing over a lot of facts in his excitement to be around Erick; truths about how the Mirage Dragon interacted with other dragons, and truths about her activities, to name a few.

Erick said, “But you get a Kill Notification.”

“Yes, we do!” Ruddy said, “The four times the Stalkers have managed to kill the Mirage Dragon, we have gotten Notifications. We’re not sure how she does it. Each kill had the Mirage Dragon at a different level, too. Sometimes higher. Sometimes lower. We think she is actually a lich, and—”

Favia interrupted, “That is an unsubstantiated rumor. A theory, and nothing more. It could be that she has some control over the Script itself, and is able to create fake Kill Notifications.”

Erick almost scoffed, but then he felt a supreme weight as the implications of ‘control over the Script’ sunk into his mind. Ah. This was more Melemizargo shit, wasn’t it?

… Or maybe it was something else?

Erick hoped it was something else.

Hangzi probably hoped it was something else, too, based on the look on his face.

“I can see this has caused some distress, but this does not necessarily mean the Darkness is involved.” Favia said, “I do not wish to accidentally insult anyone, so if you will allow, I will speak from the beginning.”

Hangzi answered for the non-Stalkers in the room, saying, “Proceed.”

“Wizardry is the easiest answer as to how something is shifted in the Script, but ‘A Wizard did it’ offers nothing substantive. This is an answer that is not an answer.

“So, in order to grant a true answer, I will start from the beginning.

“Dragons are elemental beasts. This is widely known, but the depths of that truth are often never fully grasped. When we Stalkers say ‘Dragons are Elemental beasts’, we mean that they are their Element, wholly and fervently. A Fire dragon might rage like an inferno or warm a room like a hearth. But they are never aloof and cold. A Shadow dragon might hide and sneak, but they are never open and honest with anyone. To know a dragon’s primary Element is to know the dragon.

“Individual personalities create variation on themes, cultures play a large part in personality, and then there’s the business with the Curse, but the primary Element is what forms the basis of the dragon.”

Ruddy almost spoke up when Favia mentioned ‘Curse’, but he refrained.

Favia continued, “In this case, the Mirage Dragon is Elemental Illusion. She is never what she appears to be. If she is outwardly happy, she is sad, or mad, or raging. If she is raging, she is perhaps actually happy. There are, of course, instances where everything is as it appears to be, but only when an outside observer believes that they are seeing something that is not the truth. This makes understanding and fighting and defending from her little more than a [Force Shrapnel] shot. This is especially true because the Mirage Dragon is exceedingly skilled in her Element of Illusion.

“It is in this exceptional skill over Illusion where we begin to see small Wizardries.

“But I do stress that they are small Wizardries.

“Things that the Script specifically disallows, such as the creation of a Kill Notification that isn’t an illusion; one that the receiver can pull in and out of their history to see again and again, to show others what they have killed. Blue boxes for spellwork that she doesn’t have. Status fakery. Sin Seeker avoidance. The ability to use spells even when she has no mana.” Favia said, “As far as we know, she cannot do true Wizardry. She cannot instantly empty someone of their mana. She cannot [Strike] a warrior as though they have no Health. She cannot steal the spells someone else has, thus depriving that other person of their magic. She cannot cast faster than the Script Second, except in the cases of manual spellcasting.”

Favia was lying.

Not about everything; not about Wizardry.

But she was lying about enough that Erick could tell. Specifically, about the ability of skilled dragons to cast Wizardry. After all, the dragons of the Green Labyrinth wanted Wizards. If they already had Wizard dragons, then why would they want more? Erick believed this much from Tenebrae much more than he believed the second half of whatever Favia was saying. But should he call her out?

Yes.

“If every single skilled dragon was a Wizard then this world would be dead a million times over.” Erick said, “There is a simpler explanation for all of these small Wizardries. It is much more likely that there is a family of Illusion dragons, and that they operate all across the world however they are wont.”

Hangzi sat up a bit straighter; his regal mien turning fractionally angrier as he looked to Favia.

Favia defended herself well, turning slightly indignant but remaining professional. “I do not feel that I have lied. The small Wizardries of dragons are well known to us, but not to much of the outside world, and I know our organization has not contacted you before now. Do you have reason to feel that our long history of combating dragons is somehow based on lies?”

Ah.

He had walked right into an interrogation, hadn’t he.

Somehow, Erick did not expect this to be an interrogation of his own history.

Erick said, “I have reasons to believe what I believe. The Dragon Curse affects anyone three generations removed from the primary, meaning that there is room for family.”

Ruddy spoke up, “Dragons do not have families, actually! This is one of the reasons that they attempt to hide among the mortal races, and why they sometimes grow up not even knowing that they are dragons until they or their wife pops out a dragonkin baby.”

Erick frowned, but he listened.

Ruddy continued, “I’m getting ahead of myself here, but dragons lay eggs in protected nests in the Forest of Glaquin. Those hatchlings kill each other until only one is left. The dead hatchlings come back as undead wyrms, though, and experience rapid growth to full wyrm size, and then they rush forward to civilization, clearing the way for the survivor to make their way into inhabited lands, where they seamlessly [Polymorph] into one of the mortal races and then promptly forget that they are dragons. When they eventually remember, through whatever event forces them to remember, they usually end up going on a murder spree.”

Erick kept frowning because Ruddy wasn’t lying. Perhaps Ruddy was delusional enough to believe what he was spouting, but that didn’t seem right. Perhaps Erick’s own experience with dragons was too narrow? Whatever the case, Ruddy’s knowledge as an archivist of the Stalkers was too complete to argue against.

Or maybe it wasn’t?

Erick said, “But they have sexual reproduction. How are two of them able to come together to make those eggs if they’re not able to suppress their urge to kill for a short while?”

“And now we get to ‘how are there eggs in the first place’.” Ruddy smiled, happy to explain, “It’s a dominance game when dragons meet in the open. Everyone always hears about dragon fights. I understand Songli gets 3 to 5 of them per year. In a population this size, that fact of 3 to 5 might be true, but the deeper truth is that nascent dragon fights must happen a hundred times or more, and you just never hear of them.”

Hangzi paled. Elder Varo had no reaction; he knew what Ruddy was saying was true.

Favia just looked at Erick, gauging him with a skill almost as good as his—

She had Intelligence.

In that exact moment that Erick noticed Favia’s truth, she smirked, and then she turned her attention back to Ruddy’s lecture.

Ruddy continued, “Favia’s explanation of dragon Elements is important, and mostly correct, but it is not the full story. Dragons are Elemental Dragon, firstly, and everything else, secondly. It’s an academic distinction, but one that must be made, for it is through Dragon Essence that all of their interactions are determined. If two dragons of equal Essence meet, then there is a Dragon Fight. This is rare, for there is almost always an obvious hierarchy. This is where their Curse comes out, though the factuality of a ‘Dragon Blood Curse’ is a debated topic. ‘The Curse’ might not actually exist at all. This cultural lie might simply be a tool to explain to the mortal races why dragons are the way they are, because you can’t see ‘the Curse’ under [Soul Sight], or if it is there, then it is invisible to all known soul searching methods.

“Kirginatharp might also have a lot to do with perpetuating the lie of the ‘Dragon Blood Curse’, in order to hide his own bloodthirsty nature.

“For there is a much simpler explanation for why dragons are the way they are, and that is that dragons are dicks, and that’s telling it kindly. In more realistic terms, dragons are selfish monsters.

“As for the rankings which determine their society, Kirginatharp is at the top, as the Second to Rozeta.

“Everyone else has to make do with where they are on the list. Every part of their fractured society is determined by their ranking. If someone is above another, they are dominant, and they express this dominance upon the others around them, increasing their own power and decreasing the power of those so dominated. This is not just cultural, but also literal. We have seen this on [Soul Sight] reports at dragon fights, where the winning dragon eventually kills the weaker dragon by virtue of the winner’s presence alone. We have seen this from those at hospitals the world over, as they recover from Dragon Essence poisoning. We know this fact of Dragon Essence from those who choose to pursue even more Dragon Essence poisoning.

“In the case of dragons, if a dominant dragon continues to dominate the lesser dragon, then the lesser dragon will die. This part of the Curse is true. But, then again, we don’t think it is a curse, so much as it is a part of their nature.

“This is where dragon eggs and the Wyrm Season of Glaquin and other forests around the world come from. Dragons can’t have families like normal people. It is physiologically impossible. They can only meet in short mating sessions that mostly produce eggs, and rarely produce fights.

“The dragon mating cycle comes from acts of domination and submission that are usually well contained, but in aggregate, these small acts of violence mean thousands of bystander deaths every single year. It is this cycle that produces dragon fights, killing thousands upon thousands at any one time. The question of willingness for the submissive and dominant dragon is still a question, but dragons do seek each other out to gain mates, and they purposefully harm themselves and others in order to fulfill this biological need.

“While there might be some merit that the Mirage Dragon is actually a lineage, and not the same individual every single time, dragons have no families. They are incapable.”

When Ruddy finished, Erick just sat there, thinking.

There were some complications with what the man was saying. Most of those complications came from hearing about dragon culture from Quilatalap and Tenebrae, but also from Al, who pretended to not be a dragon. Al was perfectly normal outside of all draconic interactions. Erick was pretty sure that Al was the black dragon that killed the Flare Couatl, and who helped Jane begin the purge of her own Dragon Essence. Silverite had set that up, he was pretty sure, but he had purposefully never asked because he did not need to know. No one talked about dragons they knew, for if they did, then dragons would meet, and fights would start.

But none of Ruddy’s truth mattered right now.

Erick made a decision.

Erick said, “I’m not getting involved in this how you want me to be involved in this. I don’t wish to Image for dragons. I am not going to escalate this issue to ensure that it comes to violence. What I will do is seek out the various dragons to open a dialogue. I will not be involved with the Stalkers.” He stood up as Ruddy’s face fell, Favia gave a hateful smirk, and Varo and Hangzi both seemed relieved. “Thank you for your assistance in understanding this recent attack. I wish you well in your own hunt for this assassin Mirage Dragon.”

Ruddy tried bargaining, “Please, sir archmage! We only have four targets! Only four! You’d be saving thousands of lives each year! There are more major threats in this world besides Shades!”

Erick stopped. Ruddy knew just what buttons to press.

Favia knew a few buttons of her own, too.

“We’re not hunting the Mirage Dragon.” Favia said, “We’re willing to give you some help so you could hunt her, but we’re not doing a damned thing. You’re not a commoner. You’re not a country lacking in powerhouses. You’re Archmage Erick Flatt, and you’re fully equipped to find this bitch and the green dragon she’s imitating, before she or he strikes again.”

Erick said, “I highly doubt that the Mirage Dragon’s Illusion Breath would have missed so many people unless she was trying to miss people, so I will discover their diplomatic channels and seek out a discourse with them. I will find out why they are coming at me now, after we’ve cleared out lingering threats in Songli and poked a bit into the Warlord Clans. Did I upset something? Probably. If they have some sort of problem with me removing people like Divider from the world, then they will die, but I will try to resolve this without more violence.”

Ruddy instantly said, “All they know is violence! That is their entire society! Do not make the mistake of thinking they are capable of empathy or fear or forward thinking! All of those sapient emotions are a version of subservience to them, and they will respond with fire and pain if you attempt to understand them in the same ways you try to understand other people.”

Favia added, “My colleague is correct, but besides that, this Mirage Dragon has attacked you. She will come for you again and again until she succeeds… But I can see you are set on this path. So at least do us the courtesy of believing that they are dangerous.” She said, “I hope you survive your next encounter with them, and that the collateral damage from finding and talking to them isn’t too great.”

Erick took a moment to think.

Logically, he should want to kill every single dragon that had transgressed against the world. The four dragons that Ruddy mentioned were probably targets that were better off dead. This ‘Mirage Dragon’ and her family (which Erick suspected was closer to the truth than anything the Stalkers said) was likely better off dead, especially since they had a habit of committing assassinations and such the world over.

None of that even tapped into the idea that both Stalkers had mentioned, but not gone into, that the Mirage Dragon was working to implicate the ‘green dragon’ that was out there, in some bid to get Erick to kill the green dragon without even knowing who they were.

Logically, Erick would want to play ball with the Dragon Stalkers.

But the Mirage Dragon’s Illusion Breath could have killed, and it did not. Not a single death! That had to be on purpose. The Dragon Stalkers didn’t even mention that fact, and that made the Stalkers seem like bad actors. Ruddy seemed better than Favia, though.

The fact that Tenebrae was willing to speak… sort of kindly about the dragons was also a point against the Stalkers.

And Al was a great guy! So what if he was a dragon? Big deal!

And to top it all off, Poi’s revelation that the Stalkers had killed his mother and his sister made these dragon killers seem outright malicious. Especially with the part they said about the Curse ‘not being real’ and yet in the next moment saying that their entire society is organized along unnatural lines of dominance and subservience.

Eh.

So… Thinking about it that way… Yeah. Dragons did some bad shit the world over.

Maybe they did deserve to die!

But Erick wasn’t going to go up against yet another worldwide threat at this time; not in the way the Stalkers wanted him to go. He already had more than enough problems to deal with.

He certainly wasn’t going to ignore the new Path being laid down before him, but the Worldly Path went many ways, and he could walk this one differently than how it had been presented. (If this was Worldly Path nonsense, anyway.)

He was definitely going to talk to the dragons, but that talking would be done individually.

He would seek out what this green one wanted, to see if this was a case of the Mirage Dragon pointing the Dragon Stalkers, and Erick, at her new prey.

Perhaps the green one knew about [Gate]s!

Wouldn’t that be neat.

Erick said, “Stalker Favia is correct about one thing. If this was an attack on me, and I have to believe it was, then I must do my best to mitigate collateral damage.” He turned to Hangzi and Varo. “I am leaving your lands. My daughter will likely stay behind because she has obligations that she must fulfill, but I do not. Thank you for your hospitality.”

Hangzi instantly said, “I know what this last attack looked like, and if you think not being here is better for us, then I must ask you to reconsider. We failed to defend ourselves both from you, and from the Mirage Dragon. We would have catastrophically failed against the dragon. You saved us, and we could use more of that. Know that we are training new soldiers. We’re approving new people to higher positions of authority and casting. We can support your life here. Soon enough, we can defend ourselves, and you. Please stay.” He saw that he wasn’t swaying Erick, so Hangzi tried, “If nothing else, please give us a week so that we can accelerate some of our lower-tier mages to higher authorities and capabilities. Give us some time to work around issues of bureaucracy and personnel. We could use your defenses for a while longer.”

Ruddy exclaimed, “We need you to kill—”

“Silence guest,” Elder Varo practically spat at Ruddy.

Ruddy shut up. Favia simply watched. Oh yeah, did she watch.

Okay.

So.

There were a lot of thoughts Erick had about a lot of things.

But he returned to Hangzi’s question, first.

When a world power asks you to stay in place for a while, to help defend and whatnot, and considering that you just stirred up a hornet’s nest of Hunters and face stealers all around that world power…

And Erick still hadn’t gotten the spellwork for clan mountain creation…

And various other things.

“… Fine.” Erick said, “I will remain for a while, and pursue some of this dragon problem as much as I am willing. I also need that clan mountain spell, and then I need to be left alone.” He added, “Except in the cases of favorable news or nice things, in which case I welcome interruptions.” He asked, “There weren’t any dragon altercations in the cullings, were there? Do you know where this could be coming from?”

Hangzi proclaimed, “There were no draconic altercations that I am aware of, Archmage Flatt. Everything you want will be done with as much speed as possible.” He said to his man, “Varo. The spellwork.”

Elder Varo sent out a quick tendril of thought while also saying, “The scrolls will be delivered to your home, to your hands, directly after this meeting. Thank you for staying for a little while longer, Archmage Flatt.”

“Thank you for your hospitality.” Erick added, “After this meeting, I will also be assisting the Mind Mages with eradicating some specific monsters from Songli. I trust this is acceptable to you?”

Hangzi instantly said, “Yes. Do what you have to do. I would ask you to throw [Withering]s across our lands and be done with it, but intestinal cores are a health issue for many commoners. Thank you for your assistance, Archmage Flatt.” He looked greatly relieved, as he repeated, “Thank you.”

Favia ignored everything, asking Erick, “What are you going to do about the dragons?”

With flippancy, Erick said, “Draw a dragon out into the open. Ask what is happening there. Probably end up killing them while mitigating collateral damage as much as possible. I seem to be getting good at that.”

While Ruddy and Flavia had similar, almost happy reactions, Hangzi and Varo were perfectly polite, giving Erick a nod and a small bow, respectively.

Erick left the meeting. Poi and Teressa followed close behind.

When he got back to his temporary house, which was looking a lot more temporary than it looked an hour ago, he got to work with Poi and the Mind Mages.