Ar'Kendrithyst

While Nirzir slept the sleep of the dead, since she was not on a watch, yet, Erick woke up at the crack of noon, just in time for lunch.

Jane had made lunch; she had stayed home today. But even more surprising than that, was that she had cooked.

For a certain definition of ‘cooked’, anyway.

Erick happily took the paper box with the image of rice on it —it was the largest box of the whole set— and grabbed himself some rice, teasing, “I love it when you cook, Jane.”

“It’s quite a magical experience, to be sure. All I do is tell someone what I want, and I get what I want.” Jane stuck a fork in her not-general-tso’s chicken, smiling as she said, “Not quite as magical as the nascent Twisted Vision you made last night.”

Erick paused halfway through dumping some seared vegetables onto his plate. Teressa was looking at him, waiting for a denial. Poi was eyeing him, knowingly. Jane was being nonchalant about it, but she was rather sure she hit the mark, exactly right. And she had.

Erick served himself some vegetables, and said, “So you all talked about that, eh? I was hoping that fact would go unseen for a little while longer. I was going to bring it up… eventually. But. Anyway. I certainly did not plan on that aspect of [Undertow Star], but you’d have to be blind not to notice the way the ambient mana moved last night. Spells don’t normally make mana move like that.”

Teressa softly said, “I was hoping I was seeing things last night. But… I guess I wasn’t.”

“Nope; you weren’t. And now that we’re openly talking about it, we can go ahead and talk about it.” Erick handed the three of them [Luminosity], saying, “I also made this spell yesterday when you were all sleeping. It’s a Particle spell based around extreme light, and I used it when making [Undertow Star]. Its purpose is to deny the magics of non-approved people. [Spatial Denial] is also part of [Undertow Star], as you noticed last night, Jane.

“Both of these things mimic the most widely known abilities of Twisted Visions; primarily the ability to fuck up any escape through Spatial magic, and to also deny you your strongest offensive powers.” Erick said, “I did not intend this when I was making [Undertow Star], but the similarities cannot be denied.”

Poi sent, ‘We’re moving this conversation to silent telepathy before you mention [Duplicate] out loud.’

‘Fair enough.’ Erick said, ‘As Poi has brought up, right before I could, I did not put [Duplicate] in this working. I don’t think I ever would have, either. But that brings me to the next thought: The soul spear.’

Jane and Teressa gasped a little. Poi frowned.

Yes; he was deflecting them off track for talking about [Undertow Star]. Erick wasn’t going to admit that, though. Erick had hoped he would have at least another day to organize his thoughts better, but what could you do? His people were not dummies, after all. He decided to just be glad that other people were seeing what he saw; it helped to confirm he wasn’t being paranoid.

‘Oh my gods.’ Teressa said, ‘They got the soul spear from the dragons.’

Jane countered, ‘Or Xangu had a Vision copy the spear. We still haven’t found the man, or his trail.’

Teressa eyed Erick. ‘Well that’s a dead end, anyway. How would we even check on such a thing? I want to talk about [Undertow Star] more. How deep does this go?’

Erick nodded; back to the main subject, then. ‘Let’s go all the way back to the beginning, to my ideas of a [Renew] spell. I want anyone to be able to cast into an ongoing spell to keep that spell working, but that idea never worked out, exactly.

‘But while we were here, on this Worldly Path, I saw the guards of Treehome use Draining spells to knock down killers. That’s where I got the idea to go in a different direction with [Renew]; to make a [Drain Ward] that could power other spells. It wasn’t till we got here, to Songli, to where I saw the Void Wall and heard the Void Song that I actually went forward with those nascent ideas formed in Treehome.

‘But the Undertow spell I made last night is incomplete, if one were to compare it to a Twisted Vision, and it’s incomplete because I just didn’t think to include those other parts of this spell. I didn’t even think about including those parts until just now, here in this discussion.’

Teressa looked concerned with her lips in a slight frown, exposing her large lower fangs. Jane narrowed her eyes, worried, but in a way that said ‘My gods, dad, what did you do?’. Poi took Erick’s words in stride; probably because he had already figured this stuff out long before now, what with his Mind Mage information network, and everything.

Erick continued, heedless of the looks he was getting, ‘As I see it, there are certain pieces missing from [Undertow Star] that are present in a Twisted Vision. [Duplicate] is the major piece, but I’m not putting that in there. Why would I? No thank you. I also failed to include [Mysticalshape], which is another spell I just learned and then used to great effect, but which didn’t go into last night’s spell. I also used [Spatial Denial], where a Twisted Vision spell might use [Teleport] instead, or— OH! Now that I’m talking about it: a Spatial Magic Domain. That’s probably more correct.

‘That the Vision has a Domain is likely why it recognizes other Domains really quickly.’ He added, ‘Oh yeah. And that’s another thing… Another two things, actually. First: Twisted Visions live in the Forest, of which there are trees, and I just learned some impressive tree magic. So that’s probably a part of [Gate], too, though I didn’t include that, either. But more importantly, as it concerns [Gate]:

‘I don’t think [Gate] is actually about linking two spaces, at all. That’s just what it looks like to the end user. I think [Gate] might truly be about the creation of a being —a summon— that opens up in two different areas. This creature then allows the people who go through the summon at one place to travel to a different place. Perhaps such a creature might even look like [Undertow Star] with tendrils for people to enter through and then exit out the other side, in another place. Or maybe such a summoned creature would look more like a tree? World Trees are supposed to naturally have this functionality, too, after all. Perhaps this functionality is a feature of having bodies that stretch across the universe.

‘But I might need to make a Spatial Magic Domain and add that into [Undertow Star] in order for the emergent property of the ‘[Gate] spell’ to appear out of the working.

‘Or, perhaps, I am completely wrong about that.

‘Probably not wrong about the Space Domain, though.

‘But I pursued [Draining Elemental] in order to produce a framework into which [Gate] could be slotted, so that anyone could expose themselves to the [Gate] and power the [Gate], without me or anyone else needing to [Renew] or recast the [Gate]. In that pursuit, I arrived at the Undertow effect, which is applicable to any spellwork, and which can last forever, if enough people, or monsters, are exposed to the spellwork. But now that I’ve made it...

‘Perhaps the Old Dragonkin Gate Network has a similar Undertow spell working in the background, and since it is a magical construct that has ‘lived’ this long, maybe the Network has gained a sentience. Maybe it has gained a soul. Maybe that’s the answer to Teressa’s concern over ‘what happens when Undertow Star Drains a million mana’, or, in this case, billions upon billions of mana. Trillions, even. Maybe, eventually, when exposed to that much mana, the Gate Network mutated from its original purpose, to become a Twisted Vision.

‘Or perhaps, the Twisted Visions are the fully intact and functional Old Dragonkin Gate Network, but the Gates that those monsters used to attach to are long gone, lost to the Rage Wars and to civilization’s solution to those wars of destroying the Gate Network.

‘Perhaps the writing inside of the Gates Tenebrae has found are truly nonsense words, only there to guide where the [Gate] openings should be, written in a language known only to the Visions, or to the Green Labyrinth, in particular.’

Erick stopped sending.

Teressa, Jane, and Poi, sat there around the lunch table, digesting what he had sent them, and also their food. No one had stopped eating while Erick was sending, and Erick didn’t stop eating, either. Now that he was done, though, Jane had a slight scowl. Poi was surprised, but not talking about his surprise.

Teressa…

Teressa sent, ‘Okay. That was a lot. You might be right about the Twisted Visions… But they don’t look like trees. They look like crystal growths the size of an orcol, planted in the middle of a grove.’

‘Really?’ Erick said, ‘Tenebrae’s writings said they were any number of things that were inside the main monsters of the Twisted Vision, like cores.’

‘Treehome has killed smaller Visions when they encroach upon the city, or when they hunker down in the center of major roads. We know what they look like,’ Teressa sent. ‘They’re almost exactly like monster cores, but only when they’re disturbed. Otherwise they’re just big hunks of crystal planted in the middle of a grove. When they’re disturbed, they summon a monster to surround the crystal. That’s how they move from place to place, too.’

Erick grinned, happy to see Teressa having a contribution to the discussion. ‘Where did you read that? I haven't read that anywhere, yet?’

Teressa said, ‘I looked it up after we left Treehome. Sent some messages to some people and they got back to me, through Poi.’

Poi nodded, sending, ‘That is correct.’

Erick was ecstatic, ‘Oh! That’s great news then, Teressa! That helps me to understand the problem, too. Thank you. Maybe [Undertow Star] is capable of making one of those large crystals? Maybe not. I don’t know anything about that at all.’

Teressa briefly blushed, then shook her head, waving off the nice words.

Jane sent, ‘I wanna know about Yggdrasil. How does this relate to him?’

‘Ah! And that’s another thing.’ Erick sent, ‘I made a World Tree while on the Worldly Path. But is Yggdrasil the World Tree because the blue box says he is? Or is Yggdrasil still locked down by divine mandate, and he will become a World Tree when those locks are broken?’ Erick handed out the box for Yggdrasil, saying, ‘This box has never changed from its initial form.’

Summon Yggdrasil, medium range, 2500 mana + Variable

Summon a sapling of the World Tree Yggdrasil.

All Yggdrasil persist until killed or dismissed.

All Yggdrasil are the same creature, but only one Yggdrasil is the World Tree.

The World Tree has yet to be planted.

Summon Yggdrasil has as many maximum summons as the World Tree allows, with a minimum of 2.

Current Maximum: 2

All Yggdrasil naturally have and regenerate mana based on your own mana and mana regeneration, which they may use to cast the spells that you imbue them with, at your own command or at their own discretion. Comes summoned and proficient with [Grow], [Watershape], [Tree of Light], [Kaleidoscopic Radiance], [Control Weather], [Telepathy], and [Scry].

World Tree Yggdrasil’s mana and regeneration are higher than yours.

Imbue your Yggdrasil with new spells, wherever they are. Variable

See through the eyes of your Yggdrasil. Variable

Communicate telepathically with your Yggdrasil. Variable

Erick sent, ‘It still says that ‘The World Tree has yet to be planted’ even after all this time.’

Jane read along with everyone else, but she was the first to send out her thoughts, ‘So. Yeah. I think you need to give him [Gate] for him to be able to [Gate]. Or perhaps the Yggdrasil that Sininindi got is the real one, and since that one is still growing, maybe that other one might take over your Yggdrasil when it comes of age?’ She added, ‘Your spell specifically says ‘Sapling’. So… I don’t really know—’

Poi sent, ‘Nirzir is awake.’

‘She wasn’t already?’ Jane frowned, then turned back to her father. ‘What does the Quest for the Worldly Path look like?’

Erick showed her, and everyone else at the table, too.

Special Quest!

The Worldly Path 0/1

OR

10 Points

Reward: The ability to cast Gate

‘That one hasn’t changed, either.’ Erick said, ‘We can table the rest of this discussion for now, anyway; it’s a lot to think about.’

Jane nodded, then helped herself to some seconds. Aside from a few ‘large news’ pauses during lunch, no one had really stopped eating.

Erick served himself seconds, too, saying, “It’s a lot easier to send while eating, isn’t it?”

Poi said, “It’s considered highly rude in most cultures. Less so among adventurers in the field.”

“It’s a sign of bad times back at the Forest,” Teressa said, with her fork stuck in the last bite of her own lunch. “The need to be quiet is never a good need.”

Erick said, “If Nirzir turns out well, then we should be able to have these discussions more openly, soon enough.”

Lunch was over, but there were plenty of leftovers for Nirzir for when she finally dragged herself into the kitchen. She certainly took her sweet time about it, though. While everyone else went their separate ways for a little while, Erick remained in the kitchen to make some cinnamon rolls. After he got through making the dough, he sat down at the table with a cup of coffee and a book, to wait for the dough to rise.

Nirzir finally got out of bed and plodded toward the kitchen. As she rounded the corner and entered Erick’s sight, Erick almost laughed. The girl’s hair was a mess. Her robes were askew. She had bags under her eyes and she slumped as she walked. Was this, perhaps, the very first time she had ever gotten up on her own, after a long night out?

That possibility was high!

Nirzir blinked around, and grogged out, “I smelled… food?”

“About half an hour ago.” Erick chuckled, and with a lightform touch, he blipped a plate of lunch out from the cold box, and onto the table. He added a small [Heat Ward] to the chilled meal, saying, “It’ll take a moment to heat.”

Nirzir’s eyes lit upon spying the piled food. She sat down immediately, saying, “Thank you, thank you.”

Within seconds, the food was steaming and the [Heat Ward] canceled on its own. Nirzir dug in.

By the time she had finished her lunch, the dough had risen, so Erick offered her, “Want to learn to make cinnamon rolls? I already made the base.”

Looking much more alert than she had when she walked in the room, Nirzir said, “Uh.” She decided, “Yes. Yes I do.” She added, “I also need to go get some stuff and bring it back here. Am I. Uh. Am I carrying my own things?”

“Yup.” Erick said, “And there’s not going to be any [Force Platform]s, either. Just a backpack, if you can.”

Her eyes went a little wide. Then she glanced backward, and asked, “What are you going to do with all of your stuff?”

“I’m going to hide it in a nice spot and leave a guardian to watch over it.”

Nirzir frowned a little. She offered, “You could leave it with my family? We got space.”

Erick looked to Nirzir, and considered. Taking her offer would be a good way to establish some sort of relationship with the main Void Song family, wouldn’t it? Or maybe accepting her offer would just be the logical extension of what Erick was already doing; handing over stuff wasn’t as valuable as handing over a daughter, but there would at least be some reciprocity in the gesture. But… He would not entrust anyone with the important books, and he was just fine with stuffing everything into a stone sphere and dropping that sphere into an uninhabited part of the unpopulated plains. He wasn’t even going to put up a ‘guardian’ over the location, or anything like that, for that would just give away the buried treasure.

He decided, “I appreciate the offer, and I thank you for it, but I will not be accepting. No doubt you will one day have banned books and untold power written down in your possession, too, and you wouldn’t want to entrust those materials to anyone else, even if you trust them not to read what is written. I would feel better with the materials stuffed into the ground somewhere, and so, that is what I am going to do.” He got up, and said, “Now let’s make those cinnamon rolls.”

Nirzir’s face reddened with embarrassment, briefly, and then she steeled herself, and said, “I am ready.”

Making cinnamon rolls was much easier than other types of cooking, considering Erick had already made the dough. Nirzir got into it, and with flour on her hands and a smile on her face, she spoke about how it was just like Shaping, but with her hands instead of her aura! Easy stuff!

They were good rolls.

Afterward, Nirzir went back home for a bit, to pack and get ready for the trip. Jane offered to go with her. Erick thought that a bit odd, and he was still worried about Jane ditching them on the rest of the trip… But he did not voice that concern. Nirzir was happy for the company.

After the two girls had gone, Erick spoke to Teressa and Poi, “I told Nirzir that I would seal our stuff in a boulder and drop it off somewhere, but I’d prefer to just drop it off at Spur. And besides that, I have to recast Yggdrasil in the lake; they have to be running out of [Control Weather] by now— Okay. I see you have objections, Poi.”

Poi said, “Don’t worry about the weather over Spur. Kiri is filling in with a derivative of [Call Lightning], tuned to bring the rain. Don’t worry about our stuff; you should just put it inside a boulder and drop it in the ground somewhere. That is standard operating protocol for a reason. And do not forget: Silverite has strict instructions for you not to return to Spur until you are off your Worldly Path, and I feel you should honor that request.”

“I gotta agree with Poi, Boss,” Teressa said.

“… ugh. Fine. You’re probably right.” Erick said, “But we still need to get ready to go. I’ll put up a [Teleport Platform] on the third floor, so let’s start gathering.”

They started moving.

Erick quickly realized that he had gotten a lot of stuff. Books, mostly, but there were also clothes he had made, and small things he had bought at stores here and there, just so he could commemorate the trip. There was a nice vase that was practically ‘stereotypical Chinese’, but instead of blue on white, it was red on white; it was a minimalist brushstroke landscape of the Tribulations. Erick liked it. He also liked the small box full of blue weed that Syllea had given him, and his record player that he didn’t get a single chance to use yet…

He still hadn’t figured out how to make a camera.

He missed his camera; he would have liked to have taken some photos.

Whelp!

He could magic up some lightwards, though! So Erick did that, grabbing some stone from outside and shaping some settings, using his memory of the people he had seen to lightpaint people onto that stone. There was Xue and Sikali. Ari. Kaffi. Tadashi; a whole and healthy version. Jane with her sword and armor. Teressa in her veil. Poi in his silver armor. Syllea and Bayth. Tenebrae. The Arbors of Treehome, as seen from below...

… Heh. This was nice.

Erick decided to do everyone he had seen— Well. Not everyone. A lot of people, though. He quickly realized that he needed to be a bit more professional about this, though, for stone tablets were not the longest lasting material. So he sent an Ophiel out to grab some of the eternal Stonetree from the copy of his house, sitting out there on the plains. Then he made a few dozen uniform 3 decimeter by 2 decimeter portraits, each half a centimeter thick and yet as inflexible as steel. He recast his lightpaintings into those settings. Soon, he was done with the portraits. He moved onto landscapes, grabbing images straight from Ophiel, as the [Familiar] hovered over Holorulo, and then Alaralti. In Eralis, Erick snapped out lightpaintings of the Void Temple, and the clan mountain of Star Song, and white mountain of Clan Red Ledger—

Teressa smiled as she interrupted, “You could make a living out of that, if this archmage thing doesn’t work out.”

“Ha!” Erick said, “Thank you.”

“You know… That ability to visualize is probably why you’re so good at magic. Almost no one can just… Pop out a lightpainting like that.”

Erick smiled. “When I was a kid I took some art classes because I liked it, but I never had the material skill to bring my vision to reality. But lightpainting? Lightpainting is a direct translation between vision and reality. It’s amazing.”

“I guess it is.” Teressa looked like she wanted to say something else, but, she did not. “Well. I got stuff to pack.” She almost walked away—

What was happening there—

Oh. Duh. Erick could have kicked himself. Obviously, she wanted a painting!

Before she got far, Erick offered, “Do you want a lightpainting, Teressa?”

She paused. She halfway turned back. “… Nah.”

“I’ll make you one!” Erick tapped the blank canvases, saying, “Eternal Stonewood! Won’t break or be Shaped under normal conditions! It’ll last a long time.”

And that made her come back.

Teressa asked, “Do you remember what… my…” She sighed, and her words streamed out, “Do you remember the waystation that we [Cleanse]d away? The one my village used all the time? Did you get a chance to see through the mana, to see what it used to look like?”

Erick solemnly said, “I did. Hold on.”

He grabbed a blank canvas, and then he grabbed another. With a Shaping, he joined them into a larger surface, and then he painted with light. There was the porch with the old people who laughed at the kids playing in the streets. There was the well that had been overgrown, but it was now in working order, and a man was drawing water from it with a [Watershape].

Much of Teressa’s waystation had been badly damaged by the Witch, and that included the mana. Everything Erick put down into light was an interpretation, for the final [Witness] that Erick had cast into that place was jumbled with pain and the impression of fire. Erick did not include the fire in his lightpainting. But he did stitch together a lot of images taken from normal village life that probably never happened all at once.

Teressa’s lightpainting took a few minutes to make since it was actually several lightpaintings, all joined into one scene of transient village life.

Erick looked up when he was finished, and said, “There we go— Ah.”

Teressa had small tears rolling down her face as she gazed upon the lightpainting.

Erick wordlessly handed it over. Teressa accepted it like it would have burned her if she wasn’t careful.

Then she stood a bit straighter, and said, “Thank you, Erick.”

Erick gave a smile, and said, “Anytime, Teressa.”

Erick finished with his lightpaintings, and got back to packing, properly.

Soon, the City Shield, the books, the clothes, the new lightpaintings, everything that wasn’t necessary, was placed into stone containers, ready to be dropped into the ground. It took three hours to get to that point, for Erick discovered that he was loathe to slash his library or his wardrobe down to the bare essentials. What self-respecting mage would go somewhere without a book? But then again, he had nearly sixty books. That was too many. He eventually settled on only keeping the book of Illusion Magic; he hadn’t gotten very far into that one, and it might prove useful if the Mirage Dragon showed up. (It probably wouldn’t be useful at all for it was an intermediary text, but he still needed something to read in the downtime!).

Making his go-bag was tough, but he did it, because it was necessary. The bag itself was a simple, yet well made, brown leather backpack. It held a change of clothes, a canteen, his book, and a few smaller things. Teressa and Poi were similarly prepared. A small bag of essentials, along with [Mend], [Cleanse], and lightwards, were all that one really needed to venture out into the wide open world. Of course, one still needed weapons and magic to kill the monsters that prowled out there, but supplies were easy to get and maintain with just a modicum of mana.

Erick started making dinner.

He finished before Jane and Nirzir showed, so he let it sit there, hot, as they waited.

And waited.

And there goes the sun setting.

Erick looked to Poi.

Poi said, “They’re fine. They’re just late. We can eat without them.”

Erick frowned. They better not be late because Jane wanted to stay beh—

A purple blip deposited both Nirzir and Jane into the living room.

Erick relaxed.

Jane came into the kitchen dining room, and smiled brightly. “Oh good! Just in time for the best part of dinner: Eating!”

“Ha ha,” Erick said. “You’re late.”

Nirzir looked embarrassed for a second, but she got over it fast. Whatever had happened at her house was not of Erick’s concern. He didn’t think it was of Jane’s concern, either, but his daughter was working with the people of Songli a lot closer than he was, right now. She even knew of Nirzir’s brother, which probably meant something…

Erick didn’t want to think too deeply of all that, though. Jane was probably trying to make it on her own, forging her own connections and meeting her own circle of people, and he respected that.

- - - -

The next morning a letter courier arrived with a formal invitation to a feast, with Erick as the guest of honor. The party would be that night, on First Devouring Nightmare Mountain.

Erick decided to attend.

It was a lavish affair of drinks and too much food and short speeches given by people whom Erick had barely met, but whose lives he had saved during the war. It was bittersweet, really. They told him that he had done a lot, and for them, he had, but personally, Erick felt he had not done enough; he kept that opinion to himself, though.

Scion Caina of Small Scare gave a small speech, talking about how Erick had prevented a Hunter of Terror Peaks from infiltrating her squad by [Teleport Other]ing the fake initiate away and executing him on the spot. When a woman in her group asked after the missing man, Erick explained how the guy was over level 70, and therefore he was not who he appeared to be. Caina had given her speech as a thanks to Erick, but she had delivered it in such a routine, soldier-like manner, that it brought down the mood of the party. After she sat down, there was a lull. In that lull, Erick saw that people were looking for Caina's much more sociable brother to stand up, to say something to cover for his sister’s social lacking, but then, just as quickly, most people remembered that her brother had been killed in the fighting.

Erick still said to Caina, “Thank you for your kind words.”

Caina nodded.

The next person stood up, and started talking.

Mostly, it was a nice night. In some ways, it was boring. In other ways, it was eventful.

There was an attempted murder.

Erick wasn’t involved in that.

It happened in the next building over, and occurred between two women because of some drama with some man. Some elite guards on the periphery caught the attempted murder happening right as it was going down. The only reason Erick learned of it all at was because those elite guards blipped away from the sides of the gathering as the attempted murder was going down, and the nobility demanded to know the reason for the breach of etiquette. After briefly checking things out with Ophiel, Erick decided that it wasn’t his business. He didn’t get the whole story, nor did he want it.

In the course of the evening, Erick found out that Nirzir was terribly introverted. The princess of Void Song sat in a place of honor beside the main table, barely doing anything except to politely eat and pretend to fade into the background. People tried to talk to her, but none were able to get her to say more than a few words in response.

Erick accepted a lot of thanks from a lot of people.

Jane was talking to Patriarch Mirizo and a few others from Star Song and Void Song who had been invited to the party. Xue and Riri were not in attendance, though.

When it was over, Erick went home and went straight to bed. He was completely exhausted.

- - - -

The next morning Erick had one final meeting with Hangzi.

The Patriarch of Devouring Nightmare came to him, and sat down in his temporary living room. Jane served tea, and then she and all the guards departed to a different, nearby room.

Hangzi had not given any speeches last night, for as the Patriarch of a High Clan, he was above that. It was his job to act in control, and never cede authority to anyone. Except now, that facade broke a little. He said, “Thank you for remaining for this last week. I hope your stay in my Clan has been satisfactory?”

“Yes.” Erick said, “Thank you for your hospitality.”

Hangzi nodded. He paused. He said, “There is nothing I can offer to get you to stay in Songli, is there?”

Erick smiled at Hangzi’s heavily concealed, and yet honest desire for a friend. There were so many layers to his need that his words took Erick back, back to that moment when the four of them —Hangzi, Yorza, Warzi, and himself— were sitting around that dinner table at the top of Star Song’s Southern House, and Erick saw that Hangzi wanted true friends in his life. Ones that didn’t want to use him only for his resources, and ones that he didn’t have to use in turn for their resources.

Circumstances had wildly changed since then.

Mostly, those circumstances equaled out…

But Erick was probably higher up on the totem pole than Hangzi, if he was being honest with himself.

That allowed him a bit of leeway, to reach across the aisle, and to make a friend. Right now the age difference was a bit funky. The kid was only 19, and Erick was 49. But Erick would live to be 220 if he played his cards right; Rozeta’s Blessing and the accompanying Immune to Health Fatigue did that.

He would have plenty of time to wait out the hundred years on Yggdrasil’s Divine Seal.

And thinking of which...

Erick decided, “I will be moving on, but I appreciate Songli. I am thankful for Devouring Nightmare. And I’m glad to have met you, Hangzi. I would like to formalize a deeper bond, and to that end: I have another planting of Yggdrasil that needs to go somewhere. Got a good spot for him? Needs to be a deep lake, but he can defend himself from everything.”

There was a moment of pause, as Erick’s words registered.

Acting a bit faster than Hangzi, Yggdrasil’s [Scry] eye bobbed on Erick’s shoulder in recognition of his name, and then he bounced more, in recognition of what was about to happen.

Hangzi brightened, but only the smallest amount; he was restraining himself. He glanced to the [Scry] eye then asked, “Will he be controlling the weather around here, too?”

“Not unless you ask him to.” Erick added, “Or, if you ask me to ask him. Just keep in mind that with any luck on my end, Yggdrasil might get [Gate], and Candlepoint will be one of the cities on the other side.”

Hangzi graciously said, “I understand. I will accept this honor on behalf of Songli.” He paused in thought, then said, “East of Holorulo, directly across the Wanzhi River, there are a few places that have been evacuated, as the people have been moved into better locations on this side of the river. There is one lake-like place that is what you might call a fishing resort town. It will require some excavation but I can have that done in an hour. It will serve as a good location for Yggdrasil.”

“That sounds perfect.” Erick grinned. “Want to see a planting? I’m going to let Yggdrasil use [Eternal Stonetree] in this second location, so it should be quite a sight!”

Yggdrasil left Erick’s shoulder and bobbed in place; he was excited.

Hangzi seriously said, “There will need to be some excavation and preparation, if not for Yggdrasil, then for the benefit of future generations, and unless you have [Cityshape], which I do not believe you do, then one of our City Shapers will need to do what we pay them to do.” He bargained with a voice that was not used to bargaining, “I can have it done in twenty minutes.” A tendril of thought left his head.

Erick waited, patiently happy.

Yggdrasil waited impatiently and ecstatic, his white [Scry] eye bouncing all around. Ophiel twittered in curious guitar twangs as he watched Yggdrasil’s eye play in the air.

Soon enough, Hangzi declared, “It is being done as I speak.”

Erick was already watching with Ophiel; finding the spot Hangzi spoke of was easy enough.

- - - -

Fishing this far north on the Wanzhi River was different than fishing down south, next to Eralis. By the time the water got all the way down there it had been used up in Alaralti’s farms, and portioned out to all the smaller villages and otherwise that sprung up past Holorulo. But up here, the waters ran deep, and the monsters were big.

The fishing villages up here were built like they were on the front lines of a war, because they were. The boat houses were castles, half submerged, with massive gates that could be shut to prevent monsters from following a retreating vessel. The villages themselves were built kilometers from shore, and in similar styles, for many fish knew how to fly.

And almost all of those fishing towns were ghost towns, now; the people either moved on, or dead.

In one place in particular, this evacuation was well apparent.

There was a carved-out, three-kilometer diameter lake, situated right next to the Wanzhi River. A massive lock separated the lake from the river itself. Inside the lake, nice looking residential houses were set only twenty meters from the waters, with little care given over to proper, waterside construction. When the lock broke, which probably happened in the war, flying fish probably destroyed the resort town. This was a middle-class area, for sure. Merchant class, at least.

And it had been hit hard. Destroyed houses. Burned out husks. Craters, here and there. No one had bothered to fix it up, either, which meant that anyone who had been living here was either dead, or didn’t care.

Whatever the case, at least one person was going to be living here soon enough; Yggdrasil.

There was a flying man above the center of that deep lake, holding his hands up to the sky as he hovered a hundred meters above the dark waters. A few smaller fish monsters noticed the man, but those monsters could only jump a dozen meters out of the water. The man was too high up to be attacked by those lesser beasts. He wore white robes that fluttered in the wind, with an image of Rozeta embroidered on the back—

Oh. Erick knew the man. It was the guy who made the City Shields.

Mage Ishibo.

White magic swirled around the man, reaching a crescendo, and then he pulsed. A wave of Shaping magic swept outward, impacting the waters, like the finger of a deity, then reached down into the waves. The magic sunk deep. And then, it changed.

Metals and glass and wood churned along the bottom of the lake, flying the hundreds of meters up and out of the waters, to join a gathering roil of debris, a swirling torus of trash that then spread outward from Ishibo’s point of impact. In a matter of minutes, the lake cleared from a dark, muddy blue, to clear blue, allowing Erick to fully see down into the depths, to see that a lot of boats had been sunk in these waters.

Had been. The boats were rapidly becoming part of the churning roil of white magic.

With the boats and trash gone, the larger monsters were revealed. The most impressive one was a massive eel; a rivergrieve, perhaps. It was twenty meters long, at least. There were smaller monsters, too. Erick only really noticed the rivergrieve, though, as the [Cityshape] had ripped apart three wrecks and uncovered that monster. As that ring of grabbed material expanded, it tore through two more major wrecks, uncovering two more rivergrieves, each the same size as the first.

[Cityshape] hit the residential coastline in a roil of broken stuffs, grabbing destroyed houses and making them a part of its magic. And then, like spreading crystallization, the coastline of the lake became a thick seawall, meters deep, with flat land beyond that wall. The houses had all vanished, but the lock leading into the side lake was repaired and fortified into something twice as large as it had been before.

Erick had no idea where all the rest of the trash went. Perhaps Ishibo was using a variant of [City Shape], with [Cleanse] in there?

Within minutes, the transformation was over and the monsters down below were angry.

The massive eels were transforming from solid, dark greens to faintly translucent and then fully translucent, vanishing from sight with a magic that was not [Invisibility], the waters around them filled with ethereal jaws that snapped at anything that got too close. More than a few smaller fish monsters were turned into chum as the larger monsters moved out. One of the monstrous eels slipped upward, to the surface, and then breached the surface, flying through the air as though it was water, headed straight for—

Ishibo saw what Erick saw. He blipped away, fast as he could go.

Erick came back to himself. “To confirm, are those rivergrieves? Right? I’ve only ever seen juveniles before and the juveniles certainly did not fly.”

Hangzi looked up, probably monitoring the telepathic connection he had to whoever he was speaking with. “… No. Those are false rivergrieves. They’re monsters with cores and so they might one day become true rivergrieves, but their cores are not grand. I am being told that the larger one is closer to that fundamental shift than the others, but it is still not there yet.”

“Ah. Well,” Erick paused. In the other room, Jane, Teressa, Poi, and a few of Hangzi’s guards waited patiently. Erick called out to Jane, “Hey, Jane! Want a false rivergrieve?”

After an embarrassed moment, Jane stepped out of that side room and into the entrance to where Erick and Hangzi sat. She spoke with polite courtesy, “No thank you, father. I picked up a false rivergrieve yesterday, and did not get a chance to tell you yet.”

“Oh! Well okay.” Erick said, “Then! I’ll just kill them and plant Yggdrasil.”

Hangzi nodded.

Yggdrasil bounced.

Jane retreated back to the side room.

Seven Ophiels descended to the surface of the waters of the riverside lake, each of them aglow with white light, glittering with purpose. Two of the three false rivergrieves were flying now, prowling, searching for the one that had changed their home. Ophiel might not have [Cityshape]d the lake, but they made for good targets anyway.

Ophiels wrapped themselves in rings of lightning, that flashed out into mandalas of intricacy, right as the translucent monsters each opened a hundred ethereal jaws all around themselves, and attacked.

Lightning met Force Magic, and lost.

Too many jaws attacked from too many angles, and Ophiels turned into broken mana.

On his shoulder, Ophiel squawked in annoyance.

Erick frowned, as he said, “Obviously, I did not respect the fish. Always learning something new, it seems."

Hangzi had a tiny smirk that he could not wipe off of his face, but he kept his mouth shut.

Erick summoned a few more Ophiel and had them lightstep over to the targets. This time, he started with an [Undertow Star], cast onto the surface of the lake.

Hangzi lost his smirk.

A thousand tendrils of breaking shadow extended outward from a point of light above the waters, ruffling the lake into waves. The star, ensconced beyond its own impenetrable void, attacked. The eel monsters were enemies, and the star saw this, training its tendrils upon the beasts, and also upon every single other monster underneath the waves.

The Force magics of the lesser rivergrieves broke in a hundred tiny ways, showing in the cracks of star-like light that formed along their translucent lengths, and in the breaking of ethereal jaws. The eels dropped out of the sky, belly-flopping into the water, their magic suddenly broken.

Under the watchful glow of the [Undertow Star], Ophiels dove into the lake and let loose with lightning once again. This time, lightning spread far and wide, [Fulmination Aura] shattering every living thing that hunted beneath (and sometimes above!) the waves. In a minute, the lake was empty of threats.

Erick canceled [Undertow Star]. Shadows retreated into the Void; the light from beyond went out.

Hangzi asked, “What… What was that?”

“I made a new spell the other day.” Erick handed him the blue box for [Undertow Star]. “The [Spatial Denial] of this is a bit wonky, but the rest of it turned out really well.” He stood. “Care to see the planting in person?”

Hangzi read the blue box, taking ten seconds to do so, and experiencing half a dozen emotions just as fast. Disbelief, primarily. Then came a bit of anger, but that was swept away by a sudden sadness. Acceptance, and a bit of forced cheer, came last. He looked up to see Erick standing, then he stood in turn. “Nice spell.” He added, “Yes. I want to see the planting in person. I also want a formal introduction between me and Yggdrasil. He might forget this time in his life as one would a dream, but I still wish to be a part of that dream. Rozeta willing, I will be here for a long time.”

Erick smiled, saying, “Of course. Poi can come with me. Do you wish to take a guard, too?”

Poi heard his name and walked out of the side room, followed by one of Hangzi’s men.

Hangzi said, “Yes. I assume you will be traveling us?”

Erick unfolded the light he kept bottled up at his back, brightening the room, as he said, “Correct.”

Poi stepped into the room along with Hangzi’s guard. In a flashing second, the four of them relocated to the edge of the lake.

- - - -

The sky was blue with faint clouds in the upper atmosphere, while the lake in front of them was a bit frothy with the recent addition of chummed and fried monster bits. There wasn’t much of that, though, for the lake was over three kilometers in diameter. Erick suspected that maybe he was the only one who actually noticed the death in the waters.

Hangzi stared outward with Erick, and asked, “Are you pleased with the ‘[Lakeshape]’, Erick?”

Oh? [Lakeshape]? Was Hangzi trying to make a joke? He was, wasn’t he. That spell probably existed, sure, but Ishibo definitely used [Cityshape].

Erick joined in on the joke, saying, “I might have to make a bargain of trade with you to learn that spell.”

Hangzi smiled; his joke had been accepted.

“Let us begin,” Erick said.

Attentions turned back to the waters.

With a glance through the Ophiel still on site, down below the waves, far down to the lake bottom, Erick found a perfect spot. There was a rise off center of the waters, a bit closer to land; a bit further away from the river entrance. Erick guessed that the rise was about two hundred and fifty meters deep, while the rest of the lake in that area was 300 to 400 meters deep.

He sent to Yggdrasil, ‘Okay. Here we go. Body number two; this one is going to get [Eternal Stonetree], okay?’

Yggdrasil responded with wordless recognition and excitement.

Erick cast through the Ophiel down in the depths of the lake.

A light bloomed among the darkness. Radiant and pure. And then a single tendril of a sapling rose out of the sandy lake bottom. A green leaf unfurled, and a nimbus of rainbow light surrounded that leaf. Another leaf bloomed, followed rapidly by a third, and a fourth. The sapling branched, then branched again, and again. More leafs appeared, and the rainbow crown expanded. The trunk thickened, glowing white, as roots dug deep into the dirt and—

Erick felt a shift in the world.

A rumble. A murmur. The stone shoreline seemed to sway under Erick’s feet. He instinctively put his hands out to steady himself before he toppled over, but even that wasn’t enough. Poi caught him, asking what was wrong. Erick couldn’t answer, for his tongue was thick and unresponsive, and his arms were a weight too heavy to hold. His legs buckled as something stirred inside of him.

Yggdrasil reached for [Eternal Stonetree], and cast it upon himself. Erick’s mana halved, all at once, and then went much, much lower, as Yggdrasil took, and took, and took.

Through half-lidded eyes, Erick watched the birth of possibility.

A kilometer away from the shore, the lake churned to white water and exploded upward, like someone had detonated ordnance under the waves. Only this detonation did not fall back down to the lake. White waters reached for the sky. A few major branches split from the main trunk. Water crashed back down to the lake, churning up even more foam that seemed to transform into even more branches. The trunk of Yggdrasil expanded steadily upward in the center of it all, dragging up even more bare white branches as he grew.

And then the upward explosion stopped, and the outward explosion began.

White branches expanded from the central trunk, like snakes, winding out in every direction, the leading tips as thin as fingers, while where they joined the trunk they became thicker and thicker, but not nearly wide enough to support their own kilometer-long weight. Yggdrasil expanded without care for physics or weight or anything else, except for growth.

It wasn’t anything approaching organized, natural growth, either. There were a few leaves here and there, but the tree remained mostly bare.

And then the white branches stopped expanding outward. They filled out, some branches splitting into two, others joining. Disorganization became something more recognizable. The kilometers large tree became more solid, more secure, more regardful of the natural and supernatural forces that sustained him, but his branches were still as bare as white bones.

And then daylight and the blue sky shifted into something more ethereal. More colorful.

Like the flicking of a switch, a kaleidoscope of rainbow light anointed the world, transforming the heavens into fantasy. Leaves began to appear on the white branches, each one as large as a person, each shaped like green fire, and glowing. Those leaves were like sparks. Suddenly, a green fire caught hold of Yggdrasil, and swept his branches, leaving radiant leaves in its wake.

With his form finally filled out, the kaleidoscopic light in the sky condensed, becoming a kilometers wide ring of bound rainbows that circled all of Yggdrasil’s brilliant green canopy; a prismatic crown.

Erick watched this happen while he was seated on the ground, propped up and worried over by Poi, while Ophiel hit him with [Greater Treat Wounds] and whined in flute sounds. Hangzi had glanced toward Erick when the man collapsed, but Hangzi was too entranced by Yggdrasil’s summoning to spare Erick much concern. The guard at Hangzi’s side was properly nervous, though; Erick almost laughed at that.

In fact, everything was quite hilarious.

Ah. He was a bit giddy, wasn’t he?

Oh. That was probably a symptom of something severe, wasn’t it.

His hearing returned in a click, but all he could hear was the cascading water, still falling down from the higher branches of Yggdrasil like the tree was his own major rainstorm. Suddenly, Erick’s tongue didn’t feel so thick, and his arms and legs felt lighter. He breathed out thick air— Oh. Poi was [Cleanse]ing him, to keep his lungs full of good air. Oh.

“Yes,” Poi said, speaking a bit loud so he could be heard over the falling waters. “You stopped breathing there for a bit. Your heart failed, too. It’s better now.”

Hangzi came back to the moment, his eyes going wide as he turned to see Erick on the ground. “What happened?”

Erick knew what had happened: he had run out of mana, for Yggdrasil had taken everything. Even with the multiplier of Intelligence! It had taken Yggdrasil five minutes to get to his current size, but if Erick had had more mana, Yggdrasil would have likely grown a lot faster.

Erick checked his Status. Yup. Near-zero Mana.

… And near-zero Health, too. Looks like Yggdrasil wanted some of his Blood Mana, too.

Well this was dumb.

Erick still had 143 extra points, just waiting to be spent, too. He was going to wait till he could see what his soul looked like when he spent those points on his Willpower and Focus, but damn, if they weren’t needed right now. So he started funneling points into Willpower and Focus; more Mana, and more Mana Regeneration.

Erick was already up from zero, though, so he began turning on his usual spellwork that had gone out, when his mana bottomed out. [Greater Lightwalk] first, then [Lodestar]. Erick got to his feet, and said, “Yggdrasil happened. He needed more mana than I was able to give.”

Which was fine. Yggdrasil had helped Erick survive that soul spear. Erick could help Yggdrasil grow up properly. A bit of warning would have been nice, though.

Yggdrasil was done draining Erick’s resources, though he wasn’t done growing. He could grow under his own power, now. As Erick glanced out into the nascent World Tree, he saw branches extend into holes in the crown then fill in with leaves. The lower branches, the ones about a hundred meters off of the lake’s surface, were still thickening with growth. Yggdrasil was probably growing out his roots, too.

Even the rainbow ring around the crown was becoming denser, more radiant, more colorful.

Just how much mana did Yggdrasil have? Millions?

Hangzi had turned away from Erick to watch Yggdrasil again. He stared in wonder, saying, “I’ve never seen an Arbor before. This must be what they’re like.”

Erick smiled. “Yup. Yggdrasil is still only months old, though. He’s going to get a lot bigger than that—”

Yggdrasil’s [Scry] eye appeared atop the waters, in front of Erick, as large as an orcol and only ten meters away. Erick laughed a bit at the sudden, large intrusion. Hangzi, Hangzi’s guard, and Poi, all went super serious. Erick almost laughed at that, too. Okay. Yeah. He was giddy.

And Yggdrasil’s eye was different. Instead of being pure white, it was iridescent white.

Erick waved. “Hello, Yggdrasil. How are you feeling?”

The voice of a child vibrated the world,

“Better. Easier see you. I sleep now.”

And then the eye blinked away.

Erick stood stunned. He was not the only one. Poi’s eyes were wide. Hangzi was frozen to the spot. Hangzi’s guard shuddered.

Hangzi was the first to speak, “So he can talk, then? I was under the impression that he was silent.”

Erick gave a nervous chuckle. “I was under the impression that he was silent, too.”

“… Oh.” Hangzi said, “Well. That’s a good development?”

Hangzi’s guard whispered, “We should move away from here; I feel many eyes upon us.”

Hangzi readily nodded, more than prepared to get the hell out of here, saying to Erick, “It was good to see you, and to meet Yggdrasil. Good day. Come back to Songli whenever you wish.” And then he took his guard’s hand and the guard blipped them away.

Erick laughed a bit at that. He smiled, as he spoke to the air, “It was good to see you too, Hangzi. Farewell.” He turned to Poi, “I guess it was a bit scary, was it?”

Poi instantly said, “Seeing massive things move so quickly is always disturbing. It’s like being a bug hunting for food in a kitchen, and then someone walks in and turns on the wardlights.”

“Oh. Well. Yes. I can agree with tha—”

A pain lightly stabbed inside Erick’s chest. He winced.

Poi demanded, “What! What’s going on now!”

Ophiel responded with a tap of [Greater Treat Wounds].

Erick said, “Something is happening.” He looked himself over with [Soul Sight]—

A golden flame was strung throughout Erick’s body like a divine spider web. Another pain struck him in his heart, and the golden threads solidified, trying to… Hold something in place? Yes. Probably. It wasn’t a large pain, but the golden threads were concerning.

Unbidden, Yggdrasil’s blue box appeared.

Oh.

There was a change.

Where it used to say ‘Current Maximum: 2’ the box now read ‘Current Maximum: 3’. The World Tree still had yet to be planted, though.

The divine fire inside Erick spread, and then solidified, looking almost as though it was reestablishing itself… Yes. That’s probably exactly what it was doing, for the pain in Erick’s heart went away. In three more heartbeats, the divine web began to vanish; the seal on Yggdrasil’s power remained intact, though it had certainly been adjusted.

Poi sighed out, relieved.

Erick giggled a bit, again.

And then he got a wild thought.

What if he planted Yggdrasil everywhere he went? What if each time he planted one, the seal got a bit more undone? What if…

What if, like Erick suspected, the actual secret to [Gate] was the creation of a being that could [Teleport] other people—

The Worldly Path demanded that one first learn how to manually [Blink], then manually [Teleport], then manually [Teleport Other]. What if a mage created a being that was in multiple parts of the world at the same time, that had the capability of [Teleport Other]…

All of the [Teleport] spells had a range of 1000 kilometers; this was their limit. So, with this created being, existing in two locations, could they [Teleport Other] someone far, far past that thousand kilometer limit? Was this sort of like how Erick was able to [Telepathy] across a much larger distance than normal, by stringing his Ophiel across the intervening distance and bouncing that signal between his summons?

What if that was the secret to World Trees?

How long had Erick been at this Worldly Path? Since before he actually gained that Quest?

He had boasted of making [Gate] to Caradogh Pogi, long before he gained the Quest. Was that the actual start of this Path? Or… Was something else happening there? Phagar had spoken to Erick once about how his creation of a World Tree was always a possibility, ever since he arrived on Veird, but it was a very, very small possibility, until Erick worked toward making it a near-fact.

Was all of this, with Yggdrasil (with the creation of Ophiel), and Undertow, and [Mysticalshape], and [Physical Domain], and [Harmonize], and everything else that he had done before then, and even now…

Was he creating [Gate]?

Or was [Gate] creating itself?

A blue box appeared.

Special Quest!

The Worldly Path.

Steps taken: 2 of ???

Reward: The ability to cast Gate

Erick laughed and showed Poi the changed blue box. “Isn’t that neat!”

Poi looked resigned, as he said, “That’s Fate Magic, for you.”