Ar'Kendrithyst

Erick experienced a minor epiphany as he went about solving problems. It was ‘minor’ because this was not a new epiphany.

This world had more inherent danger in the form of changelings and ‘holer beetles’ (which were exactly as horrible as they sounded) and monsters in the dark, than him, as a Wizard, trying to make it all better. A lot more. Like, yes, there was a horrible fact that with his power he was able to change a lot of established norms, and that made a lot of powerful people powerfully uncomfortable, but he had a track record with magic stretching back a whole year! …Which, he admitted, was a problem. The people here just didn’t know him yet. His history of being a social worker simply did not matter to them; all they saw was the recent upheaval of established norms.

Erick knew what he was about, even if the majority of the people around him only knew of him through hearsay and news. And this was bad. There was no truly good solution to this problem, for all he could really do was leave behind allies wherever he went. He could prove himself a hundred times over, but the world was a million times bigger than him, and he wasn’t even sure if proving himself as ‘good’ would ever be good enough for some of these people, like the wrought.

At least Kromolok hadn’t outed him yet, because there wasn’t an Inquisition currently on his doorstep. Maybe tomorrow, but maybe not!

The problems of living in a society aside…

There were solvable problems everywhere down here (most of them in the form of monsters) and Erick was very capable of solving these issues. So he did.

From an infestation of water worms poisoning a local water supply which led to the discovery of a nest of cannibals picking off people from the edges of town, to bringing a kidnapped kid home to his parents, to some sort of infestation of thundering ghosts that obliterated an outpost and which no one could remove. [Physical Domain] proved very useful against the ghosts’ Elemental Thunder, but then again, the outpost was so far out from everyone else that it didn’t really matter if the place got cleaned out, or not.

Most of the requests were like that; large problems that were far away from everyone else. Only a few of the requests for assistance had him rooting out problems that were right beside civilization, or which had intruded into civilization.

And so, just like that, in the space of 8 hours, Erick cleared out 29 requests for assistance. Three of the original 32 planned monster requests were more so the issuers could get in touch with him, than for any real physical or safety need. In his time filling out those requests, Erick realized that, while his fears of being found out as a Wizard were real, allies could still be had, and he discovered a lot more about how the Underworld physically operated. His range was only a few thousand kilometers down here but it was enough to plot out the major landmarks.

Stratagold was like a hundred kilometer wide/long/tall boulder with Main Roads crossing all around it, like raised highways encircling a major metropolitan area. But the Underworld was also a 3D space, built up and down, and some of those highways went over or under the wrought Geode. Those Main Roads extended off to the south, east, and west, but not to the north.

Vibrant Falls was to the north.

Erick did discover a continuation of the Main Roads north of Vibrant Falls, but not before he explored what the Falls actually were. A kilometers wide ocean of water was falling through the center of the place, after all; that wasn’t something that one ignored.

Calling it an ‘ocean of water’ turned out to be correct. The roof of Vibrant Falls was connected to hundreds of tunnels where water funneled down from the ocean at the Surface to fall down, down, into the Underworld. Erick expected a maelstrom whirlpool on the Surface, but what he found was more like a series of switchback tunnels that led to smaller tunnels that led to the ocean above.

It was practically sewer maintenance architecture on the level of gods. If calling it the ‘godly sewers of Veird’ turned out to be a technically correct but blasphemous thing to say, Erick would not be surprised. There was definitely something odd going on in those tunnels, though, for the water pouring down was freshwater, but the ocean was salt water, which meant there was some unseen magic happening between up there and down here, and Erick couldn't find that delineating line.

But back to the Main Roads.

The Main Roads (and the various ‘natural’ state-sized caverns interspersed on those roads) were like the anchoring lines of a spiderweb, with Stratagold in the center. The roads did not go up or down very much. It was more like they were laid out flat across what could have theoretically been a layer of Veird. In some places there were holes punched through many layers, like Vibrant Falls, but every layer of Main Road was more or less upon a different Z axis. Side Roads could go anywhere. It was through the Side Roads or other natural breaks between layers that people moved up or down, between the layers of Main Roads.

Mostly, the Underworld was a many-layered cake, with —Erick guessed— about 1% of it made of tunnels or otherwise open for travel or habitation. Stratagold occupied a portion of the Underworld where the Main Roads were rather well maintained, which, Erick guessed, was probably due to Stratagold’s influence. Life underground was certainly different from life on the Surface, in many more ways than the obvious, though.

One of those ways was truly disturbing, once he understood what he was looking at. The monsters were an obvious problem that need not be examined too deeply, except to know that they were dangerous, and prevented a great deal of life from properly taking hold in all these spaces that had been made for people. Because now that Erick was down here, he saw exactly how Veird was supposed to work.

Sure, the land was destroyed and much of the infrastructure was gone, but the tunnels themselves remained. The general ‘sewage system’ of the oceans and waterways remained. Massive caverns that should have held nations were now empty. Skyscraper-sized crystals that should have lit up the dark, bringing light to the deepest parts of this world, were now on the ground and broken in millions of pieces and covered with a millennium of dirt.

But, back when Veird was first created...

This land was meant to be filled with people.

All of it. Filled to the brim with people. Filled with worlds of life.

And yet, it was filled with monsters.

There were a lot of people down here, too, but not nearly as many as this place could support. Just like Yggdrasil’s cavern, the Underworld was only 1% populated. And wasn’t that a kick in the pants. This place had been an ark and now it was a graveyard.

That was ancient history, though.

Erick noticed something more present-day as he scouted out the Underworld. Remembering back to the holographic map of the local t-station network, under the embassy, and connecting that map with the settlements he saw out here, Erick recognized the wrought garrisons in some towns as holders of a t-station. Those towns with a t-station (and with the wrought garrison protecting that t-station and town) formed minor hubs in well-protectable locations. Outside of those main lands there were settlements located near other natural resources, like underground lakes and farmable lands. But those people in those satellite lands were high level and ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice. The wrought garrisons were obviously fallback points only to be used in an emergency, which would have been fine, but…

One question kept coming up as Erick scouted the Underworld. Where were the other lands? The other nations, outside of Stratagold?

But there was nothing.

The world was dark down here, and only those people who had access to a t-station, or lived near a place that had a t-station, were able to survive. But the t-stations were not like a [Gate] network, linking everyone to everyone else.

Thanks to his talk with Tasar about shipping, Erick knew that people regularly moved between settlements, out in the deeper dark, trundling along under massively heavy guard and lots of active, protective spellwork. It was only thanks to those wrought caravaneers and the strong mages and other flesh-based defenders of various noble houses that any of these societies could exist at all. People —vetted people, mostly nobility— could sometimes move between t-stations, but cargo could not; there were rules about that. A lot of rules, but with those rules came a lot of help.

It was clear to Erick, from all the evidence sitting in front of him, that it was impossible to make it in this land without a direct connection to Stratagold. That fact had some disturbing implications for just how much power Stratagold had over these people, because it’s not like the people in these places were weak. There were humans and dragonkin and incani on every single fortification wall, casting [Fireball]s and otherwise, right next to wrought commanders. But only the wrought garrisons themselves had runework. Only the wrought garrisons had runic cannons like Erick had seen at Enduring Forge. Only the wrought had t-stations. There were anti-[Stoneshape] runic webs in every wall and under every foundation, but they were hidden like secrets.

City life was safe enough, but it was a very loose definition of ‘safe’. Erick was literally clearing out problems inside some of those cities that had no idea they were under threat. Sometimes the barons got mad that certain responsibilities weren’t upheld by the wrought, but the wrought always said something about ‘not being allowed to do X, and you know we're not’. Erick found himself siding with the barons almost all the time. But at the same time, it seemed to him that the wrought were allowing themselves to be pushed away from responsibility, which… Was a thing.

Erick wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

And yet, it was clear that ultimate responsibility for safety lay at the feet of the wrought. All the fleshy people in this Underworld lived under their silent rule.

Now, to be fair, Erick did not think that Stratagold was doing anything untoward; not at all. But what was happening was that Stratagold held the reins of power, and they were using that power to support other people. Without them, there was no life down here. The Underworld flourished or died based on the whims of the wrought.

… This was probably vastly unfair to them. People could only do so much against the dark; even immortals could not change the reality of monsters everywhere, and of Melemizargo prowling out there just out of sight. Perhaps it was different in other lands, where there were no wrought. Perhaps Erick was simply in the ‘center of a nation’ as it were, and of course, Stratagold held the power while within their national borders. Perhaps handing out runic webs to the people at large had led to horrors in the past, and since the wrought were immortal, they knew not to do that, so they buried their anti-[Stoneshape] runic webs out of sight.

Erick was deeply uncomfortable with what he was seeing, because...

Would he do it any differently? If he had control of a nation, and people wanted to live near him and benefit from his power, would he demand they follow his rules? Would he allow them to make their own mistakes? Erick had already done just that, a little, by slotting himself into Silverite’s reign as one of her archmages. But for Candlepoint, he was very much silent. He was an assistant; not a leader.

Was that the correct path? Was Candlepoint falling apart without his direct oversight? Likely no…

Probably not.

It was arrogance itself to assume that he knew best how to manage anything, just because he was strong. No. Leave the management to others. Erick could guard the walls.

… Which was exactly what the wrought were doing. So maybe he sided with them, actually.

All of this was a topic to bring up with Tasar and the EIPC people the next time he saw them.

Anyway. According to the wrought’s ideology, and unless Erick was wildly misinterpreting what he was seeing, they were doing the most they could reasonably do. And Erick could help with that. Maybe he needed to see what Ryul was doing with Archmage’s Rest, and get in on that, for there was likely more than enough archmage-level work to go around.

Ah.

At that thought, Erick relaxed many of his objections to Stratagold. They did help people, all the time. The problem was just too large to ever actually solve. Or, at least, it was too large to solve with current methods. That’s where Erick needed to focus his goals. Solving systemic problems as well as solving monster problems. The people down here could certainly use more runic webs.

Of course, the downside to interacting with the wrought was the threat of outing himself as a Wizard.

Eh.

People still needed help, and he was going to give it to them.

If the worst came to pass and he needed to run, Erick had already found one way out of the Underworld that didn’t require t-station access. Only the one, though. Erick’s range wasn’t what he was used to down here, so maybe there were more, but Vibrant Falls came down from the ocean, so, theoretically, he could return to the Surface by going up the falls.

That was only in case of emergency, though. If Bright Tea and the inquiry went well, then he would have Stratagold at his back, and then Oceanside came next, and then came ‘finding a Wizard’, which Erick suspected would become something closer to ‘try to figure out this Wizardly shit while dodging Tasar’s various sights’. If things went badly he’d…

Go to Candlepoint? Set up with the shadelings?

No. That seemed like a bad idea for a hundred reasons.

Anyway…

Erick came back to himself, had some physical food and some [Renew] food, and then he went to bed. He slept well knowing that he had done a lot of actual good out there today. Tomorrow, he’d do even more. Maybe he’d even take a look at some of the other letters he got, see if there were any other large non-monster problems he could solve for people.

- - - -

Erick woke. Breakfast was another copied meal and more [Renew]. And then, since a day had passed, Erick tried to make another [Steadfast Ward]. This time he kept it utterly simple, using just [Force Wall] and [Personal Ward] and a good Shaping to Ethereal, making the Force fall in line with the rest of his body.

It turned out pretty good. Not perfect, but Erick was on the right track, for sure.

Steadfast Ward, instant, self, 3100 mana

Enact a personal ward of absolute defense, preventing 195 damage from all outside sources. Lasts 24 hours.

He decided that he wanted to keep the ‘This spell is extraordinarily resistant toward dispelling effects.’ part that he got from including anti-Dispel frameworks. So then he made that spell. A blue box appeared.

Steadfast Ward, instant, self, 3800 mana

Enact a personal ward of absolute defense, preventing 165 damage from all outside sources. This spell is extraordinarily resistant toward dispelling effects. Lasts 24 hours.

For his third attempt, Erick decided to try adding [Renew] to the mix, just to see what would happen. It wouldn’t be an undirected addition, of course. He channeled the spell through a hand and listened to the sounds of renewal and regrow—

Hmm.

There was something there.

Erick channeled [Renew] in one hand and [Grow] in another.

There was something there. Whatever it was… Seemed recursive? Like an ever growing sound that didn’t actually grow at all? Well… That just made a whole lot of sense, didn’t it! Erick smiled. See this? This was why he loved magic. There were so many connections everywhere, and this right here was too good of an avenue of inquiry to leave unexplored.

Erick handed five spells off to Ophiel; [Ward], [Force Wall], [Dispel], [Grow], and [Renew]. It was an odd combination, with an odd melody hiding within the discordant sound, but with an adjustment here and a heightening there the fog of jumbled Realities began to clear into something deeper. Erick added in some tricks of Permanency—

Suddenly, the obscuring static between him and this new magic went away, revealing the music of a mountain that only grew with each drop of falling mana. He realized that all his ideas for Permanency magic were already inside [Renew], and also that he had cast the spell before he had thought to cast.

Ethereal Force took hold inside his flesh, solidifying in his body like so much phantom imagery. Bones of heartwood that might bend but would never break. Bark for skin, and only the strongest wood for muscle. Structures like roots spread from his heart, perfectly following his arteries to then return through his veins and strengthen all the other tubules of his body.

He held up his hand, slowly and just as easily as he usually did, feeling no entrapment or danger. He did feel a hollowness inside, though, because this spell had taken a lot of mana—

Unbreakable Form, instant, self, 7500 mana

Enact a personal ward of absolute defense, preventing 250 damage from all outside sources. This spell is extraordinarily resistant toward dispelling effects. This spell will stack times. For plants, this spell will stack times.

Permanent until dismissed.

Erick blinked a bit, and then smiled. This was a good spell. This was almost exactly what he wanted, anyway. Magic was wonderful! After a bit of testing with [Hermetic Shredder], [Unbreakable Form] worked exactly as it should. It even looked good; like nothing at all except for a very strong and oddly Shaped [Personal Ward], that one would only notice as odd if they had a good mana sense. Erick’s usual [Personal Ward] sometimes shimmered white when he took damage, or when he moved too much, but this thing had no visual effect at all.

It might not work for Erick, himself, for anything over 2000 damage would still get through this sort of defense, even with it maxed at 500 absolute defense, and he had very much taken hits worth well over 50,000 points of damage in the past. His current [Personal Ward] was worth nearly 130,000 points of defense, for reference, but there were no natural damage reductions on that. Erick took the full hits, every time.

With this new spell, even counting his Constitution-enhanced defenses with [Defend] active, which only lasted a minute, giving him 95% damage reduction, a 50,000 hit would still cause 2500 points of damage, which would still be 2000 damage straight to Erick’s Health.

He only had 2600 Health.

So Erick needed something more normal than this. Perhaps Riivo was right and a [Steadfast Ward] was just not good for him. A hybrid spell would do everything he wanted, but that sort of spell was apparently ‘too difficult’. According to Riivo, they had records of such things in the archives of Archmage’s Rest, but nothing substantive other than ‘yes, this theory does actually work; good luck trying to replicate this success, and also this person never filled out that record properly, so I can’t even show you how it is supposed to go together’.

Anyway! Yggdrasil couldn’t very well use a [Personal Ward] for at least another 100 years, because that would require him to use all his mana to make a good one, and since he was mana, that would kill him. So [Unbreakable Form] was good for him.

Erick handed the spell over to Yggdrasil. The big guy cast it upon himself and nothing visually changed. But it worked. There was a definite ethereal/physical change, though. Thanks to Yggdrasil using [Eternal Stonetree] his body was more than that of a normal [Familiar]; it was filled with actual structures instead of hollow magic. He had heartwood and bark and sapwood, along with vesicles of his own. Now, those things became lined in Ethereal Force. On the surface, there was no change, but under the surface, Erick watched as Yggdrasil became much more solid.

Yggdrasil exclaimed, “The bitey fish no longer bite!”

Erick smiled. “Absolute defense is like having tougher skin and stronger bones; you simply can’t be hurt until the attacker overcomes that barrier—” He paused.

Erick almost asked if Yggdrasil wanted to do some testing, to see exactly how much damage he could take, but Erick didn’t want to hurt Yggdrasil. Not at all. And yet he probably should, just to know what sort of numbers he was dealing with—

That reminded him of something else. How much ‘Health’ did Yggdrasil have, anyway? For [Familiar]s, their Mana was their Health. For Ophiel this number was easy to know; it was the same as Erick’s own Mana, at just over 13k. But the blue box for Yggdrasil only ever said that Yggdrasil had a lot more mana and resources than him. So, actually, there was no way to know what sort of mana resources Yggdrasil had at his disposal.

So did Erick need to do that sort of testing right now? Would it even be useful? No. Not really. Yggdrasil would eventually become fully real, and at that time, Yggdrasil could run his own numbers himself. For right now, [Unbreakable Form] was more defenses than the big guy had ever had before, and those defenses would continue to grow, so this was fine.

Erick continued, “Your [Unbreakable Form] will become a lot stronger with more casts, so when you can, recast it. Don’t get low on mana, though.”

“Okay!”

Yggdrasil instantly recast the spell, then again, and again. And agai—

“That’s enough.” Erick said, “You can stop. That’s maximum effectiveness.”

“Okay.” Yggdrasil shimmered a bit, then said, “This funny feeling. Strong feeling.”

“Are you okay?”

“I good!”

“… Yes, you are good, Yggdrasil.”

And he had just spent 37,500 mana. Erick knew that Yggdrasil had a lot more mana than him, but damn.

Erick almost went back to magic making, but he decided to put his thoughts in order while he did something else for a little while, and he knew just what he needed to do. First, he tore apart the failed spells he had made, and then he said to Yggdrasil, “I’m going to go back into town for a while. Are you going to play with the fishes?”

“Yes.” Yggdrasil said, “Big fishes Holorulo bite rough, but can’t bite now. I stronger.”

Erick smiled, happy for several reasons. First, it was rather apparent that [Unbreakable Form] suited Yggdrasil quite well. Yggdrasil also seemed to be getting better with words. The big guy was still missing a lot of joining words, but he was getting there.

Pretty good for a 5 month old.

- - - -

The Church of Rozeta was split into two parts; public and business. The whole thing was large enough to be a cathedral worthy of two or three gods, or perhaps all the varied gods of Veird, but it was dedicated to only one. The embassy was easily over 100 times the size of the church, though, so the church obviously wasn’t the important structure in this cavern.

The public section of the church had thousands of people waiting for appointments with hundreds of Registrars, while a small ceremony for the freshly Matriculated was going on in the main room, under the watchful eyes of a stone depiction of Rozeta, half-hiding behind her clouds.

The business section of the church, nearer and connected to the embassy, was much more in line with the rest of the embassy; hallways, offices, nice lighting instead of opulent lighting that truly made the sculptures and frescos seem to come to life.

It was that part of the place that Erick now walked, having been guided this way by the guy at the front desk, and further by the various signs here and there. He had yet to talk to someone in the church. People had been staring at him this whole time, and no one had tried to talk to him, to ask why he was there and if they could help. They wanted to know why he was there; Erick could tell by the wide eyes and the quiet stares and the polite bows that everyone gave him. None of the people here looked like young acolytes, either. Maybe some of the shinier wrought were young, but they were silver, so Erick sort of doubted that interpretation. It was hard to tell the age of most wrought based on their looks.

Not a single person stopped his walk to the deeper offices.

Which was kinda odd. If Erick hadn’t scouted the place out with Ophiel flying around outside then he would have been lost. Maybe it was because Erick knew where he was going that no one made to stop him? Perhaps.

The place he was headed didn’t seem too popular, though it was still very much an important part of the church.

Erick arrived near his destination. A basic stone arch framed the start of some stairs that went to the floor above. It was a rather basic architectural feature of little importance, except it did read in thick, unassuming runes: ‘Offices of the Inquisition’. There were no guards. There were no guarding magics. The nearest other offices were in the other hallway. Nothing was here, in this place, that wasn’t supposed to be here.

Erick walked through the archway and started up the stairs.

The stairs curled back over to the second floor, where Erick exited into a plain office room. He was almost startled. He didn’t expect to see Rozeta here, but—

She wasn’t Rozeta.

She was a white wrought of human female form, and she had thoughts coming off of her whole body like invisible tendrils. Erick instantly reevaluated the woman. She sat behind a desk, like she was a normal person here to greet visitors and not some ancient killer of people exactly like Erick.

The woman passively looked his way, a bit perturbed by Erick’s wordless words of recrimination.

Erick almost apologized, but he knew he had gotten his impression right the second time. And besides, he had a lot more words of recrimination for them besides that. What was going on outside these walls was near criminal. Stratagold should be helping everyone everywhere, a lot more than they currently were.

The white woman narrowed her eyes a fraction.

Oh, sure, there were problems of runic webs getting out of control and everything ending up in a Forgotten Campaign anyway. But if everything worked out with his own Worldly Path, then he would be opening up new worlds in maybe ten years, or a hundred at the latest. All he had to do was get everyone on board, first. The inquisition was just the first step —perhaps the largest step— of many more steps yet to come. Making Melemizargo sane was a large problem too, and he had no idea how to fix that except for the passage of time, and with people actually helping the guy through his trauma instead of shunning him. Which… Someone had to have attempted it in the past, right?

The woman sighed.

“Unsuccessful attempt, then,” Erick spoke, breaking the silence.

“I heard the stories about how good you are at reading people, but I’m still amazed to experience it myself.” The woman said, “And you’re… So very much not a mind mage. You have absolutely zero capability. And yet…” Her words trailed off as if to say that Erick was a mind mage, but of a different sort. One that they weren’t allowed to force into their society, to adhere to their rules. She said, “Yes. Exactly that. Anyway. Kromolok will be back in minutes.” She got up from her chair, then walked toward a side room, saying, “Come on then. We have some rooms that can’t be spied on. Can’t have this discussion out here.”

Erick followed, asking, “What’s your name?”

“Uchena.” Uchena said, “Kromolok has been here the longest of any of us, but I am a close second.”

They walked into a side room with runic web ribbons strung throughout the walls, like a Faraday cage. The spellwork was inactive at the moment, but Erick guessed it was some impressive Privacy magic. While the whole church and embassy had a timeless quality to it, the furniture in this room looked comparatively new; comfortable and soft. Uchena grabbed a seat for herself as she gestured to one of the others in the room.

“How old is Kromolok and the Inquisition?” Erick asked, as he sat down across from the white wrought.

Uchena said, “Kromolok was among the first of us born on this world when the Grand Translation solidified the wrought into their immortal forms. I came along soon after, but the Inquisition didn’t come along until year 11; when the first of the extra Bans needed to happen. We didn’t learn these Mind Mage tricks until later.” She added, “We don’t actually adhere to the Mind Mage code, either. We’re the enforcers of that code. We’re the enforcers of many unsaid codes all across this world, to ensure that nothing ever breaks ever again.”

Erick felt a spike of worry and almost asked what she meant by not adhering to the Mind Mage code, but it was a reflexive question, which he already knew the answer to. This woman was a killer. So why was she trying to intimidate him? Was… Had he walked into a trap, while thinking he was just going to pop in to see if they needed help with something? But Kromolok had told him to come on over if he wanted to talk, and—

There was a dissonance here. What he saw in Unchena’s microexpressions and tone of voice and all the rest of her was not the feeling that he got. She displayed poise, but she was ready to kill.

She wanted to kill him.

But that was just… Ridiculous. Right? He had come here to help, and she was trying to…

Something was very, very wrong. He was in danger. Nothing had changed in the manasphere, and nothing had tested his Domain. Uchena remained seated in her chair, looking like a perfectly at-ease person. But she was very much not that at all. She was boiling with anger. Ready to cut him down if he moved wrong at all. And she would do it without remorse, too. The only other people whom Erick had ever gotten this dangerous feeling from were the Shades.

Perhaps Uchena was similar to Goldie, the Shade of Assassination.

Erick calmly asked, “Do you have a problem with me?”

She lied, “No. I never have. I never will. You’ve done great things. I approve.”

Erick wasn’t sure what to make of her lie.

She could ‘hear’ him exactly like Poi could. She had displayed this ability not two minutes ago. Which meant that she had the opportunity to clear up a potential deep misunderstanding, and she was choosing not to take that opportunity. She was choosing to be like this. Why? What did she hope to ga—

Ah.

She wanted to assassinate him, but she wanted him to make the mistake of first aggression. Did she really think that he was coming in here to kill her? Why would she think that! He had a good track record! And now she was ready to kill him to—

No. She didn’t want to kill.

Imprison.

She wanted something from him but she wasn’t willing to kill to get i—

Uchena stood, lying, “Apologies.” She said, “I must leave this room.”

And then she left, pretending to be a simple woman walking away, and not like the volcano ready to explode that she was. She did not activate the defenses of the room. She did not make another sound—

Her feet were silent, actually. All sound was gone from her. When did that happen?

Erick had no idea when that had happened, but Uchena silently vacated the scene, and she kept going, back to the back rooms of the place, and through a rear exit. She would have run if she wasn’t being watched by an Ophiel hanging out on the roof of the church, so she simply walked across the open balcony that was also the roof, to the railing that surrounded the balcony. With a quick hop over the railing and one single tear shed at the apex, like she couldn’t hold back the volcano any longer, Uchena vanished.

Just. Gone. She didn’t hit the ground beyond the railing. She wasn’t in the sky.

She had vanished, exactly like Goldie could—

Erick would have kept looking for the crying woman but Kromolok was already stepping up the stairs to the offices of the inquisition. He had been rushing to get here while Uchena was running away.

At that moment, Erick realized that Uchena had been the only person in these offices. There were rooms for work to be done and small offices for individuals, but he had been completely alone with her, and he hadn’t even noticed—

Ah.

No. He had noticed.

Mind Mage shit, then. Uchena had tried something, and decided against it.

Erick’s breathing had remained even the whole time, and he was thankful for his own composure.

Kromolok stepped into the doorway, looking ashamed but hiding it very, very well.

Erick didn’t comment on the other man’s appearance, as he stood and said, “Hello, Kromolok. I’m here to help with whatever problems you guys might have. I was thinking some mental monster hunts? Or a general clearance of the tunnels around Stratagold.”

Kromolok went along with Erick’s direction, stepping into the room and saying, “We will be glad to accept your assistance with the mental monster threats, but anything else would require clearance from the Heavies. Have you thought about coming to Bright Tea?”

So they would both ignore what had almost happened.

This was fine.

“Thought about it.” Erick said, “Decided to see about helping people who asked for help, first. Killed about 700 monsters out there and saved some lives in the process. It was rather useful for discovering where everything is located down here, too, but I gotta say that it’s rather surprising how empty the Underworld is, even this close to a major Geode. Looks like nothing survives without wrought assistance.”

The white metal incani man took a long, short moment to think, to reflect, to converse with people who were not direct participants of this meeting. Kromolok and his people (who were apparently not the Mind Mages? Not directly?) weighed impossible weights against each other, trying to decide impossible choices. And then the moment passed like so many great moments in history; with choice, and then resignation.

He chose honesty, and vulnerability.

Kromolok said, “We’ve done as much as we can without becoming tyrants.”

“I know.” Erick said, “Which is why I want to help in any way I can.”

Kromolok tried to redirect the conversation back to something more personal, “Are you sure you don’t want to discuss… Several other items of interest. Like what happened with Uchena?”

Oh. So they would talk about that, eh?

“I’m guessing her reaction has something to do with her weighing both sides of the scale and finding the scale breaking from the weight.” Erick said, “Not too different from what is happening to you, right now.”

“… I’m going to put up this Privacy for this talk.” Kromolok gave Erick a moment to voice his objection.

Erick said nothing.

Kromolok touched the doorframe and the world vanished beyond this room. He waited another beat, trying to suss out Erick, and when he found nothing, he stepped over to the chair Uchena had been in and sat down. Erick sat back down in his own chair, keeping a firm rein on Ophiel, who was currently blind and shaking a little on his shoulder. With a pat, Ophiel calmed down. Yggdrasil’s [Scry] eye was suddenly gone.

Kromolok said, “I will be blunt. I am having a crisis of faith, and I am not the only one. What do you say to this?”

“That I honestly do not wish to harm anyone, and that I could use some help to ensure less harm and more good happens. For instance, how to reverse major Curses laid down at the beginning of the Script, like the Dragon Curse and the Black Curse of adamantium and other metals.” Erick asked, “Would you like to help?”

Kromolok said nothing for a long moment, then he said, “There are some things I must clear, first.”

Erick nodded.

Kromolok said, “You have a vast capacity for destruction. If you fail this Worldly Path, if you were to die or give up everything you’ve worked for, then the world would return to a very different status quo. We would have a hundred years of upheaval but then things might calm again. In that calm, nothing would change. Nothing would get better, but nothing would get worse, either.

“But if you succeed, you put Veird onto a new path, one where everything is larger, and the dangers grow to fill that larger space.

“The threats of the Old Cosmology were what you would term as galactic. It is highly likely that one of the many unmitigated threats of that time, or perhaps a whole new one, is what finally ended it all, causing the Sundering.

“If you were to open this New Cosmology to us, there would be no base structure to prevent the same thing happening again. We could physically solve the problem, though, but in the process we would become tyrants. This methodology is likely what will need to happen anyway, but it would only be sustainable for several millennia. A New Cosmology built by wrought hands will eventually fail. Some Wizard like you would come along again and destroy everything, because they will rightly judge that we have been corrupted in our tasks to ensure stability and freedom for all.

“Such was the fate of many immortal-created societies of the Old Cosmology. Mortal societies fared little better, taking perhaps 50 or 200 years to degrade. It is the same cycle for both, but just on different timescales.

“It might not even be a Wizard that tears down our creations, either. Some Shade could do the same. The Darkness himself might decide that our attempts at stability are dangerous, and he will fall upon us like a tide of Destruction, tearing down everything in some random burst of insanity—

“Because gain this Sight to see, Erick. Melemizargo is not cured. I have seen him bounce between lucidity and depravity many times before. This is merely a larger high, which will inevitably lead to deeper depths.

“And do not mistake the words of gods for anything solid on this subject. I’ve cleaned up at least one godly mess every year since Veird made it to this New Cosmology, and Rozeta has caused several of those, too. We’ve tried to help Wizards before. It always fails… Admittedly, the reasons for those failures are almost always a Shade, and you’ve already dealt with the majority of them…

“But. Erick.

“When I look at you and see the possibilities before us, my fear grips me. Everything I have ever known tells me that ending you is the safest path, because the other path has already ended in a thousand tragedies already, with horrors best left Forgotten and buried under the depth of time. Even if we were to succeed...” Kromolok said, “Even on the best possible path, a few hundred worlds later, a few thousand more years… Everything might end in another Sundering.”

Silence filled the room.

Erick had many possible directions he could go to refute Kromolok’s words, but the man was speaking from his heart just as much as from his head. So Erick asked, “What sort of horrors do you see out there, that are worse than the horrors we have here?”

“Vacuum Decay. The Big Freeze. The Big Rip. Gamma Ray Bursts. Rogue Black Holes.”

Erick blinked a bit, unsure how they had come upon these particular fears.

Kromolok nodded, saying, “Your existence has enlightened me to quite a few new horrors, because something like the Vacuum Decay is probably what caused the Sundering, though even that doesn’t make sense. But we surely did drop into this New Cosmology, so perhaps there was some fundamental force in the Old Cosmology that finally broke.” He lightly stared, saying, “And with the non-existence of mana in this universe, and with mana’s possibilities, something like a widespread [Vacuum Decay] could actually end it all, all over again, because this universe has no protections against mana.”

Erick took a moment, then he said, “There will have to be some new Bans.”

“Not just that.” Kromolok said, “There would have to be entire orders dedicated to rooting out these terrible magics. In a future of more worlds, and with the Inquisition still alive, I would need to kill millions of people to save trillions more, and the killing would never end because... Killing wouldn’t be enough.

“The very second that someone with enough power figured this out, then they could end everyone. It would come from some unexpected source, too. Someone reading a perfectly normal book and connecting some perfectly odd dots, and then, suddenly… Another Sundering.

“The problem is even larger than that, though.

“You know you’re not the only planar we’ve ever had on Veird. This means that there are other worlds out there than the one you came from. Those other worlds could have people and ideas on them that could also end this New Cosmology as we know it, for many of those places are more advanced than Earth. You think of ‘spaceships’ and we have one of those. You think of ‘hyperspace’ drives and we have one of those, too. There are devices which work on ‘internets’ far more advanced than what you had on Earth. We’ve seen too many strange magics from too many planars... We’ve seen more dangers out there more than you can imagine.” Kromolok added, “And that’s not even touching the Wizards that we’ve had to end before they could destroy this world.”

Erick sat stunned.

And then he asked, “So because the problem is large, we should not try?”

“Right now, I, personally, have enough power to solve many of the problems of Veird.” Kromolok said, “This will not remain true if you meet the barest of expectations foisted upon you.”

Another long silence.

“Constraining life is not a solution to anything, and I think you already know this.” Erick said, “What you need is help. Help to ensure that problems are minimized and—”

“I need to explain it better.” Kromolok said, “Here is a small example of a Banned magic that I feel I can tell you about, for I know you won’t try to un-Ban it: Elemental Love is Banned. It used to exist. It doesn’t exist anymore. Someone made it and then it got out of control and then it was Banned. But there’s the problem: Someone had to make it first. If someone makes Elemental Vacuum Decay, then we’re all dead. There will be no do-overs. No possibilities for mitigation. It all just ends, as absolute annihilation spreads out from the casting point at the speed of light.”

Erick just sat there for a long moment.

Kromolok waited.

Erick said, “Let us create a counter-force inside the mana itself, then.”

“Even if such a thing were possible, which I doubt, a Destruction Wizard will come along and erase that force.” After a moment, Kromolok added, “There are theories that there used to be a counter-force in the Old Cosmology, but then something happened to it. The destruction or twisting of that theoretical counter-force might have caused the Sundering.”

Kromolok was heartbroken but kept it well hidden.

While Erick felt a sudden blossom of hope.

Erick rapidly asked, “Was the counter-force Melemizargo?”

“No. You’ve latched onto— It’s a theory, Erick. Not fact.” Kromolok said, “The Dark Go… Melemizargo is the current avatar of the Dark. We have no idea what happened to the Dark itself, but it’s probably still around. Whatever the case, the Dark and its current avatar did not care what you did as long as you fostered overall growth. The Dark was not a counter-force. The Dark regularly allowed people to use magic to Destroy planets and people and all sorts of things. The Dark is not a source of life or stability. It was a source of utter Chaos.”

“… That sounds like a counter-force against total annihilation to me.”

And then another thought occurred.

A deep thought about the creation story of the Old Cosmology he had once heard from the Shades themselves.

Erick frowned as he considered the horrible words inside his own head. And then, because they were too large to leave inside of himself, he let them out, “What if the Dark itself caused the Sundering? This New Cosmology is so much larger than your Old Cosmology, right?”

Kromolok frowned a little, saying, “He might have. It’s another theory.”

“I don’t mean Melemizargo. I mean the overarching Dark.”

Kromolok nodded. “It’s a theory.”

Erick frowned. “What about gods? Could gods be a counter-force in the mana?”

“Gods are a stabilizing force but they depend on people to operate. It is very possible that the death of some certain god —either through sacrifice or ego-death or otherwise— started the Sundering.”

“Okay. So… What I’m hearing is that there are already rails in place to prevent many dangers, and that it will take work to prevent more.” Erick said, “And aside from Vacuum Decay, which is just theoretical anyway, the other disasters are either too large or too distant to care about. And besides that! All of these things are so far outside of the realm of what is actually harming people and actually causing pain that they should be thought of perhaps once or twice, and then discarded as concerns in favor of concerted action to solve current problems.

“I would much rather talk to you about ideas of post-scarcity or [Renew] runic webs for everyone or taking back the Main Roads for habitation.” Erick said, “These fears you have are real, but they’re not pressing… But I see that these problems are more real to you than the problem of monsters invading the edges of the light.”

“I am the Inquisitor, Erick.” Kromolok said, “Others man the gates and the walls and patrol the streets, but I have kept this world safe from itself since the beginning. These are the very things I must concern myself with. These are the problems I have with you opening new worlds, and being a Wizard out in the open.”

“Okay. Fine. I understand that. But I’m not the problem; you’re just looking for a convenient, simple answer to a whole mess of problems that you never expected to happen.”

Kromolok sighed. “… This is also true.”

Erick added, “I think this is a discussion you should be having with all the gods and Melemizargo, too. All I want to do is make life better for everyone. I don’t care how it happens; I just want safety and peace and freedom for all—” He had a thought. “Ah. Okay. How about this? Some Fate Magic that people can cast which will guide them directly to those who would cast anything like [Vacuum Decay], no matter what form such destructive magic might take.” Erick said, “It could even be a counter-force on several levels. Give it to a god, and a civilization, and make a religion out of it. Maybe the Mind Mages could do this, perhaps? You would know more of this than I, of course.”

For yet another long moment, Kromolok sat silent. Thinking. He lightly stared at Erick with soft, yet judgmental eyes. He certainly didn’t look like a man who had killed millions of people. But then again, Erick had killed tens of thousands himself, and he knew he didn’t look like it, either.

Kromolok said, “This is a fringe idea. It probably won’t work and we cannot have Melemizargo be a part of the proceedings. Even if this idea was approved, it would require letting Fate out of its box, too, and that is dangerous.”

“Seems to me that it was never inside a box, since I am on the Worldly Path.”

“Ah. No. There are lots of things inside boxes, Erick. Lots and lots and lots of magics, stripped from the world.”

Erick had another wild thought. “Is that why Melemizargo is insane? You’ve stripped his mind from him?”

“It certainly doesn’t help, but the alternative was complete destruction.” Kromolok said, “And with that said, you can understand another problem of opening new worlds, and especially with Melemizargo’s idea for ‘unchained mana on new worlds’ where ‘The Script only holds the mana onto the world, and that’s it’. If Melemizargo gains access to unfettered mana then he would gain access to every Banned magic we’ve ever managed to squash and contain. Who knows what such a massive change would do to the insane dragon, so you can understand that we’re reluctant to try any experiments in that direction. The second certain Banned magics come back into the fold…” Kromolok said, “I am not going to explain how that would be bad. But you can guess, and your guess will likely be near enough to count as correct.”

Erick had a lot of thoughts all at once.

The Script had made Melemizargo insane. The Bans kept him insane. Particle Magic helped to bring him back from his deeper insanity, but he wasn’t cured yet. Was— Erick asked, “Was it a lie that Melemizargo went insane due to losing the vast majority of himself?”

“No. That is true.” Kromolok said, “Melemizargo was barely holding onto his sanity before Veird fell to this New Cosmology. He could have helped us wake the Goddess of Knowledge, but he was inconsolable. His insanity started small, at first, because everyone was still in… What you would call ‘shock’, I suppose, though that word pales in comparison to what occurred. Melemizargo physically recovered at about the rate as everyone else, but instead of mentally recovering he went insane, and then went on to destroy everything and everyone he could in an effort to break the Script.”

A pause.

“Something isn’t adding up.” Erick said, “Rozeta said that Melemizargo could break Veird at any moment he truly desired. So why didn’t he kill everyone back then?”

“We theorize this is because he is the God of Magic and the current avatar for the Dark, so even though he physically went insane there were still certain actions that he could never do as the God of Magic. One of these absolutes is that he could never kill every producer of mana around him. This is not usually a problem for the Dark, as the Dark has watched worlds die before and done nothing, but since all the producers of mana were on Veird, the Dark could not allow its avatar to kill everyone.” Kromolok said, “To add to that theory, Melemizargo has briefly come out of his insanity before to test the direction that mana moves at the Edge of the Script, to make sure that mana can still flow into Veird. It can, by the way. That is why planars are able to appear on this world at all.”

Erick leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes in thought. After a moment he opened his eyes and looked to Kromolok. He asked, “What can I do, as a Wizard, to solve any of these existential problems?”

Kromolok had no words.

Erick had more words, though, so he shared them, “Could I paradoxically ensure that a [Vacuum Decay] spell is Banned while never being cast, in the first place? Can I… Look for a way to bring Melemizargo back from insanity? Fully? Enact some Fate Magic to ensure a counter-force against these existential threats?” He said, “Because there have to be solutions. We just need to find them or make them.”

“… I don’t have any solutions.” Kromolok said, “But it does make me hopeful for the future that this is how you approach these issues.”

Erick sat a bit straighter. “If the Shades had been willing to talk honestly I would have done so. But they weren’t. I believe you are, though.”

Kromolok gave a small, sad smile. “I don’t appreciate being in the same category as those monsters, but…” He left something dreadful unsaid, then looked to Erick. “Opening new worlds will kill maybe 50 million people in the ensuing rush. You have heard this before, but I am restating it so you understand what will happen.”

“I’ve proven prognosticators wrong before.”

Kromolok’s expression evened out. “I suppose you have.”

Erick asked, “Now… I’d like to talk about other, more immediate concerns. A sweep for mental monsters, perhaps? Or something else?”

Kromolok paused, and then he said, “Okay. I’ll take down the Privacy for this, and we can speak less freely, and more about current events, and current monster issues.”

Erick nodded.

Kromolok canceled the Privacy around the room. Erick’s senses expanded outward. Nothing untoward was happening outside, except the majority of his Ophiel had gathered on the roof, directly above the room. They were worried. The Ophiel on his shoulder cooed as his sight and his connection to himself returned. Ophiel was fine. Yggdrasil was fine, too; the big guy’s [Scry] eye lazily floated back into the room.

Erick and Kromolok got down to talking about solid, solvable issues.

Later, Ophiel spread out across the land, through the Main Roads and elsewhere, Imaging for problems and finding them. Working with Kromolok was not a problem, though Erick had expected it to become a problem somewhere along the line. The man and his organization knew that killing Erick would solve a lot more problems than letting him run free, but they weren’t willing to do that to him.

Which… Gained them a few points in Erick’s book. He supposed.

Maybe.

Working with Kromolok was only the barest bit of difference from working with Poi. A bit more frigid, yes, but overall the same. Monsters were found, executed, and then soldiers moved on to the next Imaging that held in the stony sky elsewhere in the Underworld.

Ten hours and a few breaks later, all of Stratagold’s domain, over a thousand kilometers in every direction from the Geode itself, was free of every single discoverable mental monster threat, and a few more besides. There were likely a few more mental monster threats hidden in the dark Side Roads or the open caverns that no one had visited in a hundred years or more, but Erick had no way to find them and Kromolok eventually called it quits, so those distant or well-hidden monsters remained unkilled.

Somewhere in all that, Erick asked Kromolok, “Why haven’t the Gemslicers helped with this? They have my Light Magic; they must have this magic, too.”

“Ah.” Kromolok said, “They have this magic, but not everything else necessary to make this work in this way.”

“… Somehow I expected more evasion from that question.”

Kromolok smiled, saying, “They don’t know your secret of blood; that’s tripping them up a lot. Otherwise we would have already done this months ago.”

“Actual answers!” Erick laughed. “That’s downright the opposite of what I’m used to!”

“Yes. Well.” Kromolok said, “You are a major part of the fate of this world and I can get away with spilling secrets where I deem necessary and I have deemed it necessary that you keep certain things secret, like the secret of blood. This is hard to do when you don’t know which secrets need keeping and why they need keeping, thus: transparency.”

“Ah. Okay.” Erick paused. After a moment he added, “This secret of blood is something that people should eventually learn. Not this year and maybe not for fifty more. But eventually.”

Kromolok took a moment to think, decided against his original words, and said, “One catastrophe per year, please.”

Erick almost asked him what he was going to say but he decided against that, opting instead for, “Fair enough.”

It’s not like knowledge of DNA could help heal people, anyway. That’s what all the other Healing Magic was for.