Ar'Kendrithyst

It took Candlepoint 3 hours to mostly-evacuate. Well over half of the population had left by the time the sun had fully risen above the horizon. By the time the sun shone directly overhead, even more people had evacuated. Candlepoint was a ghost town of shadelings, former shadelings, and the scant few others who had decided to stay in the face of Erick’s declaration of Wizardry.

The evacuation had gone smoothly, which was something of a surprise to a lot of people, but Erick had been there to end all of the nonsense that could have started, and now the city was calming down.

A lot of people had no idea what to do with themselves because their jobs at various stores were gone, for the people who ran those stores and all their goods were also gone. A lot of people, mostly those who still worked in city hall, had way too much to do, for all the abandoned homes in the city were up for grabs, and a great deal of people wanted stuff that had been left behind. A lot of people filed multiple claims against singular houses, which was obviously a lie in some way for there was no way that ten different people all had prior claim on one of the nicest houses in the city. But it was what it was. Erick almost helped with housing then and there, making multiple mansions for the taking, but there weren’t any actual housing issues. Just plain greed. Now that the city was down to a population count of 5,547 (only about a thousand more people than there were shadelings and former shadelings) from a former high of 21,000, there were more than enough houses to go around.

Mephistopheles and Justine handled those problems as would any mayor and vice mayor. They shoved people around to fix the broken bureaucracy of Candlepoint to make things happen as best they could, while Guard Captain Slip oversaw the keeping of law and order.

The Mind Mages from Spur helped pull out truth from those willing to accept a Mind Mage arbiter, but those Mind Mages kept away from the bigger events. Like politics.

For this day was shaping up to be a true political shit storm.

Poi was handling a lot of that, though. He answered questions from those demanding answers, from the Viridian Throne, to the Wasteland Kingdoms, to the Pearl Kingdom. Treehome called, too. Every single person Erick had ever interacted with, who he had left on good terms with, called, and Poi answered. But he was only one man, and so he called in more Mind Mage help from the rest of the Mind Mages, and Erick [Gate]ed in people from several different places around the world to assist in that untangling of truth.

The Mind Mages weren’t playing political favorites (they told Erick multiple times), but if he wanted the truth of what was happening here to get out there (which he did), then they could certainly ensure that truth flew slightly faster than horrible lies.

Some people, somewhere, were surely going to think that Erick was setting up ritual magic to cause another Sundering, but the Mind Mages could do nothing about those responses; they could just tell people what they saw happening here, on the ground.

Kirginatharp and Stratagold had small words for Erick, mostly along the lines of ‘what the fuck’ and ‘good luck’ and ‘please respond with your true plans at your earliest convenience’. Not a minute after receiving those missives, Erick decided to have Poi respond with those plans. With regard to the evacuation of Candlepoint, Erick was simply telling it like it was, and letting people make their own informed decisions.

To Stratagold, Erick added, ‘The first of the public Gates should be open by tomorrow, or earlier, upon the locations discussed. Candlepoint is ready for trade!’

Candlepoint wasn’t exactly ready for trade, so this was something of a small lie. But it would be the truth soon enough (Erick hoped). The part about having Gates up and running by tomorrow was an enthusiastic and hopeful estimate, but it would be a lie if Erick wasn’t able to deliver, and so, Erick got to work on making a Gate. A real, proper Gate, within which he could set a [Gate].

But first, he needed a Gate workshop.

- - - -

Erick knew he needed a lot more time to play around with [Gate], to learn how the spell truly functioned long before he attempted to stick it into a runic construct. But there was little time to be had.

The world was watching.

And so, Erick got to work. Upon another branch of Yggdrasil, separate from the one holding his house and higher up in the tree, Erick set down long lines of platinum. From there he inscribed them with scratches of a Benevolent knife, and began casting [Fairy Stronghold] onto the runic web. With Kiri and Teressa watching, Erick had made for himself a workshop unlike any other…

But it did look sort of like Redflame’s workshop, which was intended.

Erick’s new domain of creation was an air hangar that stretched along the flattest 150 meters of Yggdrasil’s branch, and extended left and right all the way to the edges of that branch, about 70 meters. At twenty meters high, it had cost Erick a lot of mana to conjure for even empty space cost mana when it came to [Fairy Stronghold], but Erick had mana to spare and a lot of efficiency multipliers.

And now he had a workshop of mostly-unbreakable solid white floors, nice overhead lighting, lots of windows in every direction to let in the natural lighting of Yggdrasil, and an in-born security system of [Fairy Stronghold] that would keep out all prying eyes and let him work in peace. There would be no [Prismatic Ward] in this space, though, for it was much too large, and so Fairy Moon could probably pop in whenever she wanted…

Erick did not doubt that Fairy Moon could pop into his house, either, even though that space was covered by his own [Prismatic Ward], which he had recast, himself. The dense air around his house in Spur had vanished due to that, since he could only have one Solid Ward active at any one time, but—

Erick was distracting himself again.

What was the point of worrying over Fairy Moon? There was no point. Erick moved on.

By the time he reached this point the sun was already headed back toward the horizon, to set in the west, though it would still be a few hours before it got there. It was time to work, and work fast. Erick briefly cursed himself again for not playing around with [Gate] while he could.

But he was here now, and so there would inevitably be some playing before the real work could commence.

Erick stood upon the white floor of his new workshop, and said to Kiri, “I’ll explain as I work, but I gotta get the first ones out as soon as possible, so I don’t have a lot of time to properly teach right now. There will be more time later, though.”

“You already said that,” Kiri said, smirking. “Where can I help?”

“Right! This is next.” Erick gestured to the left, opening a [Gate] to Yggdrasil down in Stratagold. Large blocks of metal, each one a meter square and five meters long, began to flow through the portal, trundled along by Ophiels in sunform. The transition from the gravity of the Underworld to the gravity of the Surface had each block ‘flinch’ a fraction as it came through, but Ophiel compensated. Soon, three large rectangles of metal rested to the side. “We’ve got normal steel, rustless steel, and prismsteel. All wrought quality. I can get the first two easily enough by paying for them, but the third one needs to go as far as I can make it go.”

Kiri glanced around for a brief moment, looking at Teressa, before looking back to Erick. It was just Erick, Teressa, and Kiri, right now. Jane was over with Poi, providing backup to Poi as Poi oversaw the last of the evacuation.

Kiri sent Erick, ‘We all know you have [Duplicate]. Teressa, Poi, Jane, and I. No one else as far as I know.’

Erick winced.

But Teressa nodded, and silently stared at Erick, probably trying to decipher his wincing.

Erick said, ‘I guess you do. But. Let’s keep the lie going, okay?’

Kiri said, “Make the prismsteel go as far as possible. Sure.”

Erick turned back to his work, “Now I’m going to make an arch out of rustless steel first, in the hope that that will allow me to keep costs down. It’ll still rust, though, and so I hope to be able to make a [Condense Oxygen] or [Anti Oxygen] runic structure to preempt such an occurrence. To start…”

Erick continued to explain as he used a precise cast of [Metalshape] to cleave off a half meter length of rustless steel from the full bar. From there, and to prevent beading and weakness from using [Metalshape], Erick used [Incandescent Aura] to heat up the metal to bright red, stopping just before the point where all the baked-in mana evaporated out of the metal.

The next part was harder, for the proper way to do this would be to use great big machines to roll out the steel into proper bars, but Erick didn’t have that. Eventually he would have that sort of stuff, like they had at Enduring Forge, but for now he used his sunform to crush and stretch the steel.

Benevolent lightning crashed around the red-hot steel, sparking and flashing and crunching inward. Gradually, Erick turned the glowing metal into a long bar, around 50 meters in length. Erick hadn’t really measured anything, and he knew he had lost some steel due to the method of forging, but a 100x100x50 centimeter block of steel becoming a 10x10x5000-ish centimeter length of steel seemed like a good length to go for, and Erick was pretty good with eyeing proper measurements these days. These arches needed to be big enough for someone to drive through—

Not ‘arches’ actually.

Erick decided that square openings were better to make use of the full space provided by a single [Gate]. This meant a steel square around 12 meters on a side. Erick cut this down to 10 meters on a side, though, and used the extra material to square the corners, and provide some structural stability. It cut down on the overall usable space of the [Gate], but it was still ten meters to a side. Big enough.

… Large enough that it needed structural support beyond the small supports up at the corners.

Erick hummed as he gazed up at the 10x10 meter square of steel he had propped vertical in the workshop. The top sagged. The sides bowed. It needed more reinforcement. He was happy to reaffirm that a well-applied [Incandescent Aura] was more than enough to produce really strong welds, which was a plus, but this was not working. This Gate needed a lot more than this.

“This is the proper size, but… I don’t like it,” Erick said.

“Why?” Kiri asked.

“Sagging.”

Kiri looked at the square as best she could. “It’s barely sagging?”

“Well. Yes.” Erick said, “But it’s still sagging… And this isn’t gonna work! Gotta cut it down some.”

And so he did. Ten sagging meters to a side became five-point-five meters to a side, doubling the strength but nearly quartering the available [Gate] surface area. It was fine. Erick shoved the interior corner bracers to the very edge of the Gate, too, ensuring that there was a good five meters of clearance in the center. This, then, was stable.

Erick made a second one as easily as he did the first, though it still took him twenty minutes to do that.

When he had two nearly-identical blank Gates, he got out his adamantium knife, and—

Instantly realized he hadn’t done nearly enough experimentation with [Gate] yet to be sure of anything.

It was time to do that. And so, Erick opened up a [Gate] on one end of the warehouse, taking up a good ten meters of space, and leading to the other end of the warehouse. Erick saw himself through the endless warehouse, and smiled. He waved, but he ended up waving at his turned body, for this was almost like a hall of mirrors ‘infinity mirror’ thing, but it was not like that at all.

Kiri rapidly turned from one [Gate] to the other, trying to catch sight of her front, or something. Erick wasn’t exactly sure. Kiri said, “Okay. That’s weird.”

Wide-eyed, Teressa said, “I can sense myself though it.” She whispered, “Oh that’s so weird.”

Erick smiled as he opened up another set of [Gate]s to the left of the main floor; one ten meters up, one at waist-level, both of them horizontal and facing each other. He added some Shaped [Force Walls] around the [Gate]s, linking them together, and then grabbed a hunk of scrap metal and blipped it into the tube. The hunk of metal rapidly fell into the bottom [Gate]—

—And appeared out the top [Gate], to continue falling.

The ball bearing rapidly picked up speed, and soon the force of the air in the tunnel was enough to affect its fall, brushing it to the side. The ball bearing struck the [Force Wall]s Erick had put up and began skipping through the tunnel, striking the walls every so often as it hit terminal velocity. And it just kept going. The air in the tunnel began to fall through as well, though that happenstance was not nearly as easy to witness as the falling metal.

Erick pulled out another bit of metal from the rustless steel block and began shaping it into smaller Gates for more tests while his current [Gate] experiments ran. He had always closed whichever [Gate]s he had opened before, but now, he just let these ones run. His spell didn’t actually have any limitations on duration, though.

Half an hour later, Erick had an assortment of rustless steel Gates to enchant, ranging from a meter across, to a flimsy thing ten meters across, and he had decided that they would all be useless for this first [Gate]. He didn’t have time to test [Condense Oxygen] runic web structures right now, but these forms had helped him to understand what he needed out of a proper Gate design.

He also had an open [Gate] down below, deep in the waters of the lake, which had an exit point outside of the windows of his workshop. It was a ten-meter wide [Gate], so it wasn’t no small thing like the ball bearing tunnel he had set up inside the workshop.

Water poured out of that hole, a roaring torrent of rushing white that didn’t sound like much here at the top, but down below, where it crashed back into the lake a kilometer below, it was the sound of utter destruction. Of pulverizing. Of weight crashing down.

Teressa stood by the window nearest the waterfall [Gate], watching the water fall down.

And because Erick had no real work for her yet, Kiri had gone over to watch the waterfall, too.

Erick joined them.

Kiri glanced his way, then turned back to the waterfall. “It’s so weird. The water comes out of the hole in the world, and it keeps coming. This has passed all known limits of the [Gate] you can buy in the Script. I feel like it shouldn’t work like this.” She added, “But it obviously does work like this.”

“I thought weight limits mattered,” Teressa said. “But they don’t.”

“Well. It’s only water.” Erick said, “I am aware how much water weighs, but I have a net of Force surrounding the intake [Gate], filtering out all the actual life that could go through the intake. So this is just weight testing; not ‘transporting creatures testing’.”

“I almost want to try plunging through that intake [Gate]. Jane would certainly be up for that.” Teressa asked, “If you’re interested in sending people through?”

Erick perked up. “Oh! She would. Wouldn’t she?” He glanced through Ophiel. “Ah. Poi is still organizing the exodus and the initial chaos, and Jane is still with him. A waterfall ride might be fun, though.” He turned his attention back to the mostly-quiet start of the waterfall right outside his window, saying, “But, I’ve already sent thousands of people through the other [Gate]s I have set up outside Candlepoint, and none of those have broken with all the thousands of people going through. Thousands is not the same as millions, though, which is what I expect to happen someday. This weight was just another test that I needed to run, to see where my limitations lay.”

Teressa paused, realizing that Erick was already on the case. “Huh. Yeah.”

Kiri postulated, “Maybe you’re only limited by someone actively breaking the [Gate]?”

“Maybe. I do need to ask around about how normal [Gate] functions, to see where my own [Gate] differs.” Erick scrunched his eyebrows together as he glanced around his workshop, saying, “Maybe these questions I’m testing have already been answered.”

He knew the broad strokes already, but these little nuances were piling up. They made him feel as though he hadn’t done nearly enough research into this whole thing.

Kiri shook her head. “I researched as much as I could while you were gone and all of these tests have already been answered by explorations of the Script-granted [Gate], but I’ve got nothing on self-made [Gate]s.”

Erick smiled brightly. “You did!”

“Don’t get too excited, now.” Kiri gestured to the ball bearing tunnel. “That should have cut out after maybe ten cycles.” She gestured to the very large [Gate] open at both ends of the warehouse. “That is way too large. The size of a normal [Gate], cast as large as it could be, is about 5 or 7 meters in diameter.” She gestured to the waterfall outside the window. “And that breaks everything I assumed I knew about [Gate]. Not to mention the ones you already have open at Candlepoint right now. People are still moving through those, too, and those don’t seem to be stressed at all; I’ve been watching.”

… And now Erick was a bit worried.

Perhaps the limitations on the Script [Gate] were to prevent a finite resource from running out?

He quickly opened a new [Gate] into Benevolence. A white lightning hole in reality led to a land of similar lightning… But it looked fine? Same size as before? A bit bigger, actually. Everything was slightly larger, in fact. Glancing inside, Erick noted that the stone fountain in the center of the land was about twice the size it had been last time he had looked, and the Yggdrasil inside the space was about 20 meters tall now; Yggdrasil had doubled in size. He was growing just fine.

And the space was naturally growing, too.

Kiri looked over Erick’s shoulder, asking, “Is that the [Gate Space]?”

“Yup!” Erick stepped away from the portal, closing it as he said, “That appears normal, so it’s not like I’m ‘draining’ some resource to keep these other portals open.” He looked outside again, and then back to his warehouse. He shut off the waterfall and the [Gate]s at the end of the building, but he left the ball bearing tunnel going. He refreshed the [Force Wall]s around that experiment, saying, “Keeping that one. As for making these Gates…” Erick shrugged. “Maybe all I need is some way to be alerted when a [Gate] actually breaks, and needs to be recast? Maybe I don’t need to care about the duration enhancing power of runes?”

Which made a lot of sense, actually.

Teressa offered, “Like what we saw with the Twisted Vision? It came back after being disturbed.”

Erick nodded, his thoughts already having gone that way. “I didn’t think it was that simple, but maybe it is? So how can blank metal do that…” Erick fell silent in thought.

And Yggdrasil’s [Scry] eye, which had been watching all this time, began bouncing up and down in front of him.

Erick smiled. He and Yggdrasil had already had this small discussion before, but Erick hadn’t found a way to correctly inform Yggdrasil that what he wanted was not actually what he wanted at all. Perhaps today might be different? Erick tried, “I know you want to help, but I don’t want to make you into a teleportation service for everyone who asks. You don’t want to do that, either. It might be fun for a while, but long term, this is not a solution, not when there might eventually be thousands upon thousands of call requests every second, 24 hours a day, all year long.”

Yggdrasil paused his bouncing. Yeah. That didn’t seem like fun.

And then he resumed bouncing, and his voice came through the ground of the warehouse, “I still want to help. Use a branch!”

Before Erick could say anything else, a sudden branching spike of glowing wood erupted from the floor ten meters in front of Erick. Yggdrasil’s egress rapidly grew, and then twisted, forming right angles, becoming a 5x5 meter-thick square of white wood; the same shape as the Gates Erick had been making. Smaller branches curled up and out from the upper part of the main square, followed by flaming green leaves bursting out of those twigs, forming a scattered canopy with a faint rainbow crown glowing on top.

Erick lightly smiled.

Ah. This was going to be difficult, then? Or maybe Erick could use this, anyway. He had been wanting to experiment with wood from Yggdrasil, anyway, and now was as good a time as any.

Kiri and Teressa both stared at the floor, though. Both of them rapidly reassessed the danger of living on Yggdrasil, and then rapidly came to the conclusion that they were probably still safe.

“That’s wonderful, Yggdrasil.” Erick said, “I’ll see what I can do with it, but it might not look like this when I am done. I might need you to help in a different way, okay?”

“Okay!” Yggdrasil said, “I’ll help whatever!”

Erick reached over and touched the wooden square near where it still connected with the branch sticking out of the floor. “Can you break it here, Yggdrasil?”

“Yes!”

The white glows of Yggdrasil retreated from the square branch to end exactly where Erick pointed, and then, with a flicker of light, the branch snapped off right there. Erick supported the square with his sunform before it could fall more than a few centimeters. It didn’t weigh much; maybe only a few hundred kilos.

… And now he had a 5x5 meter square of meter-thick, rather light wood. Yggdrasil had pulled his light from the wood, though. It was still bright white wood with brilliant green leaves, but the crown of rainbows was gone, the wood was simply white without any light, and the leaves were no longer on emerald fire.

Erick pondered.

Strangely enough, Erick’s first instinct was to see if he could have Yggdrasil reflexively open up a [Gate]. Perhaps... Like how a doctor tested the reflexes of a knee by tapping the knee with a rubber mallet, perhaps knocking on a Gate made of Yggdrasil could open a [Gate] without active participation on Yggdrasil’s part.

Erick said, “I don’t want to hurt you by working on this bit of wood. Can you still feel this square now that it’s separated, Yggdrasil?”

“Nope!”

There went that idea. Of course it wouldn’t be as simple as having someone physically knock on a Gate and Yggdrasil reflexively opening the portal. Perhaps, though…

Erick had no intrinsic idea of where the [Gate]s were once he cast them, much like how he had no feeling for where all his currently-running spellwork still existed, across the globe. And yet, Erick was still connected, intrinsically, to all the magic he had running out there. He could still cancel every spellwork he had ever cast, just by willing all that magic to collapse.

Was it possible to train some sort of magic sense? In order to know when a particular magic that should be running, was not running anymore?

Perhaps Yggdrasil could gain that sort of sense, and if a [Gate] collapses, he could recast that [Gate].

Erick asked, “Can you tell where the [Gate]s I opened are?”

With a bit of wariness in his voice, Yggdrasil said, “… No?”

Erick smiled, and said, “I can’t tell where I put them either, so don’t worry about not being able to either, okay? I might need to work on a Magic Sense, or something like that, but I have never even heard of this sort of magic, so… I’m not sure.”

Kiri shrugged. She had never heard of a ‘Magic Sense’ either.

“Okay,” Yggdrasil said, a bit sadder. And then he excitedly tried, “But I can feel Benevolence everywhere! I can feel that! Flows like sticky air! I get spiderweb feelings.”

Erick was surprised, and happy.

But he was also suddenly, horrifically terrified of Yggdrasil getting spider feelings of any sort. How did he even know that phrase? Were there talking spiders inside a Yggdrasil somewhere, that Erick didn’t know about? Some spiders out there talked, after all—

Wait.

The Big Guy had likely heard Jane talking, or something.

Erick asked, “Has Jane ever visited you as a spider, and talked about being a spider? What it feels like to be a spider.”

“I got spiders at Holorulo! They talk sometimes.”

Terror.

Erick strangled that emotion away, feeling strange both for the power of that particular emotion, and for how it had caught him completely off guard. He let that go.

“… Okay.” That was a thing to be investigated, for sure. Erick asked, “How long have they been there? Are they in your canopy?”

“Long time. Swimming spiders. Root dwellers, fishy-catchers.”

“… Okay.” For now, Erick said, “Okay. Well. I’ll talk to them another day. For now, since you can feel Benevolence, that’s wonderful. That gives me an idea.”

Erick set down the square of Yggdrasil wood and used a concentrated blade of his sunform to trim off one of the smaller branches on the top. It was like cutting stone with a buzzsaw. He barely cut the white wood even with applying all his force. So instead of doing more of that, he used a very small cast of [Eternal Stonestreeshape] to turn that bit of white wood into a solid cylinder about a meter long, and ten centimeters thick. Another Shaping turned the wood into a tuning fork with the ‘tines’ actually being the rune for [Renew].

It held no power, for it was not an enchanted item, but maybe Yggdrasil could ‘feel’ it anyway?

… This was probably not going to work, and that was fine.

Erick held the ‘tuning fork’ in his right hand and zapped it with his [Pristine Benevolence]. Iridescent white lightning soaked into the ‘runic’ working to dance back and forth between the closest point where the tines almost touched, at the top. Erick asked, “Can you feel that, Yggdrasil?”

“… Yes.”

Erick was impressed.

Yggdrasil had lied, and not about something small like ‘being tired’.

“It’s okay if you can’t feel it, Yggdrasil.” Erick said, “I won’t be mad at all.”

With a deeply worried tone, Yggdrasil exclaimed, “I can’t feel it! Is something wrong with me?”

Erick smiled calmly, and said, “Nothing is wrong, Yggdrasil. But now that you have told the truth, I can put together some more advanced thoughts, and make some more advanced designs. Telling the truth is important when it comes to magic, no matter who you will make mad by telling the truth.”

With a questioning tone, Yggdrasil asked, “People ask if you’re a Wizard and I still say no?”

“Just don’t tell anyone about me, Yggdrasil. No need to lie, or tell the truth. Just don’t tell them about me when they ask.”

“Okay!” Yggdrasil happily said, “This is easier!”

Erick smiled.

And then he had another idea. The basic idea of a piece of Yggdrasil, soaked in Benevolence and then chiming off power, probably still had merit, if Yggdrasil could indeed feel all the Benevolence around him with ‘spiderweb feelings’. Perhaps the problem was one of scale? Or maybe strength of signal?

Erick asked, “Can you feel me, Yggdrasil? When I walk around?”

“Yes!” Yggdrasil said, “I know where you are, always. Very comfortable. Better that you live here now.”

“I like living here, too.”

Erick turned his attentions inward.

… He felt like he should be able to have such ‘spiderweb feelings’ as Yggdrasil. But he did not. Maybe he needed to actually experiment more with Benevolence to understand it better? The answer to that question came as soon as Erick had that thought: yes, you fool. You need to experiment more with Benevolence.

Erick had too many fun and interesting new toys and not enough time in the day—

And, he needed to get on with Time Magic, too! With Phagar!

— to learn about all of them, and what they could do.

Well. He was here and experimenting. So he focused again on the thought of ‘spiderweb feelings’.

And he got nothing.

“What do I feel like to you?” Erick asked.

“Like a river flowing. I feel you brush against me. I know where the river starts.”

Even though Erick wasn’t currently releasing Benevolen—

Wait. He was currently releasing Elemental Benevolence out into the world. His [Pristine Benevolence] and his [Lodestar]. Erick turned off his sunform.

He asked, “Do you still feel me?”

Yggdrasil’s [Scry] eye squinted at Erick. “Yes. But not like before. Something changed?” Yggdrasil’s [Scry] eye stared at him. “What happened?”

Erick turned his sunform back on.

“There you are!” Yggdrasil said, “I feel you lots. You are here, father!”

Okay. So. Actively casting Benevolence caused his mana to flow away and he was fully sensible to Yggdrasil. Made sense. Mana that got used was often tainted with the magic that it was used for. In Erick’s case, his constantly-active sunform was doing exactly that. But since he was a Wizard, and all his mana was usually his own, unlike the vast majority of most people on Veird, would other constant magic allow Yggdrasil to sense him, even if it wasn’t Benevolence-based? His own mana was all Benevolence mana after his recent transformation, after all; that was his particular ‘flavor’ of personal mana.

There was the slight nuance that Yggdrasil could always feel where Erick was, anyway, but that might not be completely relevant to this sort of discussion.

Erick cut his sunform and turned on his [Physical Domain] aura, but kept it small and close by. “Can you sense this, Yggdrasil?”

“… Nooo? … Yes? No. Maybe. No— Yes.” Yggdrasil spoke solidly, “Yes. You are there. I see you.”

Seemed inconclusively affirmative of Erick’s hypothesis.

Oh! Erick had another idea; another way to get an automagic [Gate] system set up.

Erick asked Kiri, “Do you know if [Scry] can be used to call the sight of a particular person, or entity?”

Kiri and Teressa both had been standing to the side, watching and listening while Erick worked. Now, though, Teressa had absolutely no answer so she glanced down at Kiri, and Kiri blinked at the unexpected question.

“Uh…” Kiri said, “Not that I am aware of—” She realized something and instantly said, “You can call the Sight of a god by calling their name. Other than that; no idea.”

“I don’t want Yggdrasil to be a constant porter, but reflexes can be trained...” Erick paused. “The wording in the roots of the Twin Trees that held the [Gate] into the Twisted Vision was not Ecks, at all. It wasn’t any language I have ever seen. It was, in fact, just a way to designate that space as a place for the Twisted Vision to attach.” He paused. “… But that [Gate] was there to make an entrance into the Gate Space of Ar’Cosmos. What I want is point-to-point [Gate]s, and to bypass my own Gate Space completely.”

Okay. So.

If Erick continued along this line of inquiry, he could probably create a reflexive opening into the [Gate Space] of his [Gate]. This was not what he wanted, actually.

There was so much nuance to making a Gate; so much more than Erick had originally thought, way back when he was working with Tenebrae to understand that entrance to Ar’Cosmos, back before Erick knew it was an entrance to Fairy, to the land of the dragons.

And yet…

“I’m probably overthinking this.” Erick tried the first idea that came to mind; he tried to make a key. So he grabbed his adamantium knife and began carving into the runic tuning fork, slicing english words into steel-strength, balsa-weight wood. In two minutes he was 95% done. He looked it over, and it was good enough. And then he looked to Kiri and Teressa, sending, ‘You didn’t see this next part.’

They both nodded, mostly seriously, but Kiri had a small lilt to her lips; a tiny smile.

Erick added, ‘I mean it. This is a politically dangerous spell that might tank relations with Stratagold if they found out.’

Kiri lost her smile at that. Teressa just nodded, looking the same as she had before Erick added that next part. Teressa had known that Erick’s warning was real, and not just paranoia talking. It was probably ridiculous to still think of [Duplicate] as something to be kept hidden, especially since all the other stuff Erick was no longer hiding, but [Duplicate] was a political mess of a spell.

Erick [Duplicate]d the key.

And now, with two keys, he carved a few more English words at the bottom of the keys. For the original, he carved it with ‘to my other twin, beta’ and on the copy, he carved ‘to my other twin, alpha’.

This was good, for now.

Probably wasn’t going to work for any number of reasons, but this was just a test, after all, and the mana bridged many, many gaps. Some gaps were too wide to bridge, though.

Erick turned his attention to the large square of white wood, sitting on the ground in front of him. With quick Shaping, Erick tucked the branches into the square, and plucked off the leaves, smoothing out all the rough growth left by Yggdrasil. Then split the whole thing like he was cutting a bagel. Two halves separated left and right, and with a bit more Shaping, those two halves both gained enough stabilization to stand on their own, five meters away from each other.

Another Shaping opened up two keyholes for the keys, both at head height on the sides of the gate. There were many different placements possible for those keys, but this one felt right for now.

Standing between both Gates, Erick took both keys, put them in the holes, and took aim with both hands. Benevolence lightning shocked out of both hands and struck the keys, soaking into their runic inscriptions. The key with the runes Erick had actually carved began to glow brightly, those runes soaking up power, turning brighter white than the white wood of the key. The second key, the one which Erick had not directly carved, but which gained the majority of its runes through [Duplicate], looked a lot different. Only the final runes at the end of the key, deep in the hole, had gained any real brightness to them.

… And nothing happened.

Erick turned the keys a bit. He shimmied them back and forth. He felt a bit like a fool, but that was fine.

Because this particular form of this experiment was a failure.

Erick smiled brightly, saying, “Ah! I’m glad that didn’t work.” Erick left the keys to the side, and gazed upon the Gates, instead. For a long moment he thought.

And then he glanced over at the still-tumbling ball bearing tunnel. He had another set of thoughts, that were probably more correct than all the rest, and then turned back to the squares of eternal stonewood.

“I suppose… All I really have to do is ensure that the location where I cast the [Gate] is secure. That someone can’t poke at it with an antirhine knife. Eternal stonewood is very good at ensuring that no one can mess with it, for you have to have the special Shaping spell to get anywhere with it… But, Songli has that spell, actually. Perhaps I should make something that even the clans of Songli don’t know how to Shape?”

Silence stretched as Erick thought.

Yes. He would have to make some unique material and a Shaping spell to go along with that material.

But that could come later.

Kiri decided she had a very important question, so she interrupted Erick’s thoughts and asked, “Why is antirhine bad for [Gate]s?”

“Oh! Right; you don’t know. Uh.” Erick said, “When you touch the actual [Gate] of a [Gate] with antirhine the [Gate] explodes with magnitude 5 power… And I should probably test that, too.”

Kiri went, “Oh.”

Teressa gave a small, sudden, and ragged sigh. At that moment, Teressa’s sigh reminded Erick of Poi’s various sighs over the last year and a half.

Erick ignored it. “First I need to find some antirhine, though. Shouldn’t be that hard.”

It wasn’t that hard at all.

Erick had an Ophiel zip up to the lands north of Treehome, to search for the antirhine missile that had been shot at Syllea that one time when she was Raging and her brother, the Cultist Omaz, was attacking Treehome. That missile was exactly where Erick had left it; tucked into the crook of a tree about a kilometer from the ground, in the deep dark of the middle layer where all the trees were like gargantuan pillars, spaced far apart.

Ophiel opened a [Gate] from those dark woods to the surface of the lake, about a kilometer below his new workshop.

From there, Erick had Ophiel grab onto the back of the missile, where the thing had been enchanted for flight and direction and had no lead to it at all, and he dipped the lead head of the missile into the center of the [Gate].

The head of the missile came through the center of the [Gate] without issue. Lead could go through a [Gate]! Good to know! And then, Erick had Ophiel gradually move the lead-headed missile toward the lightning ring; toward the edge of the porta—

The ring popped like a soap bubble breaking, or a balloon experiencing explosive decompression. It shattered away from the embankments imposed, and let loose sparks of lightning everywhere.

Erick was not impressed.

The ‘explosion’ —and Erick was hesitant to call it that— was little more than a single second of exposure to Benevolent Lightning. This exposure had some side effects, of course, but it was nothing destructive.

In the Forest of Glaquin, a large, multitudinous spread of glowing flowers and mushrooms now grew up and down the side of the tree near where Erick had opened the [Gate]. Down below his workshop, at this end of the [Gate], a noticeable splash of greenery now floated upon the waters. They appeared to be water hyacinths, or something similar; floating, bulbous, lily-like plants, with small purple flowers.

Kiri’s Sunny floated by in the air near the water hyacinths, near another Ophiel that Erick was using to inspect the experiment. She came back to herself, saying, “That doesn’t look mag-5— Well. I mean… It could be? [Grow] is a deceptively high magnitude spell, too.”

And here now was yet another thing Erick needed to investigate! How could he have forgotten?

Too much on his mind, he supposed.

“I still don’t understand ‘magnitude’.” Erick asked, “Is it really the depth of change a spell has on its surroundings? Seems an inadequate explanation.”

Kiri shrugged. “I’ve had it explained tens of different ways and each explanation was basically what you said, but with only small differences. Apparently real Mind Mages can tell the magnitude of a spell by looking, though, so I assume that the amount of ‘mind’ that you put into a spell is really what makes the magnitude.”

Now that was a good avenue of inquiry. Maybe Poi wouldn’t be cagey this time. Erick said, “I’ll talk to Poi and have him look at a [Gate] explosion when I get a chance. Need to find some more antirhine, but that shouldn’t be too hard. Songli was going to be my backup source— Ah! Speaking of. I should make that spell too, while I have a chance—” He paused. “Later, actually.” Erick told Kiri, “I want to teach you how to make a real chelation molecule tomorrow, so don’t let me forget that. I already gave that magic to the Mind Mages, but you should have it too, long as there’s not a war, or something.”

Kiri stood straight. She nodded.

Erick went back to the problem of making a [Gate]—

“Oh.” Erick had a sudden, possibly-true thought. “I could ask Redflame the direct answer to this, but perhaps all the [Gate]s out there are cast one at a time; each a purposeful and unique working. Maybe there is no enchanting for automagical [Gate] creation; there is only protecting the [Gate]s that one purposefully casts…” He frowned. “That seems like a cop out.”

Perhaps Erick could look into standardized magic item creation, like what Kirginatharp taught at Oceanside. Wouldn’t that be funny! The solution to [Gate] would lie in the enchanting that Erick could not do with any reliability, and which he thought was bad practices.

The problem was that runic workings best allowed for pointed, close range targeted, or otherwise ‘set’ actions. Spatial Magic, the moving of items from one area to another envisioned area, required someone actually envisioning the area on the other side.

Solving the [Teleport] problem to allow people to blip back and forth a lot using runic devices, was an achievement of magic that Tasar and Riivo and Archmage’s Rest had invented a few centuries ago. The teleport stations.

… Okay. So.

Erick probably just needed to work with other learned people in order to solve these problems which had already been solved. Making an automagical [Gate] seemed very doable, just not by him. Not right now.

“But for now...” Erick looked over the squares of white wood, and said, “Leave the automagic for another day. I just need to make them truly immobile and invulnerable, cast the [Gate] into the wood, and prevent interference and disruption. I can manually cast [Gate] for a while.”

It wasn’t how Erick thought that he would be making Gates.

He envisioned portals, yes, and then someone knocking on a portal or empowering it somehow, in order for it to be connected to another designated portal in another place. He thought he would be making twin Gates where either of the Gates could be ‘called’, or whatever, and then the [Gate] would open between the two. And maybe there would be a key system to be able to turn it off and on as necessary, or to dial specific ‘Over Gate’s, or something…

And an Undertow effect, as well, tied into some runic working inside the [Gate], to allow everyone who stepped through to be able to pay the cost of their own transportation. Erick had thought that the Undertow Effect had been a big part of his Worldly Path, and it had been, but not in the way he originally imagined. Erick had baked that magic into his [Gate Space].

And moving people and goods didn’t actually cost Erick anything.

Erick had been speaking all of this aloud a bit, so Kiri could listen and learn.

Kiri asked, “Can you move your [Gate]s after casting them? Would the enactment of a [Gate] lock the Gate midair?”

“A nuanced question that I do not have the answer to. I was going to use Force Magic to emplace them. But maybe I don’t need to do that?” Erick frowned. “I could simply make something that [Gate] can attach to?”

… Erick went over to the squares of white wood that stood vertical on the workshop floor. He first Shaped both of the would-be Gates to normal, plain squares, and turned some of the cast-off wood into temporary holders to keep the squares vertical. With that done, Erick lightstepped to stand at the center top of the left wood square. With his rune knife in one hand, Erick precisely carved the symbol for [Renew] at the top of that would-be Gate. Under that symbol, and a bit smaller, Erick smiled a little as he carved the words, ‘Welcome all who wish to wander’.

He repeated the act on the second [Gate].

With a sunform grip, Erick hovered both Gates a meter above the floor, his lightning flickering upon both halves of what once was whole, soaking into the wood. Power glittered in the runic grooves he had carved, dancing within Erick’s simple message of welcome.

Yggdrasil’s separated wood remained bright white after being separated from him, but the actual glows that pulsed within the living summon had faded after that separation. And yet now, those glows came back. Small, at first, then brighter as Erick pumped pure Benevolence into the wood.

And then Erick cast [Gate] upon them both.

Lightning flashed inside the pair of Gates, and then settled down, to hide beneath glowing white wood, while the interior spaces became portals on both sides of Erick. He saw himself again, down an endless corridor. It wasn’t actually like a mirror tunnel at all. Erick turned left, and every single similar Erick also turned left, because that’s what was happening; there was no mirroring here, just some views from different angles.

Erick smiled.

With a bit of trepidation, Erick released some of his sunform grip on the Gates, hoping that they could float—

The Gates slipped down as Erick let them move, their weight not at all supportable by the [Gate] inside. Those [Gate]s inside instantly flickered and died. Erick ensured that the Gates landed without falling over, once again securing them to their temporary supports at their bases.

He had learned a few things in that exchange.

Weight was apparently a problem. [Gate]s could not support the Gates they inhabited. But at least the [Gate] was very much attached to the Gate, and in the moving of the Gate, the [Gate] broke. This was good progress! Good information.

“Have you read anything about [Gate]s being able to be moved after they’re cast, Kiri?”

Kiri answered, “[Gate]s can’t be moved after they’re cast.”

Erick considered the Class Ability, Gatemaster. Perhaps that one would let him make [Gate]s that could move? That Ability read ‘Double the effective range of your gate space. Minor improvements to everything gate related’. Did ‘minor improvements’ mean mobile [Gate]s? Perhaps Erick did actually need that Class Ability.

Erick had a think.

Perhaps, this was fine? As is?

[Gate]s that popped when moved might actually be preferable to [Gate]s that remained intact, for mobile [Gate]s could lead to some unforeseen consequences, like someone dumping one half of the [Gate] underwater and making a flood come out the other side. That would be bad.

And yet… Slight movements with [Gate]s would occur all the time, mostly by accident, but especially if someone moved the land around the [Gate]s. So the Gates Erick made needed to be super stable?

Erick could do ‘stable’. People have been making things stable and unmovable ever since the invention of Force Magic, way back at the start of the Script, and Erick was no exception.

Technically there were ways to move Force after it had been emplaced, just as there were ways to move lightwards after being cast and locked to a location. That branch of magic was actually a constantly evolving competition between placers and movers, with the Shades and Cultists being the foremost authority on moving magic after it had been placed, and everyone else trying (and mostly failing) to make magic that could not be moved after being cast.

The Shades and Cultists of Melemizargo were the only ones open about taking down the magic of others, though.

Normal thieves and normal security mages in much of the world had long ago adopted those same sorts of magics, and on a much less life-and-death battlefield. Sometimes, the ‘battlefield’ was even inside research labs, with well documented and researched papers on the topic being published by the Arcanaeum Consortium every few years.

The methods used to move emplaced magic varied between Spatial Magics (the most prevalent and powerful by far) and pure manifestations of power, which mutated and moved emplaced spellwork (if it didn’t break that spellwork in that moving). Erick had seen many instances of the second occurrence, back when he was helping repair Songli from the Extreme Light bombs of Terror Peaks. In many locations, wardlights and other spellwork had been moved away from the epicenter of those blasts. This caused lightwards (if they had survived) and lightposts to be out of sync with each other.

Lightwards would be hanging out midair, a meter away from where they had been cast.

Erick had experienced this sort of movement of magic even more so, back when he watched Tasar blip objects around through her Spatial Domain, and when she taught him how to cast [Teleport Magic].

Now [Teleport Magic] could very much be used to move around a [Gate]…

The point to all these thoughts, Erick conceded, was that there was only so much he could do to prevent messing with his Gates.

Spatial Magic moved everything around at the command of the caster.

Pure power moved the very manasphere.

Erick could actually protect against Spatial Magic, though, by putting a [Spatial Denial] runic web into the Gate… And wasn’t that hilarious! He could Deny Spatial Magic, but his [Gate]s could still work normally—

Would that actually work, though? Erick thought it should work, but he hadn’t actually tried that particular experiment yet. So that’s what he did. With a quick cast, Erick filled half of the warehouse with [Spatial Denial], and then he cast a [Gate] inside—

And the [Gate] appeared. Both sides of the [Gate], too; the intake appeared in front of Erick, and the exit appeared to the right, exactly as Erick wished them to appear. [Gate] worked inside of a [Spatial Denial]!

Erick laughed.

And then he canceled that [Spatial Denial] and tried [Teleport Magic] upon one of the [Gate]s, aiming to move it one meter up into the air.

The [Gate] moved as commanded.

… A bit concerning, but that was fine.

Kiri’s eyes went wide. “Was that first one what I thought it was? A Denial with a [Gate] inside?”

“Yup!” Erick chuckled.

“And the second one was [Teleport Magic]?

“And the second one was [Teleport Magic]!”

“… Ignoring the security concerns of the second one for a moment.” Kiri asked, “Is [Gate] not actually Spatial Magic?”

“[Gate] is Spatial Magic.” Erick nodded. “But whereas normal Spatial Magic is all about choosing the place where an object/space exists, based upon imposing magical shenanigans onto that object/space’s Reality in the past, which has repercussions on the present, which is all we are actually able to affect…” Erick thought how best to summarize, and said, “[Gate] is shenanigans regarding the location of a Reality that is actually normal reality but of a different reality, which in effect links two different places in this reality together.”

Kiri looked at Erick. “… Okay.” And then she asked, “And all your Spatial Denial does is work on this reality, I take it?”

“Exactly right!” Erick smiled brightly, saying, “And of course the [Spatial Denial] I made only works on Spatial Magic cast in this reality; I wasn’t even aware that I needed to Deny other realities when I made that one… And now that I’m thinking of it, I don’t want to deny other realities, anyway.”

Erick felt a calm descend upon him as he gazed out at the mess he had made, for he knew exactly how to incorporate everything he had learned into making a proper Gate. It would be version 1, of course. Later versions would come and they would be better. But now Erick had a plan. Now, he knew exactly what he needed to do.

“Okay. This will be easier than I thought— I mean. Okay. I’m sure many different people are going to break these things many times and I’m going to need to remake them a dozen times till I get a version that is actually, mostly secure. But that will come later.”

And so, Erick ignored the rustless steel he had strung into squares, for that would come later. For now, he grabbed some of the platinum and hammered it into the same sort of shape as the rustless squares. Then, he took his knife and he started carving a rather simple runic web. This one included [Envelop Item], a spell Erick had rarely used, but which was perfect for encasing a working in Force, along with [Undertow’s Edge], the [Force Wall] version of Undertow which would create a continually-strengthening Force, based on the mana it Drained. [Spatial Denial] came next, along with [Renew] in order to make everything play nice with each other, and possibly make the Undertow spell support all the other spells inside the Gate. Erick placed a bunch of limiting runes and lines which would hopefully limit the ranges of the imbued spells. In the end, the Undertow should only extend into a roughly ten meter space around the actual Gate.

If this version didn’t work, then Erick would try again with the same style, but with perhaps some different structuring inscriptions. Theoretically, everything should play nice with each other and work how he told it to work, for runic webs were good like that, but this was all new magic. Erick had experience to draw upon, but not much experience. Not as much as an actual Runic Master.

Darabella would probably know exactly how to do this. Tasar and Riivo would, too. Erick could only put his best guess forward.

Erick made two runic webs, each as close to exactly the same as he could manage, and then he took those runic webs and Shaped Yggdrasil’s donated wood around them, forming a solid cover that could not be Shaped, and which would provide line-of-sight protection against Shaping of the metal inside. When he was done, he was left with two very similar squares of wood, both with a 5x5 meter square of open space inside, and around 7 meters wide. This last Shaping had ruined the runes Erick had placed on the Gates, of course, so he reinscribed those; a large circular [Renew] rune at the top center of the square, and the English words ‘Welcome all who wish to wander’ inscribed below.

With a sunform grip, Erick hoisted the Gates into the air, and kept them a good ten meters away from everyone else, and himself. With a twist of lightning threaded through a hole in the sides of both Gates, Erick touched upon the runic web inside.

The next version might be able to take in his Benevolent Lightning and start casting the runic spells inside all on their own. But that would make it very difficult for Erick to cancel the [Undertow’s Edge] if this experiment went wrong, for if he didn’t actually cast that spell himself, then he had no inherent canceling capability on that spell.

This way was safer.

Erick cast that first, most dangerous of spells upon the runic web inside one Gate, and then inside the other Gate. One right after the other, something stirred within the Gates, like a leviathan prowling through kendrithyst crystals. The Gates shook, vibrating a bit, and then they settled.

… He hadn’t even considered that they could have exploded, but perhaps he should have.

Gradually, Erick watched as [Undertow’s Edge] took hold of the air around the white wood, like an abyss shining behind a moon.

That abyss didn’t extend very far at all, only reaching about seven meters out from each Gate. Didn’t even reach the ground! Therefore it wasn’t anywhere near able to soak in Yggdrasil’s power. Erick smiled. Then he had two Ophiel float over and stand directly on top of the Gates.

The very second that Ophiel reached the abyss, that abyss began to soak him up. Ophiel had a lot of mana, but [Undertow’s Edge]’s Drain worked at a rate of twice Erick’s Willpower every second; around 450 mana per second.

Power thrummed into the Gates—

Suddenly, the Gates seemed to come awake with light and the abyss behind both white squares began to deepen. The Undertow soaked in mana and the runic web spread it out, [Renew] evening out everything, ensuring all the adjoining magic got as much power as it could handle. Force enveloped both Gates, and then deepened.

Into this power, into the primed, glowing wood of Yggdrasil, Erick cast [Gate].

A portal appeared, linking both Gates.

Just. Instantly. Appeared. No Benevolence escaped the glowing wood. No flowers or sparking lightning spread out. No mushrooms grew. The [Gate] held strong, the lightning ring hidden inside the glowing eternal stonewood, while the power inside the runic web began to seal everything under an [Envelop Item]. Erick let go with his own sunform, and the Gates did not fall. The [Undertow’s Edge] held both midair, and unmovable, while a spreading [Spatial Denial] would prevent the structure from ever being moved by easily acquired Spatial Magics—

“Ah.” Erick realized a weakness. “It’s actually weak to [Force Weaver].” He glanced through Ophiel to find Jane— “Oh good! Poi is done, too.” Erick rapidly opened a [Gate] directly from the warehouse to the kitchen at their house, where Poi and Jane were starting to make dinner. “Hey you two! Come see what I made! Won’t take long. I need to see if you can move this thing with [Force Weaver], Jane.”

Jane paused her washing of the potatoes.

Poi had been pulling fish out of the cold storage, but he put it back, then turned to Erick, paused, then said, “That’s tricky.”

Jane glanced over. “What?”

“Come see!” Erick said, “Come on come on come on.”

Jane dropped the potato, exclaiming, “Okay okay okay! It’s already so late, though. Dinner is going to be late, too.”

Jane and Poi joined Erick, Teressa, and Kiri in the warehouse.

Ahead of them floated two [Gate]s, inside their Gate-containers.

Erick gestured to both of them, saying, “[Force Weaver]. See if you can move them. You’ll experience a 450 mana per second Drain if you get too close, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”

Jane moved in, paused as she entered the Drain range of the right Gate, and then she lifted her hand.

The Gate moved up, and the [Gate] therein popped like so much scattered magic. And then Jane let go. The Gate stabilized in the air, but now it was crooked, hovering at an angle and with streamers of white Force coming off of the glowing wood, hovering in the air like a scattered splash of glowing milk. That splash of milk continued to glow, and deepen the Abyss all around, for it was still the [Undertow’s Edge] and [Envelop Item], though they were now mangled together.

Jane’s [Force Weaver] was a hard counter to this spellwork.

Erick frowned. “I expected that, and yet, I did not.”

Jane stepped away from the Gates, getting out of the range of the Drain. “Was that supposed to happen?”

“It is a weakness I need to account for.” Erick tilted his head as he looked at the tilted Gate. “I need to include a [Force Denial]. Now that… That might be tricky, and especially since the Gate itself is constantly casting Force Magic itself.”

Kiri flinched. “That’s tricky.” With a bit of sarcasm, she added, “Might as well make a Void Song.”

“Force Magic is also hard to Deny; this is true.” Erick said, “Maybe I need to make a full-spectrum Denial, anyway. Something even more inclusive than [Prismatic Lullaby].”

“Or you could limit the Force spells to the inside of the Gate?” Jane offered. “I need Line of Sight to Weaver.”

“Wouldn’t work.” Erick said, “The Drain out here is still a part of the Force—” He paused. “Can you Weaver this Drain, by only touching the Abyss?”

Jane turned back to the tilted Gate. She wasn’t sure if she could.

She stepped forward once and reached out to the Drain hovering in the air. And then she ripped sideways. The Gate spun clockwise, rapidly turning almost a complete circle, splashing milky white Force outward from the entire structure. That floating Force held in the air like so much splashed paint. Some of it broke into broken mana. Most of it just stayed there, frozen in time, floating.

“Ah.” Jane said, “The Force spell is all over the place.”

“Yes.” Erick frowned. “If I put a theoretical [Deny Everything] outside of the effect of the Drain— Oh. I’m overthinking this again. I have a Domain already. I need to put my [Lodestar] into this thing— Well. [Domain of Light].” Erick looked up that spell, to see if it had changed—

It had.

Domain of Benevolent Light, instant, super long range, 5000 mana

Harken unto your own Truth of Benevolence. Let no one diminish your brilliance.

Undispellable. Uncorruptible.

Lasts 1 hour. Effects last longer.

He should still be able to put that into a runic web.

“Like. Duh,” Erick said to himself. “Yes. It needs a Domain in there. I really should have considered that earlier. That solves so many small issues.”

Kiri smiled. Teressa watched.

Jane and Poi went back to making dinner.

The sun had set hours ago, and Erick made Gate Version Two.

Jane came back, well before dinner was ready, and tested the strength of Erick’s new Domain-enhanced Gate. Jane put everything she could into her [Force Weaver], and yet, she could not Weave. Success! Or at least as much ‘success’ as could be had under the Script, where there was always some way to counter other magic.

Erick breathed deep, then exhaled. This was good.

Twin Gates hung in the air before him, both of them looking like squares of pure light, hovering above a land of light, yet hints abyss clung to the edges like a dark shadow. That shadow created darker lands to the left and right of the gate, forming a sort of tunnel that led to the hole in the world in the white wood.

Erick had constrained the [Undertow’s Edge] effect to the space around the actual entrance, so that people moving through the space wouldn’t actually have all of their resources stripped from them. Keeping the [Gate] stable was still important, though, so Erick made sure to carve some instructions to the side of each Gate, to make the people in both locations aware that while the space leading to the [Gate] was clear of the Drain, if they wanted the Gate to remain stable, then they needed to donate at least 3,000 mana per day to the Drain. More was fine. Less was not fine.

Technically, the Gate only needed 2880 mana per day, but a bit of extra leeway seemed good.

The backside had the full Drain guarding it, and thus it would drain about a thousand mana per second from anyone who was not defending themselves properly, or [Defend]ing themselves, in the case of most people.

Erick’s own Constitution, combined with [Unbreakable Form] for 500 absolute damage mitigation after all other defenses were taken into account, was enough to fully protect him from the Drain, apparently, which was a pleasant surprise to discover. This fact let him explore the backside of his [Gate] without issue…

Which was something he should have done before now, too.

Erick looked through the front of his left Gate, and saw the warehouse which lay in front of the right Gate. From there, he stepped left, into the Abyssal Drain, and went around back. The space on the opposite side of the [Gate] was little more than thick, white mist. Like touching near-solid fog. Erick stuck his hand into the fog and felt nothing particular about that mist at all. It wasn’t cloying, or wet, or warm or cold. It just was.

Back when Erick was working with Tenebrae, at the Twin Trees which held the [Gate] that led into the Twisted Vision of Ar’Cosmos, when Erick had touched the backside of that [Gate] it had disturbed the portal, breaking it apart. Once disturbed, that portal came back after a little while, without issue. Other peculiarities with that particular [Gate] allowed Erick to stand on the backside and look through the portal-space, to see the forest in front without issue, while anyone from the front side hadn’t been able to see Erick at all.

Here, in his warehouse, staring at the backside, Erick only saw a land of white fog.

What was going on here?

He probably could have experimented on this part a bit more stringently until now, but he just hadn’t thought of it. And now, here he was. So.

Erick sent an Ophiel into that fog.

Ophiel fluttered forward, into the thick mist, vanishing from sight almost instantly. One meter in. Two meters in. Four meters—

Like light unfurling in front of the [Gate], Ophiel appeared, ribbons of mist and gentle lightning flickering away from him, to fall back into the [Gate] behind and vanish like figments, to disappear into the portal.

Odd!

Erick tested it again.

And again, the same thing happened. After going a certain distance into the fog, that fog vanished from Ophiel’s form, pulling away, revealing that Ophiel had actually just been moving through a separate layer of reality, briefly, until enough distance was gained and Ophiel just popped back into this reality.

Kiri had a good suggestion. “It might not be distance based? It could be time based? Or saturation based?”

Erick had Ophiel flutter inside the backside of the portal, and just hover there, in the light. He didn’t go further in at all. Five seconds passed. Ten seconds passed. Twelve—

Fractured glows broke away from a heretofore invisible, intangible, unknowable Ophiel, hovering just on the other side of the [Gate]. Those glows washed away, falling back into the glowing square of the Gate like so much disturbed magic.

“I’m guessing saturation, though I will have to run more tests to be sure.” Erick said, “But it’s time for dinner, and then I have some meetings to take with Candlepoint. I told them I would meet them after sunset, but it’s way past sunset. I also need to… I’m not sure. Consider making a Gate that is open on both sides, and that you can go through both sides? A double Gate. Remove all possibility of someone going in the back.”

There was a lot of experimenting left to do! Too much, in too little time. For instance, Erick needed to know what happened when you shoved an antirhine knife into the backside of a [Gate]. Did it pop the [Gate] violently? Eliciting greenery from everything nearby? Or did something stranger happen?

While Erick wanted to get right on those important experiments because magic was fun! But there were a few facts holding him back from fully committing. First, he knew he’d be learning about how to work [Gate] for months, if not years. Added to that, there was the Class Ability Gatemaster to consider. What sort of ‘minor improvements all around’ could be lurking inside that Ability? Probably a lot! Enough that Erick wanted to know how to work [Gate] before he got that Ability, at the very least.

Mostly, though, the vagaries of Erick’s life demanded satisfactory answers to questions they had yet to ask, and that Erick would not know were questions until they showed up and tried to punch him in the face.

Or some other sort of attack.

Probably antirhine knives in the dark, or something. Or missiles. Probably missiles.

On the bright side, he wouldn’t have to go looking for antirhine if his assassins brought it to him.

“But that can come later.” Erick declared, “It’s time for dinner.”