Erick walked down the hallways of the embassy, following Otaliya and Tasar as the two wrought had a private conversation. Near-invisible tendrils of thick air spilled off of their heads, connecting them together. Otaliya walked strong the whole time, but Tasar flinched and stared and glared, likely in time to silent words which Erick would never know. Eventually, though, some sort of understanding took place.

The telepathic lines broke.

Tasar breathed out, then she said, “My mother has been doing this for hundreds of years. She has an excellent approval record, though she hasn’t done an inquiry in a while. This is fine.”

Otaliya nodded, saying, “109 full approvals. 29 half-step approvals. Only 430 failures. Probably the best record of anyone currently alive today.”

“Ahh.” Erick was instinctively unhappy about those numbers, but he had no basis for comparison. “Uh…”

Otaliya instantly understood Erick’s apprehension. “A 20% win rate is considered rather high because these are inquiries we’re talking about here. A successful inquiry is a business dealing between immortals and mortals, with the possibility for this deal to transfer ownership along agreed-upon mortal lines, lasting into forever. Because of this, Stratagold is very particular about striking any sorts of agreements at all.”

“Oh.” Erick said, “That makes a lot more sense, yes.”

Otaliya glanced backward, smiling briefly before turning back forward. As they walked, she said, “I estimate that you have a 95% chance of passing your inquiry. Tasar is less optimistic at only 50%. I disagree with her statement because, while I might be something of a hermit, I do still talk to people.”

Tasar sighed. “I don’t want anyone to be surprised when this doesn’t work. Archmage’s Rest is already a firm ‘no’. The Church of Rozeta is a likely ‘no’. The Royal Faction is about the same as the Church. No one liked that you went into the Core without proper clearance, Erick, and that fact will be a large impediment toward gaining a good outcome from an inquiry.”

“Tasar is right, of course, but we have options.” Otaliya said to him, “You still have to take Bright Tea, and that can either be a great boon for your future inquiry, or a great detriment, so our goal, for now, is to figure out the geology of the field to prepare you for Bright Tea. Once you are there you can talk and charm and deal with all of these various factors to hopefully turn each ‘no’ into a ‘yes’.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Erick asked, “Who else needs to sign off on an inquiry, anyway?”

Otaliya happily said, “That’s why we’re headed toward the inquiry preparatory committee hallway. Wrought society doesn’t change much, but it does shift over long enough time periods and my own information is half out of date. We’ll learn more once we talk to the people currently on the ground.”

- - - -

Down a lavish hallway that split into a dozen different building-sized office spaces, where thirty meetings of various sizes were happening in rooms and in hallways, Erick found the people he had spoken with not ten minutes ago. Otaliya didn’t know these people, specifically, but she knew the parents or owners or the label of the various ‘marketing firms’ that were the inquiry preparatory committees.

Otaliya seemed impressed with the people Erick had chosen out of the eleven possible firms inside the hallway, so there wasn’t much to do but move to a room and start talking politics and goals, and then one of the men on the other side of the table said something that threw Erick for a loop.

“You have a history of vigilantism and moving against established countries, Archmage Flatt. This history is going to be taken into account in the inquiry, and will likely result in a rather unpleasant experience.”

Another one of them agreed.

And then Erick started checking out of the whole experience as his exploits were trotted out and held up to the worst possible lights.

“Heroes often do not achieve a positive inquiry because of their disdain for established powers…”

“The destruction of much of Songli will be a problem because of...”

That went on for a while.

But! Erick was happy that Otaliya seemed to be about as angry with these people as he was. She frowned a little as she jumped in with, “But as the Savior of Light he…”

Ah. But she was on that ‘Savior of Light’ thing. He hoped he wouldn’t disappoint her, but he probably would.

“With all due respect, Misses Otaliya, you haven’t been in an inquiry room in a century and...”

Erick listened. He cared. Yes, he was present. Yes, he answered questions, and he pretended to be enthusiastic about the whole thing, but there was this undercurrent of bullshit and appeasement of the powers that be that irked him the wrong way.

Finally, when sitting at a chair with Otaliya sitting to one side and Tasar standing in the back of the room, similarly disgusted by the whole experience, Erick was almost at his limit. The trio of IPC people in front of him, each representing a separate IPC firm, each dressed impeccably and each with a secretary standing behind them, had just asked him what sort of opportunity he was hoping to get out of Stratagold, and then…

One guy asked, “The major question that you are going to be asked, and that you need to answer in the best possible way, is: ‘Are you willing to eradicate the shadelings currently living under your power?’ and ‘To what extent are you willing to enact the will of Stratagold upon the Crystal Forest?’. Will you follow orders handed down by the Heavies?”

They had been dancing around that subject for a while now, but, having gauged that Erick would not erupt at them, one of them decided to just ask the important question in the most unambiguous sort of way.

And yet, Erick almost fucking lost it. He almost started screaming obscenities. But he pulled back. Not fast enough, though. Not before every single person in the room recognized that he had gone from indifferent to explosive.

So Erick took a calming breath, and said, “This is a very good question. My response to this is—” Fuck you I do what I want; try and stop me. “My response is that they should be happy to…” They should be happy that I’m inviting them to participate in the new world I’m creating on the Surface, considering the lack of care they put into the rest of civilization. “My response is that is… Shadelings are people, like any other. I will not allow them to be murdered simply to assuage fears.”

The man on the other side of the table successfully kept his fear-response under control. All of them did. Otaliya looked a bit sad, though.

The man who had asked the question, spoke plainly, “You’re not going to get a successful inquiry if you’re not willing to enact certain Stratagold laws. One of them is the execution of any shadeling or a monster pretending at being a person.” He snapped a finger at his secretary and the secretary stepped to Erick, pulled a piece of paper from a folder, and set down that paper in front of Erick. It was a set of laws. The main guy said, “These are the basic laws that everyone aiming for a successful inquiry must meet if they desire the full support of Stratagold. I have studied all of your works, Archmage Flatt, and while I know you’re going to fail 14 out of these 20 points, I also know they only going to forgive 10 of them.”

Erick read—

Otaliya did not look at the paper as she countered, “On the surface it might appear that this is a failed inquiry but if Erick acquires [Gate] he will literally be too large to ignore. These particular rules won’t matter. What we have here is a case of the entire world changing. Stratagold needs to become a part of the foundation or they will become part of the destructible house. Having a World Tree alone makes that entire list of rules dubious at best, and an attempt at dragging down at the worst.” And then it was Otaliya’s turn to speak plainly. “The simple fact is that Stratagold needs Erick more than Erick needs Stratagold, and the problem that we will face going forward is convincing the inquiry board that they need to adjust themselves. This is not a normal inquiry by any stretch of the program. Do not mistake it as such.”

Erick felt his anger sputter and die as he heard Otaliya’s point of view, and found a kindred soul in those words, or at least a very good pretender. If the other people of the preliminary IPCs had followed suit, Erick would have remained less-mad. But they did not.

The first guy, who was an incani, said, “Madam Otaliya. You were not here for the great Wasteland Inquiry 35 years ago, ten years after the wars that made the largest incani land in the world reincorporate into what they are today. The litigants came to this embassy, to these preparatory committees, and we prepared them for a whole year. Everything was set for a win. But during the war, 17 years prior, one of the litigants broke rule 6 when they evaded Core Patrols and went for the monsters in the Main Tunnel. Didn’t even threaten the guardians. Just leveled to 97 and then went back to the land that would become the Kingdoms and became a war hero. Saved the nation from total desolation. Millions of lives. That bit of information came out in the inquiry and ruined everything. We had accounted for it, though. The Wasteland Kingdoms still should have gotten a positive result. But, no. Failure. On its own, it was just one such failure when there should have been success, but there were others.

“We think that Stratagold might be at a saturation point for inquiries. Almost everything that they would have approved 10 years ago is being denied these days.” The man looked to Erick, saying, “I can’t say for sure, but we widely believe that this inquiry will be under Inquisitor Kromolok himself. The inquiry board will be ruthless. They will uncover every hidden thing you have to hide— Anything that could possibly harm Stratagold, and—”

“Let me stop you there.” Erick had ignored many of the smaller problems he had noticed in this meeting, like the fact that this incani worked for the Wasteland Kingdoms, but he couldn’t ignore it any longer. “You’re speaking like you don’t want to be here. So perhaps you should leave and save me the trouble of having to deal with this attitude that this isn’t going to work. By the way: tell the Wasteland that I’m going to accept their offer to visit as soon as I can, but I’ve been busy.”

The incani man sat straighter.

There was some shit going on between him and the human from a different EIPC group sitting on the other side of the table, while the third person, a dragonkin woman, simply ignored whatever was going on between the human and incani.

The incani man surprised Erick, though, when he said, “I do not wish to misrepresent my firm. I merely wish to impart the severity of the 14 failed rules on the 20 point list. It’s getting harder and harder to secure a win these days, with success rates between 2 or 3 percent, depending on how you measure.”

The man wasn’t willing to drop the act…

Or maybe Erick was just being paranoid? It was possible.

Erick… sort of believed him now. Shit. Erick said, “Heard and understood.” He breathed, and sighed, then spoke to everyone. “Look. I’m finding it really hard to believe that with every good thing I’ve done so far, that Stratagold wouldn’t want to ensure that good things kept happening. Like… Should I just go to a different Geode? The wrought aren’t a monolith, are they?”

Tasar stepped away from the wall to stand next to the desk, saying, “Stratagold wants you here, Erick, but we also want to be sure that we haven’t invited danger into our lives.”

“Well that’s just it.” Erick said, “You say ‘danger’ but I say ‘change’ and I think that’s the fundamental problem.”

Tasar frowned a little.

But everyone else agreed with him; from people across the desk, to Otaliya sitting beside him, they all knew the truth. The EIPC people were just focused on the problems, which… was probably helpful. Erick just wasn’t feeling it right now. Thankfully none of them had spoken about how Last Shadow’s Feast was going to be just as much of a problem as a boon…

They were probably saving that discussion for day #10 of this preparation, or something.

Otaliya spoke up, “This perspective of ‘change’ as ‘danger’ is the core of the actual problem.” She spoke to everyone present, saying, “The Heavies and the Church and the Inquisition and the Merchants and the Army, and all the rest. None of them like change. It is a word that has likely been scoured out of the lexicons as the one bad word you should never say in an inquiry. But change is where we must focus this inquiry.” She added, “It would behoove us to still not use that actual word.”

While the human and the incani were stunned, the dragonkin woman leaned forward a little, saying, “If you know of a way to make such a gambit work I am ready to hear it, but there is literally no way to frame the scouring of the Forest of Glaquin or the eradication of the sects of Nelboor or Last Shadow’s Feast as anything but a major change.” Ah. Maybe they would get into Last Shadow’s Feast today? The woman continued, “And that’s not even touching the shadeling thing. This is the kind of change that Stratagold would normally watch for 10 years before making a decision. A hundred years of waiting is probably a better estimate.” The woman said to Erick, “With all the respect you are due, I feel that aiming for a wyrm’s eye is a waste of mana. Of course we should aim for such, but it is easier to hit a larger target. Pick a few goals and focus on them. Aim for a partial-inquiry. Perhaps help with getting the metals for Gates? Perhaps runic web clearance? A connection to the Teleport Station network? A partial win seems possible, but a full win is out of the question.”

Erick… Wasn’t sure how he felt about that. So he listened.

The human man frowned a little and began to list ways in which they could win the whole thing, to which the incani man sided with the dragonkin woman, saying that a partial win was perhaps all that Erick could hope for. Otaliya spoke a bit about how they should focus on a full win, and then pare down if it seemed to be going badly, but she was still very much of the opinion that Erick could, and should, win the full backing of Stratagold.

In a lull in the conversation, Erick asked Tasar, “Do you think it is possible to achieve a full win?”

Everyone turned to Tasar.

Tasar said, “It is right to try for a full win, but when you entered the Core without proper protocols you removed the possibility of a full win. I can’t help you with that, anyway. I am here to help you on the Worldly Path, and in my opinion, Stratagold’s support is not necessary for that success. You already have Oceanside on your side.” She looked to Otaliya, and said, “If anything, my mother is right. Stratagold needs to throw in with you. Not the other way around.”

Otaliya seemed to brighten as she allowed herself a small smile.

Tasar added, “All of our half-known knowledge of [Gate]s can come from Archmage’s Rest and Oceanside and the Heavy archives, but the only way to get runic web clearance is from Stratagold. The Headmaster might approve of sourcing you metal, but he can do nothing for runic webs. T-station access requires full approval, but since the goal is [Gate], then perhaps you don’t want to settle for a t-station. With these facts in mind, gaining runic web clearance is the bare minimum of what you should hope to achieve. Everything else would be easier with full inquiry approval, but it is not strictly necessary.”

Erick nodded, feeling a bit better about having Tasar at his side at that moment. He turned to the other people, saying, “So that’s how it is. Runic web clearance. That’s the bare minimum goal. Metals are a second priority because I can get those elsewhere. And while I appreciate the thought of asking for t-station clearance, I don’t need that [Force Trap] on my land, because I don’t want to guard it all the time.”

Tasar looked a little bit relieved.

Good. Erick had hoped that she would approve of such a decision.

Erick said, “Everything else Stratagold can offer, from labor to trade routes to help governing and all the rest. All of that is unnecessary.”

While the other people looked unsure—

Otaliya smiled, and said, “Well said. But don’t say that part about governing in the inquiry. With a runic web they are going to demand some oversight protocols. Now, as for actual speaking methods, what you want to say to the Heavy representative is something along the lines of ‘There is opportunity here to carve away the shadows of the surface, producing something more stable’ while telling the representative from the Church something similar. The Merchants will want to know that you can provide security to them, but that shouldn’t be a large issue considering your magics and your proven capability to track down and eliminate threats. The Merchants will likely be your largest supporter.” Otaliya added, “All of this is subject to change depending on who is actually going to be seated upon your inquiry board.” She asked the people on the other side of the table. “Who is usually there this time of year?”

The incani man spoke first.

Talk resumed.

Erick was more invested, this time. He’d go for a result of full support, but his expectations lowered quite a bit. He didn’t care too much about t-station clearance, but he decided to try for it, anyway. He didn’t even need metal support, but he also wasn’t going to be openly using [Duplicate] to solve any metal problems, so he did kinda need metal support. Runic webs were the only thing he truly needed Stratagold to sign off on, and now that he knew that, he had a goal.

Toward that end, Erick had to make sure that Riivo was on board with Erick’s runic web goals. Apparently that old iron man was the main deciding factor on who got runic web clearance or not. Oh, sure, Erick needed the whole inquiry to sign off on him getting runic webs, but he needed Riivo’s support first.

The EIPC talk lasted four hours, with plans to resume discussions in two days once all three of Erick’s various teams and Otaliya had time to better prepare. Today was just the preliminary discussion.

Erick saw the human, Radigo, the dragonkin, Loori, and the incani, Walz, off; thanking them for their time. Otaliya and Tasar had some sort of private conversation with each other near the end of the talks which Erick was not privy to, but that was fine.

On the way out of the EIPC hallways, Otaliya said, “That was a productive first meeting, Erick. I will strive to get you full approval, but perhaps they were right that lesser approvals are a more realistic goal.”

“Oh yeah. I’m fine with partial approval. I want the runic webs first and foremost.” Erick said, “And thanks for helping, Otaliya. You provided a great perspective that would have otherwise been missing.” He smirked. “About the only one in there with a positive attitude, too, and that helped a lot.”

Otaliya probably would have been blushing if she were made of flesh and blood, and not white-green copper.

“A very positive attitude,” Tasar said, smiling a little.

Otaliya gave a small, happy laugh, then said to Erick, “I look forward to the next meeting, but for now, I think it is time for me to run around and out everything else I have missed these last many years. Do you mind if I take Tasar with me?”

Tasar went from happy, to unsure yet excited.

So Erick said, “Of course. I’m going to head to the world diner’s market, grab something to eat, and then escape back to Yggdrasil to unwind for a while. Sleep, probably. So I’ll see you two later.”

They went their separate ways.

Erick went to the food court, grabbed some food, evaded many other people who wanted to talk about this or that (while telling them to send a letter instead), and escaped back to Yggdrasil where he promptly did some [Renew] work on his Other Self, switched back to his Normal Self and ate real food, and then he did some planning for [Steadfast Ward]. He didn’t get far in his magic planning. He’d make that magic in the morning.

Today had been a very good day.

Also frustrating, enlightening, angering, and a bit wonderful. Erick liked Otaliya and was warming to Tasar, but Tasar remained almost alien in many of her mannerisms. While Tasar seemed keen on standing in place and watching the proceedings in front of her, her mother was much more animated and present.

He kinda wondered what had happened in Tasar’s office before Erick had interrupted them, but whatever. He wasn’t the type to pry. It was hard not to notice that Otaliya was very much a shut-in, though, so he was glad to help her get out of the house and to have her on his team, even if most of her information about inquiries was out of date. The wrought themselves were out of date, for the most part, so Otaliya’s perspective was still invaluable.

He hoped that Tasar and Otaliya were doing well right now, whatever they were doing.

- - - -

The two wrought headed off together to the t-station at the bottom of the embassy, just Otaliya and her daughter, happily walking beside each other. Otaliya was happy to say that Tasar had warmed up a lot throughout the whole meeting, as she watched everyone talk excitedly about opportunity and change. Otaliya had always been one of the most gregarious wrought inside the embassy; she knew every mortal inside the facility in ways that most wrought would never want to know, from what foods they liked to what their family lives were like. That was before The Event, though. Things had changed since then. Otaliya had kept up with the largest news but everything else… Everything else had slipped away.

And now…

Now she was back out of the room. She was surprised she had done it, too! Just… Stepped out. Like it wasn’t a big deal. And now she was here, walking beside her daughter again like she used to, oh so long ago.

It was nice.

So many things were nice.

Otaliya sent, ‘I’m really glad the Worldly Path brought you back to the Embassy. I know I was horrible to you after the… Event, but I’d love to see you more. At least until you leave to help the Savior on his Path.’

‘We don’t know if he’s the Savior of Light.’ Tasar sent, ‘Don’t set yourself up for that much disappointment, Mom.’

‘And don’t you go making enemies where there are none.’ Otaliya sent, ‘I know that it’s wishful thinking to go naming him that at this juncture, but even if it is a ploy of the Dark, he’s done quite a lot for the world and we really should be backing up his desires to do more. Surely you noticed: The man is ready to break the world like any Heavy pushed near the breaking point. He’s vulnerable now, and that means you can be a fantastic ally, or you can be an enemy. It wouldn’t take much break either way.’

‘My goal is to be neutral.’ Tasar sent, ‘Though with how I’ve been positioned to be near him… I can’t help but feel that they’re setting me up for the slagpit.’

‘Now see? There’s your problem. Neutrality is for gods and monsters, and you are neither. Fall to the right side, Tasar. Don’t…’ Otaliya had so many words to say to Tasar that they all sort of jumbled up together. She wanted her to be safe, to be happy, to be successful, to make good decisions, and right now she was failing all four. Erick was a node upon which the world would turn, and anyone who couldn’t see that was a fool. Otaliya truly did like the man, but like so much in life, ‘doing what you liked’ and ‘doing the smart thing’ were oftentimes at odds with each other. Luckily, this time, this was not the case. The ‘nice thing’ and the ‘correct thing’ were one in the same. ‘Tasar. This is a rare opportunity to do both the nice and the smart thing. The man is terrified of a Forgotten Campaign coming down on his head so we need to be sure that isn’t going to happen.’

Tasar eyed her mother. ‘How?’

‘By doing the same thing I did for hundreds of years before I stopped.’ Otaliya sent, ‘We’re going to go talk to people and make some connections for him, before he ever steps in that inquiry room.’

Otaliya sent, ‘Let’s head to the Gold District to talk to the Merchants.’

Tasar grumbled a little as they stepped onto the golden disk of the t-station, sending, ‘I still don’t think you should become involved. You almost… You almost Transformed after…’

Tasar wanted her mother to remain her mother. Otaliya could understand that quite well. Otaliya wanted to remain Tasar’s mother as well. Family was important to her, and to Tasar, especially after the… Event.

But duty called.

Otaliya would answer.

They had reached the t-station.

Otaliya said, ‘Routine was good for me. Centering. But now? Now there’s something to live for again. A calling. A desire. And you know me; I was always at my best when I was [Strike]ing Stratagold to draw riches for the mortals.’ Otaliya happily sent, ‘So fire it up! Let’s get to coordinating on behalf of the Savior of Light!’

Tasar paused. She stared at nothing, then she turned to Otaliya. ‘This could all be a trap, Mom. Erick could be working for the Dark. He might even be a Wizard.’

Otaliya paused. Her mind blanked. Her eyes went wide as she turned and stared at nothing. Moments passed in silence as an invisible, intangible shadow crawled into her chest and squeezed her heart—

No.

No.

Erick wasn’t a Wizard. He was the Savior of Light. He even had an aura of light!

No.

Okay.

Otaliya centered herself and sent, ‘I don’t believe he is a Wizard. He shows none of the signs. Will this come up at the inquiry?’

‘They will ask him directly, under truthstone and through Kromolok.’ Tasar sent, ‘That is all I know. They’re keeping me out of most of it.’

Otaliya paused. A hundred thoughts swirled, and then calmed. Calmly, she sent, ‘I am prepared for this possibility now. Thank you for telling me. Is this what you were trying to tell me earlier?’

‘Most of it, yes.’ Tasar sent, ‘I’m sorry about trying to make you stay in the room.’

Otaliya sent, ‘I’m sorry for breaking the door. So let’s go buy a new one in the Gold District.’

‘… Sure.’

Tasar reluctantly put her hand upon the obelisk.

The world blipped green and black.

- - - -

Erick woke from a nothing dream, feeling rested. A quick check of his surroundings showed that he was still in Yggdrasil’s branches, surrounded by blankets and covers and pillows. He yawned, and stretched, flickering on his usual spells as he got reacquainted with the world around him.

“Hello, Ophiel,” he said to Ophiel, sitting above him on the corner of his headrest. Ophiel chirped in recognition. “Hello, Yggdrasil,” he said to Yggdrasil, looming all around him, like the firmament itself. Erick supposed that one day Yggdrasil would actually be the firmament, and wasn’t that a strange thought.

“Hello, Father,” Yggdrasil said, “Sleep well?”

“I did sleep well. Thank you for looking over me.”

Erick got out of bed, yawned again, then went to make breakfast out of some leftovers. He had squirreled away a fair bit of various foods from his trips to town so he would have samples with which to copy into full meals, and that’s what he did now. One pancake and one piece of perfectly fried chicken, along with a small shot glass of syrup, became a full meal. A bit of tea in a small cup became a full pot of the stuff, warm and steaming, with a bit of cream and some honey to round out the flavor.

[Duplicate] was just such a wonderful spell. Erick used it rather liberally under Privacy spells aplenty so that no one would ever see that he had the spell. The only way someone would know he had it was if they were exceedingly good at spying, or if Erick accidentally told them, but since the second case was likely not ever going to happen, and the first case meant Erick had larger problems, then this was probably fine. He had already talked with Yggdrasil about hiding the magics that he possessed, so it wasn’t a problem to show the big guy what he could do. Eventually, Erick would need to give Yggdrasil [Duplicate], but that day was not today.

… Yet another topic to broach with the Headmaster when Erick finally got back to Oceanside. ‘How best to raise a World Tree?’

But for now, Erick switched over to his Other Self, had another meal of mana and cycling, ticked up to level 18, apparently, then switched back. Cycling his mana was giving him a lot of experience as a monster. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about leveling so easily as a monster, but whatever.

It was time to make some magic, though, and Erick felt great about that.

[Steadfast Ward] was the base form of a branch of [Ward]s based on Ethereal Force, and nothing else. It had to be Ethereal Force, too; normal Force would result in a low-powered Solid Ward. Erick already had a Solid Ward, and he didn’t want a replacement for his [Prismatic Ward].

There were many ways to go about making different [Steadfast Ward]s; about as many ways to do it as there were other spells to add to the base mix. Erick only had the one example [Steadfast Ward] to center his workings on, though, even with all the talk he had had with the other archmages about this particular spell. This example came from Tasar.

Steadfast Ward, instant, self, 5000 mana

Enact a personal ward of absolute defense, preventing 250 damage from all outside sources. Lasts 24 hours.

It had taken Tasar three years to make that one, and it was pretty much perfect. Ryul said his [Steadfast Ward] came in at 310 points of absolute defense, exactly like Tasar claimed, but only because he was a Force Mage working in his field of power. Ryul didn’t share that blue box with him, though, so he could have been lying, but Erick seriously doubted that.

Erick had been warned that his own first attempt at a [Steadfast Personal Ward] would likely hit 50 points of absolute defense. An [Area Ward] would maybe hit 10.

He decided to test those postulations.

Standing on Yggdrasil’s branches, outside of his [Sealed Privacy Ward]s and visible to the rest of the world, Erick held out his two hands. In his left hand he channeled [Ward] and listened to the sounds of mana becoming magic of a particular flavor; protective, delineated, encompassing. In his right hand he channeled [Force Wall]; delineated, barrier, unbreakable. Ophiels gathered in the air around him, the ones on his left focusing on the warble of [Ward], the ones on his right focusing on the force of [Force Wall].

Erick adjusted the melody. He shifted absolute Force to something lighter, airier, and yet no less strong. Unbreakable notes became ethereal. [Ward] took hold of those sounds and twisted itself into something stringed. Erick focused on the body’s natural defenses, on the collagen in the skin in the way bones supported flesh, and how that flesh and bone knitted together in an array to protect everything of importance about a person—

[Ward] seemed to click.

Erick cast. Nearly four thousand mana flowed out of him, not as a [Personal Ward], but as an [Area Ward]. The air in front of him flexed like a visual distortion, and then calmed.

A second later a blue box appeared.

Steadfast Area Ward, instant, close range, 3900 mana

Enact a large ward of absolute defense, preventing 35 damage from all outside sources. Lasts 24 hours.

“ ‘A max of 10 on my first try’.” Erick smiled, then said, “That’s a mite higher than 10.”

35 absolute area defense was lower than the max he should be able to achieve through a simple combination of [Force Wall] and [Ward], which was 50, but 35 was not bad for his first try. His methodologies were properly aligned; he just needed to align them better. For a [Personal Ward] he would need to add something else to the mix, though, since one could only combine the same two spells once.

He was thinking of adding [Lightshape] and [Shadowshape] along with a Mana Altering for Illusion to the mix, to create some sort of [Steadfast Illusionary Ward] that would allow him to brush off all attacks that weren’t properly aimed, or which were so large that he could not possibly avoid them. It was a combination that the other archmage’s didn’t approve of simply because of the difficulty of living under such a wild spell. Archmage Astria spoke of trying to pick up forks and missing them half the time, while Tasar spoke of having to forgo natural eyesight in favor of mana sense or other senses. Riivo countered that to fix this issue, one just had to do what one had to do with all Illusion spells: make sure the eyes and ears were unencumbered by your illusionary spellwork. Hands were also a good thing to leave unencumbered. Erick appreciated Riivo’s ‘fixes’, but the reason he chose not to go this route was because he wanted something that looked as normal as a normal [Personal Ward], and Illusion was not the way to go.

The next option was Blood Magic, but for all the reasons he had already heard before, all of which boiled down to ‘that’s how you get cancer’, that was a non-starter.

Another option was that Erick could continue to use the base-[Personal Ward], and [Renew] it up to full power/duration and beyond whenever he had some extra mana, which was most of the time. In this way he would never make himself vulnerable in the morning due to casting his daily [Personal Ward] ever again. It was a nice thought. But that was a non-starter, too.

Erick wanted absolute mitigation, less of a morning vulnerability, and he wanted all his Constitution and otherwise to finally be useful.

So therefore, the best option was probably to add Mana Altering for Light to his combination, allowing him to make good use of his constantly running sunform. A [Light Steadfast Ward] was the safe choice, and yet… It would make him look like a glowstick, all the time. There would be no hiding his lit-up self. Something about that irked him in some intangible way. It was the same problem as the Illusion-based spell.

There were other ways to go besides just adding elements to the magic.

He had spoken with Nirzir extensively about spells that made one immune to damage, for the young girl had that as her life goal. She had gotten pretty far, and even showed Erick her current-best effort.

Immaculate Form, instant, self, personal ward, 6450 mana

Your body becomes extraordinarily resistant to damage. Your internal spells become extraordinarily hard to disrupt. Healing effects are heightened. This spell is extraordinarily resistant toward dispelling effects.

Lasts 24 hours.

It was probably a lot better than Tasar’s [Steadfast Ward]. Erick was pretty sure that Tasar’s spellwork wasn’t even what she used, exactly. An archmage would have better defenses than that… But then again, Erick didn’t have anything better than a [Personal Ward] so far, and he was pretty sure Tasar wasn’t lying to him about what she used.

Anyway.

The anti-Dispel effect from Nirzir’s spellwork was attractive.

He would use Tricking Magic to ensure that a [Steadfast Ward] couldn’t be Tricked off of him, anyway. Moving from an effective 230,000 mana [Personal Ward] to a 5000 mana [Steadfast Ward] meant that someone’s normal [Dispel] could probably rip off his [Steadfast Ward], whereas now, a potential attacker would only waste mana trying to rip off his [Personal Ward].

Erick organized his thoughts along those lines, and then he handed off [Dispel], [Personal Ward], and [Force Wall] to his Ophiel. They fluttered around him, dancing in the light and in the breeze, singing of anti-magic and defense and unbreakable strength. Erick gradually tuned them, one by one, to anti-anti magic, personal defense, and ethereal strength. Further tuning brought forth ideas of strengthening bones and ensuring the integrity of muscle and skin. In a moment of inspiration, Erick turned on his aura and shifted every sound through his body, personally aligning what he heard with what it was doing to his flesh, wrangling tangled snakes of Force into ethereal positions.

He held the power open for several seconds, ensuring that it was what he wanted, and deciding that he was ready.

He cast.

Ethereal force faded into his body like cemented Reality.

He… didn’t feel any different. Which was the point. He breathed and flexed an arm and moved his arm—

A blue box appeared.

Steadfast Ward, instant, self, 3700 mana

Enact a personal ward of absolute defense, preventing 110 damage from all outside sources. This spell is extraordinarily resistant toward dispelling effects. Lasts 24 hours.

It… Seemed okay? The spell looked completely invisible upon his skin. It wasn’t till he looked at himself with [Magic Sight] that he saw the Force soaking his body. His new spell didn’t extend a single hair above his skin, though…

Which meant that his hair would get burned off if he ever encountered a whole lot of fire, which, if he was honest with himself, was always a possibility. Eh. He didn’t really care about his hair, but maybe he should try protecting his clothes, if only so he wasn’t naked after a potential fireblast. [Personal Ward]s protected clothing at least a little. Ehh. He’d have to remake this spell, anyway.

Time to test it, though.

Erick began casting some testing spells, separating them from each other by several yards, and ensuring that every piece of them was separate from the rest. The first was [Hermetic Razor].

Hermetic Razor, instant, medium range, 500 mana

25 molecular wires stretch through a medium-sized space, at your command. One wire does a maximum of 100 points of damage before breaking.

The second was [Hermetic Shredder], for 60 mana.

Hermetic Shredder, instant, medium range, 1000 mana + Variable

A Variable number of molecular wires stretch through a Variable space, at your command. One wire does a maximum of Variable points of damage before breaking.

At 60 mana, Erick created 200 wires each of which would be able to take 200 points of damage before breaking.

Erick cast [Hermetic Shredder] again into another part of the air, this time for 100 mana, which, after bonuses, meant that he had 1000 wires each worth 1000 points of damage. If he had made this new [Ward] spell right then his 87% damage reduction from Constitution should reduce the damage per wire down to 130, and the [Steadfast Ward]’s 110 absolute damage reduction should get rid of all but 20.

But since Constitution had some diminishing returns, he’d likely hit himself for more than that.

The wires all hung in the air like faint up and down lines, barely there, even if he was looking for them.

Erick stepped to the first experiment, with each wire worth 100 points of damage, and gently touched the first one with his elbow. It was like touching a strong spider web, and with a bit more pressure the wire snapped. His Health hadn’t gone down at all, and, as he checked his elbow, his shirt was ripped but his skin remained intact. A [Mend] fixed the shirt.

He pressed his palm against the other wires, rapidly breaking all twenty four of the remaining [Hermetic Razor]s in quick succession. With a bloodless palm and not a mark on him, Erick moved on to the 200 point [Hermetic Shredder] wires. Those wires met a similar fate, but they were about twice as hard to break. They didn’t break because of Erick’s strength, though; they had just been expended, trying to damage him.

With a sweep of his hand, Erick cleared away all 200 of the 200 damage wires, breaking them like so many expended [Force Bolt]s breaking upon a solid rock. Such an act would have cost him 40,000 damage from his usual [Personal Ward] worth 130,000 damage, meaning he would have gone through 30% of that spell to do what he had just done. [Steadfast Ward]s were great against small, constant damage, but...

With wary eyes, Erick moved on to the thousand, 1000-damage wires.

He touched the first one with the palm of his hand and his hand gave away first, the wire digging in.

Erick pressed on. When the wire touched his bone the wire broke, snapping away from his flesh. He inspected the damage, both physical and in his Status. A near-imperceptible cut had dipped into the meaty flesh of his palm, going all the way through like a terrible paper cut. Blood welled on three points where the wire had clipped a few veins under the skin, and then the blood started to flow. It wasn’t painful; It was a truly clean cut.

It was certainly not a 20 point cut, though. According to his Status it was a 140 point injury to his Health.

A few things were confirmed at that moment. Most importantly, Erick had made his [Steadfast Ward] properly; It took into account all of his defenses, first, and then it applied the absolute defense against the remaining damage. But also, according to the math, his Constitution was only worth a 75% damage reduction. The diminishing returns carved off hard, apparently.

Erick cast [Defend], dropping his maximum Health by 10%, and touched the next 1000 damage wire.

This time his hand went right through, breaking the molecular wire like it wasn’t even there.

With a swiping hand, Erick wiped away all the other 1000 damage wires.

Apparently [Defend]’s ‘take 50% less damage for 1 minute’ stacked with Constitution. Good to know. But how, exactly, did it stack? Up to a full 100% damage reduction? Absolutely not. So where was the line?

Erick did a few more tests with higher strength [Hermetic Shredder] and discovered the line: 95% damage reduction. Intelligence’s spell cost reductions were capped around 94%-96%, too, even with Clarity’s 50% off spell costs and Favored Spell’s further 25% reduction, so this made some amount of sense.

Both of these Steadfast spells were failures. Erick grabbed both new blue boxes and broke them. Two small parts of his soul crackled and broke, but this was a small soul injury which would heal by tomorrow. And then he could try again.

Perhaps he needed to make some sort of halfway spell, bridging [Personal Ward] and [Steadfast Ward]; a spell of protection that crossed the first’s ability to ‘restore itself to some larger initial number’, with the second’s ability to have a ‘floor’ of damage that it absolutely prevented. If he was a Warder he could just have both spells active at the same time, but as a non-Warder, Erick was only allowed on [Personal Ward], so he had to settle for some half-way spell.

And maybe he could include some Variable-Cost-Variable-Effect spellwork into the thing, anyway. [Hermetic Shredder] was VCVE and it wasn’t Blood Magic. While Kiri had made that one, Erick had Remade it just fine, while also making a few VCVE spells of his own like [True Plasma Bolt] and [Slowing Bolt]. Maybe he could approach this solution to this problem through [Conjure Armor]’s Variable modifier? He hardly ever used conjured armor anyway, and perhaps including a [Steadfast Ward] in some conjured armor was a good idea.

He would try those methods tomorrow. There were so many ways to go with this, it was no wonder that Nirzir had trouble organizing all of it into one good spell. He could solve this problem eventually but right now he needed more time to think, because, with his current thoughts based on the information given to him by Archmage’s Rest, this [Steadfast Ward] seemed like a failure. An all-around failure.

Yggdrasil could certainly use it, but Erick could not.

Erick thought for another second…

If he wanted to go full power with this sort of spell, just to be truly crazy, perhaps he could add an Undertow effect? Like he had turned a [Force Wall] into [Undertow’s Edge], he could turn a [Steadfast Ward] into a very large Drain which fed into the power of the ethereal Force. Throw in [Renew], too, and some Permanency spellwork and perhaps it could even Drain itself, gradually becoming stronger and stronger. Since Undertow could use some Light spellwork, such a spell would even benefit from Erick’s usual Sunform…

Except such a spell would definitely hit the Propagation Ban.

Something to think about, anyway!

When his mana came back Erick cast a full strength, normal [Personal Ward], like he had every single day for well over a year by now, and then, when his mana came back again, he went for a swim. The cool water felt great against his skin.

Afterward, Erick sat upon a well protected part of Yggdrasil and did some aura work. Transforming his aura to Force was better this time; it was less ‘tentacles under the clothes’ and more a solidness to the air around him. Moving on, Erick tried channeling Elemental Air. Light turned to a breeze which flowed around him, rapidly moving out of his control as his aura fled into the greater breeze all around, leaving him feeling weak, and drained. After a moment of rest, Erick tried again, and this time he kept his Airy aura under better control. He was getting the hang of aura control, even if it was straining in an odd sort of way that left him sweating and panting. It was a new ‘muscle’ so this weakness was to be expected, but Erick expected less weakness than this.

The obvious conclusion as to why he was learning so slow was that the Script truly did support so very much of his magic. He was basically starting from scratch with this aura control, too. At least he had the mana necessary to work his aura like this. If he was doing this as his Other Self he would already have bottomed out at 0 mana and have to stop for the day.

… He’d have to learn how to do this as his Other Self eventually, but that would come later, when he wasn’t in so much danger down here.

Erick moved on.

Channeling Water through his aura was apparently a mistake. He could take the sensation of water crawling over his skin and into his ears and out of his throat and lungs for a good 3 seconds, but he was practically waterboarding himself in the open air. He spit out phantom liquid and turned off his aura. This development was less than great, because this did not bode well for Fire or Lightning, or any of the other dangerous Elements.

… He went back to Force and Air. Those seemed safe, for now.

Later, he’d see about getting a platinum slime from Tasar.

- - - -

Half a day of various aura work was more than enough, for now.

Erick had to do something more productive, and where better to find problems to solve than in the letters he had received from various people at the embassy. Many of those letters were for visitation requests of all types, but a few were for monster killing requests. Erick grabbed the kill requests, which numbered 32, sat down in a comfortable chair he had made, asked Yggdrasil to look over him as he worked, and then he methodically went through each kill request.

He started with the easiest requests first, mainly the ones which included directions and monster signs to watch out for; basically what anyone would post in a quest to the Adventurer’s Guild. Most people hadn’t put this much thought into the letters they sent him, so Erick would need to do some actual research and poking around to find out where those various monster kills required Ophiel to go. But for now, these first few requests were easy enough to find…

Erick just had to learn how to navigate the Underworld, first.

This was probably valuable information in its own right, but Erick simply hadn’t gotten around to it yet. There were only so many hours in the day, after all, even if he was losing track of those hours and those days like water under the bridge.

Anyway.

There were a few things to know about the Underworld that Erick didn’t truly know until he had experienced it himself. Mainly, and broadly, there were two ecosystems. The first and largest ecosystem by far, was in the open tunnels where air or water flowed. The second ecosystem was inside the stone and dirt, where monsters and otherwise (mostly monsters) got around with various stone-moving spells.

The edge of existence between open air and solid stone was where most things lived, though.

The truly dangerous monsters lived in the deep stone, and could move freely, so it came as no surprise to Erick that the main defenses of the occupied land around Stratagold was filled with anti-[Stoneshape] runework; either in the form of pillars drilled deep into the stone to spread their power out over set distances, or in the form of runic webs that were hidden inside the main walls of every settlement, and under the roads. Once the runic webs underground were powered, it seemed like they were meant to remain hidden and untouched. One could still physically dig into the stone, but who would do that? Almost no one, that’s who.

Ophiel lightstepped through the air into the space in front of the embassy, then down one of the tunnel streets, remaining ‘hidden’ in the sky, in the light. Erick was absolutely sure that someone saw him, but that didn’t really matter. No one else was in the ‘sky’, and no one stopped Ophiel’s movements.

Erick did get a good look at the lights at the roof of the kilometers-wide tunnel, though; they were runic web lights, cleverly hidden beyond light sources that were too bright to casually observe. Erick suspected that there was a bit of Light’s Blinding aspect contained in the space surrounding those light fixtures. Perhaps even some Elemental Illusion to hide the face that the lights were small runic webs. This ‘hiding’ of the webs seemed like a rather normal thing down here. Erick wondered if the people down here actually knew how they were protected by these webs. They had to, right? Maybe.

The town below was of a normal sort, with streets and houses and restaurants and businesses. A creek spilled out of the side of the tunnel to irrigate some crops where some (probably) Classed Farmers were pulling all sorts of food out of the ground, while other Farmers planted foods or watered the crops.

… Erick needed to investigate the water systems now.

Sunform Ophiels shifted their light to ultraviolet and descended into the creek that fed the land, moving near invisibly under the waves. And… Yup! The water source looked like a natural creek on the outside, spilling water out of a break in the rock, but once Ophiel got past that facade the ‘creek’ turned out to be a water main that was purposefully shunted this direction. Following the water source for a little while had Ophiel popping out in Yggdrasil’s cavern, near one of the glowing spire-sized crystals in the water.

Erick briefly wondered if Stratagold expected Yggdrasil to release some [Exalted Rain] into the water supply. Perhaps not? Maybe so? No one had said anything to him, at all. But…

He’d ask around later.

For now, Erick sent his Ophiel all around inside the waterways, and even up the waterfalls at the other side of Yggdrasil’s cavern. The trip past the waterfall lasted 15 minutes, taking him perhaps 300 kilometers, maybe 350, through winding tunnels, some of which were natural but many of which were not, all the way north, to somewhere at the bottom of Vibrant Falls Cavern. Up above lay Archmage’s Rest, somewhere on one of those city-sized dagger-like platforms that stuck out into the cavern.

The water for Yggdrasil’s lake came from the kilometers-wide rush of gently-glowing water in the center of Vibrant Falls. Yggdrasil’s particular river was peeled off of the main flow by many, many of the many nearby daggers cliffs. Erick suspected that this cavern had been here long before Yggdrasil came, but it had been expanded and changed in a lot of ways once Erick and his World Tree were planned to come here.

Temptation called Erick to explore Vibrant Falls, fully, but…

He’d have to come back this way, anyway, for some of the other requests. 

He recalled Ophiel and went back to the tunnels around the embassy, moving out further and further into the tunnels that surrounded this Stratagold outpost, toward the place outlined in the first of his monster kill requests. There were quite a lot of people down in this city, living their lives. The three main tunnels each held hundreds of homes and businesses.

And then Ophiel reached the Main Roads.

There was no way anyone could mistake the Main Road System for anything natural, though the system apparently, and quite often, did divert through natural caverns in the Underworld in order to make the system easier to manage. Those natural caverns were places like Vibrant Falls, which probably wasn’t all that natural, now that Erick was thinking about it. But this part of the Main Roads was very much not natural at all.

Five kilometers wide, half that tall, with an arching roof from one side to the other, the Main Road was a brightly lit tunnel that led off to the left, and off to the right. And it was absolutely filled with farmland. As far as Ophiel could see, and he could see pretty darn far, there were farms.

From his time in the embassy, Erick knew that the right path arced over the Geode of Stratagold for a hundred kilometers before it sloped back down and went on, continuing across the Underworld for a few hundred kilometers more before it left Stratagold’s influence. The same was true down the left path. Along both ways, various satellite cities and otherwise had carved out land from the side tunnels. Millions upon millions of people lived near Stratagold and all the surrounding lands.

Erick had no idea how that all worked out in practice, which was part of the reason why he was fulfilling these requests. The other reason was that people needed help.

All of Erick’s various requests for help came from people who lived in these lands, but the actual requests were for spaces far, far down the Main Roads, down those Side Roads, into lands which people ‘affectionately’ referred to as the fringe. Some of those Side Roads were like the lands around the embassy; filled with people. But some of those Side Roads led deeper into the Depths, into danger.

Erick experienced the transition from civilization to not, as Ophiel lightstepped past the final small garrison stretched across the edge of Stratagold’s protective sphere, stepping out into a land of desolation. Behind him was light and civilization. In front was darkness. The floor of the Main Road was cracked and pitted with the scars of massive spellwork, likely cast from the garrison below against whatever hordes of monsters had tried attacking. None of those theoretical monsters were there now, but Erick did notice one strong-looking iron wrought standing at the garrison, with his eyes locked on Ophiel's normal sunform. Erick would have switched him to invisible ultraviolet, but that would have alerted the wrought anyway once they started fluorescing.

He had already accidentally made that mistake over in Vibrant Falls, and wasn’t that embarrassing.

Whatever.

Moving right along, the lights of the Main Tunnel were maintained for a good ten kilometers past the final garrison, but past that, one was on their own. Dead lightpoles rose from the center of the tunnel like broken obelisks in the night. Something barked in the shadows, and then barked again. Something else moved in the dark, sending the barking monster into a frenzy of yips and yells. Horrible squelching noises followed. The death wasn’t that loud at all, sounding off with all the force of a [Force Bolt] spacking against a distant target, but Erick’s senses were wide open and he easily heard the gruesomeness.

He heard quite a few more killings in the dark as Ophiel, now transitioned to invisible ultraviolet sunform (even if it risked illuminating someone) slipped ahead, toward the distant targets.

A hundred kilometers later some lights began to reappear in the Main Tunnel. Another garrison was stationed across the 5 kilometer wide passage, where soldiers killed something lizard-like that was trying to crawl over the wall. Erick moved quickly enough that Ophiel’s light hopefully wouldn’t illuminate too many people, for the town beyond was Erick’s turn. Inside that space, a Side Road led off to the left, to a natural space—

Yup. This was the correct area.

A cavern, kilometers across, held a spherical stone building in the center, a kilometer across itself, that was chained by mundane means to the sides of the walls. The spherical building was an alchemy workshop of some baron who had a problem down one of these tunnels… this way...

Erick found the tunnel. It was the same as marked in the instructions; Tunnel Redvine.

Down the ways, to a land of herbs that were apparently some of the best there were for making Health Potions, there was another cavern, which led to another cavern, which—

Erick’s connection to Ophiel got a bit fuzzy so he sent out another Ophiel to bridge the gap between them. He continued.

The monster was a vine monster that Erick already had experience with. Changeling Vines. They were inside Ar’Kendrithyst, too. They were one of the rare intelligent monsters that didn’t always have cores. This one was a worse variant of the Carmine Vine from Treehome; it wasn’t trying and failing to reproduce, it simply replaced people with copies of itself that then went on to repeat the process. This one was a redvine in its base form, though, and since the massive cavern was absolutely filled with redvines, the creature was rather capable of hiding well. The baron couldn’t just torch the place, either, because magical herbs were not like food; you couldn’t [Grow] them, for they had to mature.

Inside the now-sealed-off cavern where the creature was hopefully contained, Erick cast an Imaging, searching for a Changeling Vine, wondering if he would get luck—

He got lucky. There were actually ten changeling vines in the area.

Erick killed them all with precision [Luminous Beam]s. Then, because the problem in the cavern was larger than what the baron thought it was, Erick moved on to the other caverns and did the same, erasing another 23 changeling vines. Then he went to the large spherical keep which housed the processing rooms and other alchemy stuff, as well as the head alchemist, who Erick was supposed to inform if he chose to undertake this quest.

The baron himself was back in the town.

Ophiel descended to the landing at the entrance to the sphere. The guards fired some spells at the strange entity, but [Animadversion] threw those spells wide. Erick’s demands to see someone in charge only made the guards try even more desperate spellwork, while one even tried a [Strike] with their spear.

Erick was a patient man, so he was willing to let people be scared for a little while. It wasn’t like their attacks were doing anything. But…

A separate Ophiel turned on [Physical Domain] and started speaking to the entire facility.

Someone in charge came out pretty fast after Erick started shaking the whole facility.

Erick frowned when he saw who had come out. The guy wore expensive looking robes with hands stained red. Not too unusual, but he was sweating blood, too, which was very suspect. And now, Erick started inspecting all the people around him a lot more closely. While he was doing this, Erick reported on what he had found and demanded access to the facility, for there were a lot more changeling vines than there should have been.

That’s when the red-sweat guy turned into a vine plant and tried attacking him. It was a pretty impressive transformation, if Erick was honest. His robes unfolded along with his arms and his bones and his ribcage, becoming vines and eyes and slashing thorns, filling up the entirety of the entrance platform as it tried to get at Ophiel. One spear guard unfolded into a changeling vine, too, but the other guard was just a normal dragonkin. Erick rescued the normal guard.

Erick studied the scene before him for half a second. These vine monsters were odd, because while there were some oddities among these people, their souls were normal in that they had no rads next to their hearts, where a monstrous soul was usually contained, and their bodies were normal without any vines anywhere. But then, at a shift, they were monsters. Their souls retreated to their cores and they attacked with vines made of controlled plant matter.

Erick killed the monsters that attacked him, of course, but he also demanded that one of them transform back. The monster in charge, possibly sensing the uselessness of further ‘attacking’, complied. Erick noticed something he did not notice before. The guy had no veins. Just arteries.

How strange! Erick hadn’t even considered looking for that. It was such a nuanced difference too, that Erick was sure no one else had noticed it. And then he killed the monster, even though it was pleading with him and promising to be good. These things were obligatory… Parasites? Mimics? Erick wasn’t sure. But he wasn’t going to let them infest other lands.

They didn’t have DNA like normal people, either. They were all changeling vines, which was easy enough to Image for. Armed with his new knowledge, Erick set the Imaging to a new target. After checking to ensure that, yes, this was going to work, and it was, Erick went to work.

He spent 20 minutes clearing out the whole place of Changeling Vines, most of which started to abandon the sphere once the future of their infestation became obvious. The other Ophiels stationed around the place caught the fleeing obligate mimics, with the Imaging proving their identities as either vines fleeing for their lives, or people fleeing for their lives. Whatever the case, everyone was fleeing for their lives.

Short bloody story made shorter: It got sorted.

Then Erick moved on to the town on the Main Road and found three vine-people there, as well as an incubation house on the outskirts of town. Baby changeling vines were growing in soil made of bones and rotten flesh.

Simultaneously, Erick spoke to the wrought at the garrison in town, ensuring that everyone knew what he was doing and why he was doing it. By the time reinforcements from Stratagold showed, Erick had already cleared the entire place.

The commanding wrought officer politely thanked Erick, then rapidly went about cleaning up the mess Erick had made.

The baron of the town, who had sent Erick the request for assistance, loudly thanked Erick, but most of his words were reserved for the various people who had failed to realize what was going on under their noses. According to what Erick was seeing, the baron and the commanding wrought had some issues, with the wrought saying that this wouldn’t have happened if they allowed them into the redvine caverns, and the baron saying that they purposefully didn’t help at the alchemy sphere, but none of that was Erick’s problem.

He moved on.

- - - -

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 had cleared out 29 requests for assistance (with 3 monster requests being more so the issuers could get in touch with him, than for any real need), realized that while his fears of being found out as a Wizard were real, but allies could still be had, and 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 ever 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’. 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. 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 and 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 <2> times. For plants, this spell will stack <4> 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 bitty 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 it 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 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.