The Forest was physically rather nice this time of year. The air was cool. Here, where Erick stood, the sun was simply warm instead of cold or burning hot like it was in other places. The sky was clear and blue, and the rain had ended an hour ago. The Restful River flowed in front of Erick like a deep, dark blue ribbon inlaid across the green and rocky Forest floor. The river ran rather fast here, about 120 kilometers northwest of Treehome. Dark blue waters seemed to zip across the Surface of Veird, only showing their speed in the constant surf at the river’s edge where water crested over fallen logs trapped between the flow and orcol-sized boulders.

“This is a rather average point of the halfway-tamed Restful River. Most of it looks like this,” Syllea said, walking along the rocky beach-like riverbank meters from the actual river. Erick walked at her side, looking all around. Syllea wasn’t looking directly at him, though, she was looking at Yggdrasil’s floating eye atop Erick’s shoulder. Yggdrasil didn’t seem too interested. Syllea tried, “We’ve got a fourth location to check out, if you desire?”

Poi, Tasar, and thankfully, Kromolok, had joined Erick on his trip to Treehome. The first two came because of course they came. Kromolok came because Erick asked for a Font to help him plant Yggdrasil in a new location, here by Treehome, and the Inquisitor of Rozeta decided to personally fulfill that request. Erick was glad for that, for aside from Tasar, Kromolok’s presence gave him some much-needed physical proof of his alliance with the wrought, and with Rozeta.

They had all met with Syllea and Bayth, and two chieftains of Treehome about two hours ago, on what might have become Yggdrasil’s planting spot. Only two chieftains, though, out of 12. Peron Wyrmrest, and Yura O’kabil. They looked exactly as Erick remembered, with Peron being an old man in a green robe dotted with white gems, like stars, while Yura wore silver robes with white fur linings.

Syllea knew Tasar, of course, so that had been a business-as-usual introduction. Peron and Yura knew of her, though, so that was a bit bigger of an event. None of the people from Treehome had ever met Kromolok before, but they certainly knew of the Inquisitors of Rozeta. That particular meeting had been an event that Kromolok handled well.

And then Erick and Treehome got to talking shop.

That conversation was just a repeat and solidification of the groundwork which Syllea had already laid. At that time, Erick had debated bringing up the prognostication battle Teressa had fought against them, but he decided to let it go. Yggdrasil had heard all of the conversation Erick had had with Poi the day before, but when Erick asked the big guy about it, Yggdrasil didn’t really have any thoughts on the matter. So Erick backed away from that topic, too, letting Yggdrasil be a kid for however long that would last.

After the meeting with Syllea, Peron, and Yura, Yggdrasil’s [Scry] eye came forward, and so did the [Scry] eyes of the Arbors. Erick had expected them to appear in their avatar forms, but they were obviously greeting Yggdrasil at his own level. The avatar forms would come later.

In a situation that was exactly like a bunch of adults greeting a child, but with a brief moment for the Arbors to pay their respects to Kromolok, Erick introduced every single Arbor to Yggdrasil, through their [Scry] eyes, and through mappings and images. Yggdrasil would know where each Arbor was located, and how to locate them himself, so he could [Scry] them whenever he wanted, and so they could know his [Scry] eye when he came calling.

And now their whole group was here, looking at riverbank sites. The Arbors of Treehome had joined Erick and everyone else, of course, continuing to follow along as [Scry] eyes.

Yggdrasil didn’t like the first planting site, which was 75 kilometers down the river from Treehome. That first spot had been a wide expanse of water where the river bunched up, right before it started running again. It wasn’t deep enough. Yggdrasil could easily turn that shallow lake into a deep lake, though. The Arbors even told him as much. But, no, Yggdrasil wanted to see the other options.

The second site was better, located 95 kilometers downstream, where a tributary that ran across a large swath of the Forest met up with the Restful River. A lot of the rarer monster fish truly started to appear in the depths of those blue waters. It was too well fished, though, with a great big fishery located just upstream of the waterways, and Yggdrasil did not want to disturb the people already there. No one spoke out against his choice, though this was the spot that Treehome had truly hoped that Yggdrasil would pick. With a few strategic dams, this land would make for a great lake.

This third site was located 10 kilometers beyond the real edge of the Forest, where only the powerful or the crazy deigned to tread and some of the tallest trees began to rise a good kilometer into the air. The trees weren’t that large directly near the Restful River, for people did occasionally come down this far to fish and those intrepid fishermen had beaten back the Forest for generations upon generations. If Yggdrasil were to choose this spot then he would be directly competing against the Forest for land space. That didn’t seem to disturb Yggdrasil though, for he had heard stories of the Forest from Erick.

Erick got the impression that Yggdrasil wanted to try living on the edge.

The small stones of the riverbank shifted under Erick’s feet as he walked forward, Yggdrasil’s iridescent white [Scry] eye floating at his side. The big guy would occasionally dart away to see some site, and come back rather quickly after a brief investigation. Erick recognized that behavior as rather normal ‘hiding from the terrors by running to his father’. Yggdrasil was doing that a lot.

But at least he was rushing out there in the first place.

Erick said, “I’ll still be there with you at Candlepoint, Yggdrasil, and I’m going to be around for a long time besides that. Anywhere you pick is a good choice.”

Yggdrasil eyed him a bit, then decided to go back to exploring. Instead of coming right back, though, he continued to explore, rapidly vanishing into the depths of the Forest, out of sight. Erick smiled at that, and he smiled again as the [Scry] eyes of the other Arbors glanced around, wondering when Yggdrasil would be back. When it became apparent that Yggdrasil was not coming right back the Arbors, like a flock of birds disturbed, rapidly disappeared into the Forest to go looking for the kid.

When they were all fully out of sight, Erick thought out loud, “And now it’s just us small people again.” As Ophiel killed a monster just out of sight with a flashing zap of [Fulmination Aura], he added, “And the monsters, I suppose.”

Chieftain Yura said, “I have never had quite this easy of a stroll through the Forest.” She hiked her silver robes of office up as she stepped over a larger rock, saying, “It’s a nice walk this time of year, before winter.”

Peron said, “The last time I went for a walk around here it was more like a fighting retreat. And that was thirty years ago.” Without the slightest hint of displeasure, he sounded rather amazed as he added, “I suppose this is the power of a Wizard.”

“I can certainly do a lot, but Kiri could do this same thing,” Erick said. “Syllea and Tasar could as well, of course.”

Syllea laughed a little. “I would have to level this place to do what you’re doing right now.”

“There is a lot of power in precision.” Tasar said, “Spotting and killing monsters out of sight and out of mind is quite a power.”

Erick shrugged. “It’s just—”

Yggdrasil’s iridescent eye came floating out of the Forest on the other side of the river. He had somehow gotten on the other side without Erick looking, but the other Arbors had followed him, for they came out of that side of the Forest, too.

Yggdrasil sailed across the rushing water, his voice loud and clear, but only to Erick, ‘I want to be here, Father!’

Erick stopped walking. “Here?” He gestured to the otherwise unassuming lands filled with monsters, deep water, and distant, tall trees. “Right here?”

Their whole party stopped, and they rapidly caught on to what was happening. The chieftains grinned, ready to see Yggdrasil grow tall. Erick suspected that the chieftains were ready to leave the Forest, too, for they were currently reliant on others for their safety, and they were walking alongside a known Wizard. Everyone else was actually rather comfortable trudging along in this part of the Forest. Poi trusted Erick enough to not worry about getting left behind, or anything like that, while Tasar, Syllea, and Kromolok were all powers in their own right. To a lesser extent, even Bayth was comfortable in these ‘deep’ woods.

Yggdrasil’s eye bobbed up and down; ‘Yes, here!’

“Okay!” Erick asked, “In the water? On the beach? In the Forest a bit?”

Yggdrasil moved out into the river and Erick had an Ophiel follow. Yggdrasil stopped in the middle of the deep, rushing water, and Erick knew that that was the place.

Erick said, “We’ll relocate a bit and I will plant you here, Yggdrasil.”

A handful of [Teleport]s later, or in Erick’s case a Benevolence step, and the group had repositioned to a rocky prominence five kilometers upstream. The river twisted past the trees to the northwest, vanishing behind a few curves of coastline, but Erick still saw the planting location through Ophiel. Some of the Arbor [Scry] eyes remained there to watch from ground zero, but most reappeared closer to Erick. The eyes of Arbor Holy O’kabil and Wyrmrest repositioned to be by their chieftains.

Yggdrasil did not reposition, though.

In that moment, Erick considered putting up a [Hasted Shelter] and talking to Peron and Yura about the prognostication battle. It had not been the first time he had considered broaching that topic.

But.

No.

Yet again, Erick decided against that.

He turned to Kromolok, asking, “Ready?”

“I’m ready when you are,” Kromolok said, as he placed a hand on Erick’s shoulder to prepare to channel mana. ‘And you don’t have to worry about them and that prognostication battle. I already spoke with them.’

‘Ah… Okay.’

Peron did not look any different; no shame, or remorse, or anything. Erick wondered when, exactly, Kromolok had had a talk with the man, but it had to have been after Erick had invited Kromolok to the meeting. Yura looked similar to Peron, but perhaps there was some remorse there. Whatever the case, this trepidation of Erick’s was unhealthy. It was one thing to worry about a nebulous threat, and another to worry about a specific threat.

Erick wasn’t sure which type of threat he disliked more.

Anyway. He needed to implement some anti-abuse protocols for Benevolence prognostication when he got back to the House. For now, though, he got on with it. Erick reached through Ophiel, targeted a part of the riverbed 5 kilometers away from his own body, and cast.

The Forest rumbled as though a mountain had descended, breaking everything.

Erick had never cast Yggdrasil so close to the land and he briefly wondered if he had fucked up a great deal.

The ground shook, buckling upward and down as mana flowed out of Erick, into some other place, into Yggdrasil. The river crashed upward. Kromolok funneled power into Erick, and that was necessary, for sure, but Erick had gained double the base Mana which he used to have. He was actually able to see Yggdrasil’s eruption without blacking out this time.

White lightning coalesced out of the distant Forest, rising above the green like frost spreading over a lake, seemingly growing fast enough and large enough that one could easily think that the ‘explosion’ would reach all the way here; that Yggdrasil’s growth would encompass the entire world.

One day, the big guy probably would.

Dragon-sized roots crashed to the right of Erick’s party, ripping into the Forest and throwing the land upward mere seconds before the exact same thing happened on the left. Roots danced through the rushing river, winding up and down, briefly reminding Erick of Rozeta twisting through clouds; solid stone and rushing water proved about as effective as impeding Yggdrasil’s as clouds did to the Dragon Goddess of the Script.

The rocky prominence underfoot began to tilt a little.

Somewhere between one glance and the next, Peron vanished. Erick was pretty sure he had [Teleport]ed away, but then he came right back, only missing his footing a little bit. He did not fall, though. No one fell, even when the rock underfoot tilted even further left.

Peron was probably the only one looking down at the ground, worried about his footing and about falling into the roots all around, but even he looked up when the blue sky turned to white and green, with rainbows all around. Yggdrasil stretched overhead like a cloud of color manifesting, and then solidifying. A minute after Erick cast, Yggdrasil finally stopped pulling at his mana.

Kromolok took his hand away, smiling a little as he looked up, saying, “I think he’s gotten bigger.”

“He is.” Erick said, “Every single day—”

A lightning flash of gold fire ripped through Erick’s chest, echoing through his Benevolence-lightning filled mana veins, crashing back into his core. And then the moment passed. Gold fire settled back into a net across Erick’s core, and Yggdrasil’s maximum number of summons increased from 5, to 6.

Erick breathed a bit.

It hadn’t been that bad this time—

A great big iridescent eye popped into existence just ahead and Yggdrasil’s voice carried on the wind, “Hello, Father! I am here now!”

It was kinda funny to see Peron panic a little, and to see Yura gasp, and to witness all the other small reactions all around.

Erick smiled as he said, “Hello, Yggdrasil. Welcome to Treehome!”

“I have already widened the river! Come see!”

Erick conjured his [Teleporting Platform] and walked onto it, saying, “I suppose I will, then! Anyone else want to come?”

“Of course!” Kromolok said, joining Erick.

Soon, like a bunch of adults going to see what the kid was up to, everyone was on Erick’s Platform. He flew them all toward Yggdrasil’s trunk which rose in the distance like a white pillar-mountain. The sky was a lightning storm of branches wreathed in green clouds of leaves, shining through with rainbow sunlight.

Yggdrasil towered over the kilometer tall trees of the Forest, bathing the world in light.

The rest of the meeting went rather smoothly, with Yggdrasil asking questions about how to move the land, and Erick showing him a few tricks with [Stoneshape]. Thanks to the big guy’s size modifiers, the normally Large spell effectively became a Super Large Area manifestation of will, shoving the ground of the Forest down, while simultaneously lifting up (comparatively) smaller trees here and there, breaking them.

This actually led to Yggdrasil freezing and almost crying, for he had never broken something else that he wasn’t trying to break. Erick consoled the big guy for a little while, telling him that he could fix it all with some of his weather control and rain, but not to do that right now. He would have continued to help Yggdrasil sort through that trauma, but he had done enough to dry the big guy’s tears, and he could tell that the other Arbors really, really wanted to step in. They refrained from butting in until after Yggdrasil stopped worrying and Erick stopped talking, though.

And then they began to talk to Yggdrasil about all sorts of things. About how to move around dirt and stone so that no one got hurt. About the various types of stone and what they meant for supporting life, and structures above them. How to manage a watershed and how to control springs in your area so that water only came up where you wanted it to spring forth. About how to join the Arbor [Telepathy] group.

With emotions running brighter, Yggdrasil began to get the hang of [Stoneshape]. Erick was worried that Yggdrasil had forgotten all of their own lessons with that magic, but that worry vanished when Yggdrasil loudly declared that he remembered talking about this with his father, and that he had just forgotten. Erick proudly watched as Yggdrasil’s iridescent white eye flew around, followed or led by 12 other [Scry] eyes of various colors and sizes.

Yggdrasil was in good hands—

Er.

Branches.

Erick sighed a little, then said, “So that’s that, for now. Thank you, Yura, Peron, Syllea. Please let the Arbors know that I am thankful for their instruction, too.”

Yura smiled brightly, saying, “Arbor O’kabil is still thankful for the record player you made for her. Have you had any luck making any new designs?”

“I’ll be making a lot of new, useful things as soon as I can get around to them.” Erick said, “I’ve been rather busy, though.”

Yura smiled, knowing some of the difficulty that came with running a nation. “I can only imagine how difficult it must be to make a nation from scratch. Here at Treehome, we—” She glanced upward.

Holy O’kabil’s [Scry] eye, which was a misty thing wreathed in frost and fur, zipped down from the sky, alongside the vine-trailing [Scry] eye of Arbor Nosier. Both of them were giggling, having just come from Yggdrasil’s own [Scry] eye, still high up there.

A massive swath of the Forest between Erick and Yggdrasil’s trunk simply vanished, revealing a stretch of water that hadn’t been there until now. Before Erick could wonder what had happened—

O’kabil happily said, “Your child is fantastic, Erick! He’s ‘blipping’ around the Forest to carve a space for himself!”

“A wonderful little shorthand; that term ‘blipping’!” Nosier joyfully said. “Thank you, Erick! Thank you for bringing him here.”

Erick felt his heart swell at the bare happiness in their voices. And yet, Erick knew he needed to remain a little bit serious right now, so he said, “I know you’ll treat him right, and show him things I never could. I’m glad I was able to bring him here.”

O’kabil tried to turn a bit serious, too, but she still could not keep the mirth out of her voice. “Please do not hesitate to question us, for I am sure we will be asking questions of Yggdrasil and answering his questions in turn. We’ll take good care of him, as I am sure you will, too.” She added, “I have to say, I was worried about the seal upon him, but this probably is for the best. There is nothing wrong with going slow.”

Erick stood a bit straighter. “Thank you for the trust, O’kabil.”

Nosier spoke a bit seriously, too, as he said, “You might want to think about breaking that seal in the next ten years, though. He will become independent even if you don’t wish him to be.”

Erick had been prepared for that sort of admonishment, so he said, “When the time comes to consider separation, I will.”

It was Nosier’s turn to be surprised. O’kabil’s [Scry] eye simply looked vindicated, though; smug, possibly. Erick wasn’t sure how he could tell as much from a free-floating eyeball, but the smugness was rather evident for all to see.

Nosier turned a bit contrite, saying, “It would probably be a bad idea to break such a seal while we’re still worried about Melemizargo’s sanity, though.”

Erick smiled. “Yes. That is the main concern, there. The Darkness seems to be doing a lot less than he normally does, though, so that has been good for us all.”

“I’m still worried about that soul slime’s Truth.” O’kabil asked, “Have you heard anything about that?”

“I have not.” Erick said, “I’m sure that when Melemizargo wants the world to know what he is doing with that, he will simply show us.”

There was a collective breath across the Platform of varying severity; the only ones who didn’t react were Kromolok and Poi.

Softly, O’kabil said, “Well that’s enough doom and darkness for the day.” She succinctly said, “Yggdrasil is wonderful. We love him already. Please build a house here soon, and drop by the hotel whenever you wish! —Ah. But also please inform us when you wish to drop by, first. I want to treat you to a proper feast. We all do, really— Ah!” Her eye briefly turned toward the sky, and then back. “It was wonderful seeing you again. I must attend to Yggdrasil.”

Erick smiled. “And I must get back to Candlepoint. Busy busy!”

O’kabil and Nosier both nodded then their [Scry] eyes rushed upward, trying to find Yggdrasil again—

Yggdrasil was easy enough to find, for he was like a large, iridescent orb surrounded by a cloud of [Scry] eyes from the other Arbors, flying against the backdrop of a world of green fire and solid white lightning. O’kabil and Nosier raced after him to rejoin the flock. Erick wished them well.

And then Erick turned his attention back to his immediate surroundings.

Peron ceremoniously said, “I wish you well with your kingdom creation.”

Erick responded, “And I wish you well with your expansion of Treehome.”

Peron said, “The lands between Yggdrasil and Treehome will be undergoing a transformation, but Yggdrasil’s lands remain his lands. We will abide by the agreements struck.”

“And so shall I,” Erick answered.

And with that, the planting of Yggdrasil at Treehome was done. There were a few small words afterward, but they were mostly between Erick and Syllea.

“So where’s Tenebrae? Is he still a part of the Enclave, now?” Erick asked.

Syllea smiled, saying, “I don’t know! He’s off doing whatever, right now. He did tell me that if you asked, to tell you that he would be coming by eventually, to thank you properly.”

“Then I look forward to that eventuality.”

A few more words later and Syllea took the chieftains back to Treehome, while Erick [Gate]d Kromolok back to Stratagold. Erick opened up another [Gate] to Candlepoint, and he, Tasar, and Poi, went back to House Benevolence.

- - - -

Erick would have gone on to meet with Aisha, who was inside the Benevolence research center while some of her people were at the new Benevolence dungeon, but Zolan was right there, informing Erick that there were some necessary meetings. Four of them, actually. The first was with the Wayfarer’s Guild, which would be a rehash of previous meetings and more denials of [Gate]s. The next big meeting was with Silverite, from Spur. She was officially asking for a [Gate]. That meeting was potentially the only meeting Erick actually looked forward to. Then there was a meeting with the Cooking Guilds of Nelboor, which might be a pleasant surprise, or utterly terrible. Erick wanted good food for House Benevolence, and some freshly reincarnated 9 star Cooks would be great. Good food brought a community together like few other things could, and House Benevolence did not have any good food yet.

And then there was one more meeting.

Portal.

The Pearl Kingdom had finally come calling, and so, it was time to answer that call. It was probably going to be awful.

A part of Erick wanted to ask Silverite to join him in that meeting for the Mayor of Spur knew everything there was to know regarding the Pearl Kingdom, and their noble houses, but, no. Erick could wade into that cesspool himself. If he couldn’t, then that boded badly for the rest of his plans with House Benevolence.

As Erick walked down the hallway to his meeting with the Wayfarer’s Guild, he glanced through Yggdrasil to see what the big guy was up to. Yggdrasil seemed to be having fun playing in the water and transforming the land, while simultaneously talking to every Arbor of Treehome. Erick barely caught any of those conversations, for he was only partially submerged into Yggdrasil’s consciousness, but Erick knew that if he focused, he could hear what the Arbors were telling his kid. He did not focus. He let it be. Erick brought his attention back to the moment, back to listening to Zolan at his side, and toward the upcoming meeting.

It was odd not having Yggdrasil’s eye on his left shoulder, but it was what it was. Ophiel still twittered happily on Erick’s right shoulder, and that would be enough for now.

Zolan asked, “What are your thoughts on the flat-rate versus value-rate shipping debate? Any changes?”

“Illoya gave me a report on that. One moment.” With a quick benevolent-step of an Ophiel, Erick had that report in his hands. Ten steps and several seconds later, and with a bit of flipping back and forth, Erick had read the report. “Having a flat-rate shipping cost increases the threat of restricted goods flowing through the Network, since there is no need to actually investigate most normal shipments when the price is flat. You don’t even need a proper mana sense capable person to administer those ports of shipping.

“The Underworld chooses the value-rate tax option for this very reason, in order to inspect every single shipment. This increases bureaucracy and time loss at each port, while minimally increasing costs in order to pay for that bureaucracy and personnel. It is not a bad thing to go slower, in some ways, but we’re not about going slow here at this Gate Network.

“True, we would require more mana sense people if we want to keep down the shipment of restricted goods, and the training of mana sense is generally considered a risk; like training people to use magic properly. But we’re going to be doing that anyway. That is one of my goals here; to increase the number of people who know how to do magic properly. We’re going to have a really good magic school here, Zolan.

“But we’re small, for now.

“I don’t want to do the thorough inspections of the Underworld. There will, of course, be spot inspections to weed out things like soul-shipments and slave trades and bombs and such. But it’s not like we need prognostication-level mana sensors at every single Gate, or tearing into the shipments to visually inspect them like they usually do down in the Underworld.

“With all that said, know this: I want to eventually switch to a flat rate everywhere, both in the Underworld and on the Surface, but not without proper security measures in place, first.” Erick digressed, “Of course, the Wayfarer’s already have a lot of mana sense capable people in their employ, so… I’m really just dragging my feet on setting up a smaller network for their exclusive use.”

“Still good to know our strategy going forward.” Zolan asked, “So shall we [Force Wall] the Wayfarer’s? Or acquiesce to a smaller request?”

“… Spur is likely to get a Gate, so…” Erick said, “It’s time. Yes. We can put up some Gates for the Wayfarer’s first, but these gates are currently 1.5 million gold in material costs. If they want to wait till I figure out how to make iron work as well as platinum it might be a while, but that will certainly be cheaper for them. If they choose to go ahead, then we can roll out a Local Area Gate Network for the Wayfarer’s for the Crystal Forest. It’s not many places, anyway. Spur, Vindin, Outpost, Kal’Duresh, Frontier… Hmm. Maybe not Frontier?” Erick changed his mind. “We’ll play it by ear, Zolan. Try to get them not to agree, though. I don’t think we’re actually ready.”

Zolan nodded.

They walked into the Wayfarer’s Guild meeting together, with Tasar and Poi following behind.

- - - -

Erick left the meeting with the Wayfarer’s Guild in high spirits. The Wayfarer’s had decided to wait and see if Erick could ‘turn iron into platinum’. Erick had almost told them that he could probably do that right now, but it seemed like a bad idea to go messing around with transmutation. So he played off their words in the matter it was intended; to make iron work as well as platinum for enchanting purposes.

And now, he was headed into what might be a really good meeting with Silverite.

Erick swung open the door into the seating room and smiled as he spotted Silverite sitting by the window. “Hello again! Welcome to House Benevolence!”

Silverite rose from her seat and returned his smile, saying. “I like Gate Road. Very organized.” She asked, “How much to get me one of those Gates down there?”

Erick fully entered the room. Zolan, Poi, and Tasar filed in behind him. Silverite had brought along her yellowscale secretary, Hera, who stood behind her. They had been talking with one of Zolan’s secretaries, but now it was time for the meeting. Hera stepped away from Silverite to stand by the wall. Zolan’s secretary stepped away to stand by the opposite wall, to stand beside Tasar and Poi.

This room was rather nicely appointed, with the secretary having already handed out tea and cookies for while Silverite waited. The room oversaw the Gate Road, Stratagold’s space, and the Wayfarer’s Guild’s, on the west of the House. It was one of the better meeting rooms, with a clear view of what Erick was trying to build here.

Erick took a seat at the large couch across from Silverite’s own couch, putting on his negotiating-face as he said, “It’s about 1.5 million gold for a Gate, for material costs. Stratagold is subsidizing a few locations, which will eventually include Songli and other places on Gate Road, but Local Area Gate Networks will not qualify for Stratagold’s largesse. You will, of course, have to pay the usual rates, which we’re pretty sure is going to be a flat-rate situation; per tonnage, or per person. We’ve just decided that, actually.” He added, “Unless House Benevolence’s partners in the Underworld give us sufficient reason to go for a value-rate shipping cost, I doubt we will be doing that.”

Zolan set down some paperwork onto the table in front of Erick, where Silverite could easily reach and read them, then he stood to the side, waiting for orders, or to assist.

“I’m glad to see you’re back to your usual negotiating self, Erick.” Silverite donned her own negotiating-mask as she sat down across from Erick. “I feel that Spur has given you a lot already. We should get one of these Gates for free, as well as a year without taxes; flat-rate or cost-rate, or any other rate you can think of. Maybe even two Gates for free.”

Erick tried not to smile, as he said, “The price for a ‘Gate’ is for two of them; one at each side. And I have to support my own town now, Silverite. My money is already being used up so I can’t buy the Gate materials for you. If I did that for too many people I might be broke inside a year.” He added, “If, however, you want to wait until I can figure out how to make iron runic webs that don’t rust and are as good as platinum, then the initial costs will go down quite a lot. The flat-rate costs for shipments will remain in either scenario, though.”

Silverite asked, “And what happens if we buy a pair of Gates out of platinum and you start making them out of iron? Do we get a refund?”

“It’s the same thing that happens whenever anyone buys magical items and those items break; that money is simply gone.” Erick said, “No refunds.”

Silverite narrowed her eyes. “We’ll keep the Gates we purchased and the raw materials that went into making them.”

“The Gates will be proprietary information; they are mine, even if you do buy them.”

She asked after rates. Erick answered.

They bargained.

Half an hour later, Silverite and Erick parted ways amicably, and with plans made for the future.

Spur would be getting a Gate between Spur and the Financial District, which was a to-be-planned part of the Gate District. Their pair of Gates would cost them 250,000 gold and come with a flat rate fee of 1 gold per ton, and 1 gold per person. Spur could add on whatever other rates they wanted on top of those use-prices, but those use-prices were what Erick would get from travel through those Gates.

Those rates were rather experimental, but they were an order of magnitude smaller than the going rates for [Teleport] services on the Surface, and much lower than Erick’s initial pitch to Silverite. There was a lot of math involved in those rates, which Erick had been reading about for the last month, but most recently in Iloya’s report.

Candlepoint was 4 [Teleport]s away from Spur, and the cheapest going rate for [Teleport]s was 1 gold per blip, for just the caster to move once, in addition to 50 silver per ton or per extra person; half a gold. Blipping across the Crystal Forest was more expensive, because this land was not tamed, and it was therefore a danger to blip out in the open.

But still, the cheapest average cost of one blip was therefore 1.5 gold, at minimum, for carrying anything. A trip from Candlepoint to Spur, with a cargo of ten tons, came out to be 66 gold, since Candlepoint was 4 blips away from Spur.

Such a trip would cost the caster 5,500 mana with an un{Favored} [Teleport], or 2,750 mana for a {Favored} [Teleport], not to mention all the other spells they would have to be running in order to touch and transport all those goods. [Teleport] had a restriction of how many <hands> a person had, after all, so a normal mage would need to be running some sort of Elemental Body or, more realistically, a [Teleporting Platform] in order to move so many goods. Elemental Bodies and [Teleport Platform]s required a great deal of initial investment in the caster, and therefore the costs went up.

Wayfarers, though, were a Class and an organization of the same name with special options to make [Teleport] easier to use, and to go further.

Assuming a normal Wayfarer caster with Scion of Willpower (normal) for 4x Mana, and a Class that gave them a few more Abilities on top of that for even more resources, this meant that they would have around 12,000 Mana, and probably something like 15% mana costs for stuff like [Teleport]. They’d probably only have around 25 Focus, though, which would translate into 1,500 Mana Regen while at Rest.

Such a theoretical shipper would be able to move 10 tons of goods (and themselves) between Spur and Candlepoint about 12 times before they would need to Rest (8 for a non-Wayfarer with most of the same capabilities). And then they could do it again the next day. That’d be about 120 tons of goods shipped total, per day, and that’s not even getting into the nuances of only shipping goods in one direction, or having a route where goods got shipped between a dozen places in a ‘traveling salesman’ type of scenario.

120 tons might seem like a lot for one porter to ship, but it really wasn’t when considering cities of hundreds of thousands of people, each with their own needs and schedules. 120 tons shipped per day, per Wayfarer, was just the maximum capacity. The average amount was less than that.

But back to the math: Those 12 trips, each of which were 4 blips of 10 tons per blip at .5 gold per ton, plus 1 gold per blip per Wayfarer, came out to a shipper cost of 288 gold to move their goods across the Surface between Spur and Candlepoint.

Erick’s Gate between Spur and Candlepoint was a game changer,

At Erick’s Gate costs of 1 gold per ton and 1 gold per person, 120 tons of goods meant a cost of 120 gold, plus the cost of whoever came through the Gate with the goods.

And! If Spur wanted to move goods between them and Stratagold?

Now those were some savings. That sort of transaction would include traveling rates for the Spur Gate, as well as rates for the Stratagold Gate, but even still, it was much, much cheaper than literally any other shipping path on the planet. Such a savings would happen between Spur and every other city here in the Gate District. Erick wasn’t even really putting the Wayfarer’s out of jobs, either, because ‘last-[Teleport] services’ were still very necessary, even in a world with a Gate Network.

Therefore, the rates Erick proposed were quite reasonable even if the Gate cost itself, of 250,000 gold, was inflated, because Erick would be [Duplicate]ing the platinum for that runic web and it would cost him nothing.

Oh well. The lie of him not having [Duplicate] would have to stand for many, many centuries, Erick suspected.

At the end of the meeting Erick wondered how large of a reaction he would get from Portal if he offered them the same thing…

But he wouldn’t do that. Portal would get something much less generous. Erick wasn’t quite sure how much worse it would be, so he pulled Zolan and a few others of the Castellan office aside and had a small talk about numbers and rates. There was time. Eventually, though, that discussion ended as the next appointment loomed.

Zolan was excited.

Erick was too, actually.

- - - -

The Cooking Guilds of Nelboor were a strictly enforced guild system that primarily took place in Nelboor, as their name suggested, but they were more of an international organization in a lot of ways. They were no Wayfarer’s Guild, for sure. They were a lot smaller than the Big Two of the Adventurer’s Guild and the Mage Guild. But they did well. Erick thought of these next people sort of like he thought of the Michelin Guide system from Earth.

The Cooking Guilds of Nelboor might have started off as an Adventurer’s Guild guide on the best places to eat in all of Nelboor, if you can get in without starting a war, but they had transitioned into their own thing. They still kept the star ranking system, though, but instead of using it to rank threats, they used it to rank what sort of war could start if the ranked cooking location and its people would be destroyed.

“The ranking system is rather inflated these days,” said Hoga Kikaku, one of the Cooking Guilds representatives. He was an older human man in his 70s, but still solid for any age. He was from the Northern Provinces part of the Guilds and he wore a sharp red and black robe. “We have had a few war scares with a newly-baked 10 Star Cook here and there in the last fifty years, but that’s why we have the Lists. It’s why we ensure that every real Cook gets an assignment before they leave our schools, to prevent the other way in which wars have started; over a promising new Cook.”

“And that’s the crux of the issue, Wizard Flatt,” said Yotaro Tamon, the other representative from the Cooking Guilds. He was a rather plump demi man who wore yellow and orange robes. He was from the Songli Region of the Guilds. “This land is untamed and untested, and you are a known Wizard. We cannot grant you a place on the lists for these reasons.”

Erick decided to cut through days of negotiations, getting right to the heart of the matter; directly to what Hoga and Yotaro wanted to hear. “I’ll take some retired Cooks, give them [Reincarnation]s, and take their oath of service for 10 years. They will be paid the normal going rates and granted housing here in the House, or wherever else they wish to live in Candlepoint.”

Hoga and Yotaro both went a little still, both of them trying not to show too much emotion. They were like open books, anyway. Happy, excited, mad that they had been seen through this easily. Both of them were ready to jump at the opportunity themselves but they both pulled back for any number of reasons. Propriety, probably. The two Cooks from Nelboor shared a small, furtive glance, then they looked to Erick. They had prepared for this, but they did not expect it to come about so easily, or with so many benefits.

When neither of the men spoke, Erick continued, “My goal is twofold. I want anyone to be able to go into a restaurant here in the House, or even in Candlepoint, and have world class food, of any kind they wish to order. On a smaller scale, I might desire a personal Cook, though that will be a more rigorous interview than this one here. And just so you know, all fees regarding Gate travel will be waived for anyone who works here. A Cook who works here will be able to get ingredients from literally the entire world; as easy as stepping through a Gate and finding a local market. I also plan on power leveling anyone who chooses this option, though my Enforcement branch will be the people who actually do that; I will not be doing that myself.”

The deal just got better and better for them.

When Erick stopped talking, Hoga instantly began, “We have a small list of Cooks who desire such an offer—”

“With more of them reaching out each day!” Yotaro added, breaking decorum with his obvious enthusiasm.

Yotaro briefly realized he had fucked up in some way, showing their cards. Erick didn’t care about that, though. Hoga nodded slowly, trying to regain control of the situation, while Yotaro tried not to recoil too much.

Hoga continued, “We have lists of Cooks who desire your offer, and lists of Cooks who we suspect will appreciate your offer, but who have not contacted us yet. Let us go over the first list, of those who desire an arrangement to be made for a cast of [Reincarnation]?”

Erick gestured to Zolan, who stood at his side, “Zolan is my Castellan, who will be dealing the most with whoever comes from your Guild. Therefore, he will join this talk now.”

Zolan sat down and grinned a little. “It’s good to see you again, Hoga. Yotaro.”

“Greetings, Zolan,” Hoga said, finally able to talk to Zolan. The two of them knew each other from previous dealings at Oceanside, but that had happened decades ago. Hoga was still glad to finally be able to acknowledge Zolan, though. “You are looking rather different these days.”

“Perk of the job.” Zolan got right into it, asking, “Is Atalle on that list?”

Yotaro gave a little sigh, though it was more of relief than anything else. “Good to see you haven’t changed.”

Yotaro had known of Zolan, too, but their professional relationship had been less than wonderful; Erick could tell.

“Atalle Slipstream is on the list.” Hoga said, “Along with others.”

Zolan said to Erick, “Atalle retired from cooking professionally on Oceanside fifteen years ago and has been [Force Platform]ing around in the classroom, trying to teach others how to cook as well as she could cook. Her apprentices are great, but she’s the real deal; a 10 star Cook.”

“Then we’re taking Atalle,” Erick said, and then he let Zolan take over.

Zolan did so, smiling as he said, “Continue with the list.”

The conversation took less than an hour. In the following week, Erick would gain 11 world class Cooks between star 7 and 9, along with the 10 star Cook Atalle Slipstream. All of them had various focuses, from breakfast foods to general foods, to cooking in the Nelboor style, to the Greensoil way, and so on and so forth. Erick expected the House to gain many different eatery options in the coming month.

Food was great for a sense of community, and Erick was certainly building a community here.

After the meeting Zolan was through-the-roof excited, talking about various dishes that he hadn’t been able to eat in decades. His excitement was infectious, for sure.

Erick was glad.

And then it was time to have the meeting with Portal.

- - - -

Erick entered the room with Zolan at his side and Poi and Tasar behind him.

Two people waited for them inside the room. Lower Trademaster Rohi Wavefield, and Upper Trademaster Sarai Masterson.

Rohi was an older human man with grey hair and beard, with weathered skin like he had spent his whole life out on the ocean. He wore loose pants and a loose shirt that showed off his wiry grey chest hair and his aged, yet muscular body. Erick thought of him as a sailor who had been forced to gussy up and still didn’t know how to do it very well. The guy seemed new to his job. This made sense, since Rohi had been the one to replace Caradogh Pogi as the Lower Trademaster of Portal just last year. Rohi was the new organizer of non-magical goods which flowed through the Pearl Kingdom.

The other person in the room was a younger human woman who looked related to the older man, but perhaps distantly. Sarai looked rather suited for her position as the overseer of all magical goods moving through the Pearl Kingdom. Her dress was an immaculate, bright green thing which showed off a heaving bust and ample hips. Sun-bleached strawberry-blonde hair cascaded down her back, which was a brighter color than the red of her lips. Rings adorned her fingers while a bright pearl necklace draped down into her cleavage—

Erick realized something important at that moment. Sarai had come prepared for a war of emotions that she intended to win.

Rohi was much less prepared.

“Welcome to House Benevolence,” Erick said, greeting the people from Portal and successfully not being awkward about it. “Rohi Wavefield. Sarai Masterson.”

The old man, Rohi, stood from his couch, while the young woman at the window, Sarai, regarded Erick. Both of them took a small bow, then rose.

Rohi said, “Thank you for agreeing to speak with us, Wizard Flatt.”

Erick moved in and stood by his couch. He decided to go on the offensive, since these people already had. “I did not get a chance to participate in the former talks after Portal attacked and killed the Farms of Spur. I do hear that Mayor Silverite got some good deals out of that horror show, though. So what sort of deals do you bring me today, to make up for that previous mess?”

“If you feel that we owe you something for the actions of people who have already been punished, then perhaps we were wrong in approaching at this point in time,” Rohi said. “Perhaps we should simply leave.”

Erick smiled, then called the man’s bluff. “Leave, then.”

Sarai stepped forward. “Please excuse my compatriot. We are prepared to make amends in whatever way you wish, for we are here to be granted a set of Gates. Our desire is to do what we’ve already been doing for centuries; connecting the scattered islands of the Letri Ocean and the grand city of Eidolon to the Wasteland Kingdoms, the Crystal Forest, and the Greensoil Republic. Portal is prepared to offer generous terms in exchange for a franchise-type system.”

Erick got right to it, saying, “It’s 1.5 million per Gate —which is two Gates— and I get 15 gold per ton shipped, and 5 gold per person who passes through.” Erick said, “If I gain good cause to believe that you are fucking with me, then I will rescind your franchise network and give you nothing in return. I will, of course, give notice and ample time for you to fix this expected fuckery, but the threat stands.”

Erick had not forgotten about what Portal had done to him and the Farms of Spur, but the fact remained that if he did not let Portal into the Gate Network in some capacity, then Portal would go to war with him. It would not be a war they could win, but it would be a war they would have to wage for reasons of politics, economics, and population.

They could, of course, surprise Erick and not go to war, and decide to do something completely unprecedented. That way led to chaos, though, and Erick was trying to be less chaotic these days. The person he was today was not the person he had been back when he had threatened to cut Portal off from a theoretical Gate Network and caused them to go to war the first time.

The numbers he cited could use some adjustment, though; Erick knew this already.

It was a decent offer, too, at being drastically cheaper than the costs of boats and warriors to keep the waters clear, and all the other assorted costs of plying the ocean.

They’d still keep some of those boats around, though, for ‘last [Teleport] shipping’; Erick had already decided that he would never provide full Gate Network access to the entire world. Only large places would qualify for a Local Area Gate Network. Smaller places would still need to go to ports to get goods.

If Portal accepted this offer, or one similar to it, Portal would transition from being stewards of all ocean shipping across the Letri Ocean, to stewards of the LAGN of the Letri Ocean. It would be a rather large transition, but they could still transition. They’d need a lot of people to oversee the LAGN, too, so not many people would be out of a job if they made efforts to transition. These Local Area Gate Networks did not run themselves, after all.

From Erick’s perspective, this was an absolute no-brainer of an offer.

It was not a truly kind offer, like the one Erick had given Silverite, but Erick expected to be bargained down quite a bit.

Sarai moved to stand with Rohi, saying, “Your starter numbers are large, but they are intriguing. What does a franchise of a Gate Network look like to you?”

Erick sat down.

The two people from Portal sat down, too.

And then Erick said, “A ‘franchise’ is roughly correct, though I have not thought to call it that before now. I’ve been using the term ‘Local Area Gate Network’; LAGN. For the Letri Ocean, for Portal, I envision you setting aside a large stretch of land at Portal, and I will fill up that land with Gates to your major ports. I won’t do last-[Teleport] Gates, meaning you might, at most, get ten Gates, but wherever you wish to put those Gates is up to you. Travel will flow through the hub of Portal. In addition, you will get an embassy here in the Gate District, along Gate Road, with a similar dispensation of the four-Gate system which I have given to Stratagold.” Erick added, “The 15 gold per ton, 5 gold per person, is what I will get for this system. I don’t care what you get; you can charge whatever you want to administer your LAGN.” He finished with, “BUT! My current maximum range for freely creating [Gate]s is about 1,500 kilometers away from Yggdrasil, and Portal is 3200 kilometers away. I’m not sure that the Benevolence will allow such a LAGN for you at this moment in time, because you don’t have Yggdrasil at Portal in order to increase my range, and I am not willing to plant him there.

“In ten months I might be able to make a LAGN for you, at Portal, but for now, the only thing I can offer is an embassy here in the Gate District, and the four Gates that go with it. You are still required to pay the normal rates for transport though those, and then again for all the other Gates you use here in the Gate District.”

Rohi and Sarai sat in contemplation.

Then Sarai asked, “Pardon me, I must converse with my partner.”

Erick nodded.

A [Telepathy] tendril linked the two Trademasters together.

A minute later Sarai broke that connection, then asked, “For the LAGN, is that 10 month timeframe solid?”

“It’s a rough estimate based on current trends. From the various math and calculations others have given me, and depending on several factors well outside of my control, I should be able to freely reach Yoril in a century, but it’ll only take three or four years to freely reach all of Veird. Ten years to reach the moons. But as of right now, Gates from Portal to here can be done as early as tomorrow.”

Sarai breathed in a bit.

Rohi solidified, narrowing his weathered eyes at Erick. “Your rates are too high. 1 gold per ton, 50 silver per person. That’s the normal rate for [Teleport] services.”

Erick smiled a little. “I’m not offering [Teleport] services. I’m offering [Gate] services.” He dropped his smile, and repeated his offer, “15 gold per ton, 5 gold per person.”

“You are skipping over some large details, Rohi.” Sarai sought to strike at Erick’s compassion, saying, “We are amenable to this time table of getting a LAGN for the Letri Ocean, if you agree to follow through with this plan when the time comes that Yggdrasil can reach that far. Before that, though, an embassy in your Gate District would allow us to trade with your city of Candlepoint, and allow your people of Candlepoint to visit Portal, to trade with us as well. If we are to agree with constructing an embassy, we would ask that you agree to, and lock in, some lower prices for your LAGN, both for buy-in and for normal trade use. We can make Candlepoint truly shine, if you agree to some better terms and can truly promise that we will get control of whatever sort of Gate Network, Local or otherwise, you establish around the Letri Ocean.”

“Now that sounds like something I can get behind.” Erick dropped his prices, “A million per paired Gate, 8 gold per ton, 3 gold per person. In ten months I might be able to make Gates out of iron instead of platinum, but I haven’t quite figured out how to keep iron from rusting when magic goes through it. That third generation of Gates will be considerably cheaper.”

Sarai allowed herself a small smile, though it was rather put-upon.

Erick hadn’t really lowered his prices at all.

The Upper Trademaster of Portal was a shrewd woman who used every emotional trick she could to get what she wanted, like playing off of the rather gruff Rohi and wearing that revealing outfit, but she had been reevaluating her stance with Erick ever since they started talking. She had come expecting to woo him, at least a little, but her beauty was not that impressive—

Okay.

Well.

Yes.

She was impressive.

Erick was having something of a hard time not looking. But he wasn’t going to fall for that. Sarai had been veritably throwing herself at him this whole time, what with her sultry voice and all the rest of her, but Erick wasn’t going for it.

Sarai tried one more tactic.

She looked to Rohi, saying, “We can meet him a bit closer. What do you say?”

Rohi seemed to relax a little.

And then he flicked off the top button of his sailor vest, revealing more of his own amply muscled chest and wiry grey hair. He looked Erick in the eyes, and his voice was an easier, slightly happier thing than it had been. “Could we come to something less harsh regarding the Gate District option, and all the ones to follow? How about 250,000 gold per Gate? 1 gold per ton, 1 gold per person?”

Erick froze—

Sarai smirked a little bit, knowing she had finally drawn blood.

Rohi was happy too, but his joy was much more subdued. He was glad that his own, newest and unsaid offer, had actually worked. He was actually very happy with this new situation… Which was an odd turn of events!

—Erick thawed, and started judging.

Sarai shrugged, happily saying, “If he’s not to your liking right now you can always [Reincarnation] him into a more suitable form.”

Erick’s brain briefly shorted, but before he could reboot and complain about all the things wrong with what Sarai had just said—

Rohi said, “I’d marry you in a snap of the sails, if that’s what it takes to get Portal forgiven for the actions of those who are better off dead and forgotten.” He shrugged, adding, “I’d marry you anyway if the option is open. Marrying Portal to Candlepoint, to eternity, is a good move both politically and economically. We’ve been shipping across this world for centuries, after all. We know how it’s done. How to do it right.” He looked at Erick, and that look had a fire to it. “I know how to do you right, too.”

Behind Erick, Tasar sighed a little. Poi acted like nothing was happening.

And to Erick’s side, standing beside the couch, Zolan grinned a little, barely stopping himself from chuckling at Portal’s absolutely brazen attempt to get in good with Erick.

“… Okay. SO! This is wildly inappropriate,” Erick said, even though his cheeks were turning rather red. “If you think this will change my prices, then you are mistaken.”

Erick’s complaint was obviously not strong enough. He realized this after he had already finished.

Sarai knew this, too. She casually said, “And yet you have not rushed off, or declared us unwelcome. Indeed, I think you understand the nature of your position rather well. Archmage— Wizard Flatt. Everyone in the world is after you, as one does with Wizards, but the nature of this particular chase happening in this room is rather different. Perhaps we are merely the first to pursue you in this particular way? From your reaction, I assume we are—”

Sarai stopped talking, for Erick had waved a hand.

Rohi simply flexed a part of his body at Erick, which almost caused Erick to forget what he was saying. Sarai had done the same thing earlier, but Erick had managed to completely ignore that because it could have just been a small, completely normal thing. This time, though, Erick recognized the flexing under the pants for what it was.

It was weaponized sexuality.

Erick tried to move the conversation back to numbers, saying, “I am not sure where you got those 250,000, 1, and 1 numbers—”

“We’re spying, like everyone else,” Sarai admitted.

Rohi said, “If you wanted your meetings here, and with Silverite, to be in private you should put up some [Ward]s.”

“… Your honesty is appreciated.” Erick added, “And I appreciate that you are not scared of me, and that your offers are real.”

Sarai said, “Of course they’re real, and of course we’re not scared of you. We know who you are more than most, Wizard Flatt. Unless a person like Caradogh Pogi comes along to disrupt your life and your goals, you will always be a benevolent man. Since we have divested ourselves of every single person who was like that in the purge of Pogi’s life from our kingdom, we have nothing to fear from you at all.

“Except for you accidentally taking the livelihoods of our people away, as you already almost did.

“But!” Sarai said, “Since we are here, and since I have explained this, and since I see that you understand that you putting up a Gate Network in the Letri Ocean without us, or you cutting us off from such a system, would lead all the people we support to disaster, then there is absolutely no reason for us to be anything less than cooperative with each other. The only terms to work out now is the exact nature of our cooperation with each other, and one of the best ways to ensure cooperation is through political marriages. Thus, we are here.”

Rohi said, “I wouldn’t mind being a woman, if you prefer.”

Sarai added, “And I wouldn’t mind being a man. The wrought change all the time, and I always wondered what it would be like to—”

Erick waved his hand again, and the Trademasters fell silent.

After a moment, Erick collected his thoughts, then said, “Zolan will conduct the rest of this meeting.” He stood.

Rohi stood, opening his mouth—

But Sarai stood faster, saying, “Even if you do not accept these larger offers, we would like to purchase monster kill services and to establish a working relationship between our nations.”

“… Acceptable.” Erick said, “Zolan will still conduct the rest of this meeting.”

Both of the Trademasters looked like they wanted to object, but Erick would have none of it, and they recognized that. They had said their piece, and now, they were here. Erick gestured for Zolan to take over, and then he left the room.

As Erick walked down the hallway, away from the meeting, he heard Zolan say something about desperation not being a good look.

This was untrue, for desperation had worked very well for Portal. It had almost worked completely. But Zolan was working them over now with the proper words, and Erick did not go back and countermand his castellan for the man’s little white lie.

Erick was too deep in his own thoughts, anyway. Portal’s ploy had worked too well for them. As Rohi had sat there, being himself, and Sarai had laid down those truths, also being herself, some primal part of Erick wanted to partake of the honest offer. Some part of him wanted to enjoy the life he was making, instead of working all the time.

But, at the same time, Erick loved his work. He was making the world better.

War seemed to loom less and less as days went by, and nothing happened.

… And Portal’s offer had been completely sincere. They were ready to marry either of Sarai or Rohi off to Erick, if Erick had shown the slightest real inclination to accept either offer.

But…

He was worried.

Of assassination? Of giving in to a really good offer? Of what? What, exactly, had caused him to run off so fast back there? The brazen attitude of it all? Maybe a little bit, but there was more to it. A lot of things bothered him about that meeting, actually.

Erick wasn’t quite sure where his thoughts were going, or the nature of his thoughts, but they were all jumbled up and unwilling to be organized. He eventually thanked Tasar for her time, as he sometimes did when the work day was over, and then he opened a [Gate] back to his home on Yggdrasil—

“Wait a moment, Erick,” Tasar said.

Erick paused, the [Gate] hanging open in the air before him.

Tasar continued, “You’re going to receive a lot more offers like that. People are going to start throwing themselves at your feet for what you can do, debasing themselves in any way that might work. I hope you can prepare better for the next time such an event happens.”

“Ah… Yeah. I sort of dropped the ball back there. That was…” Embarrassing that it had been thrilling? Erick said, “I wasn’t expecting that.”

Tasar said, “If you would pardon my unprompted [Telepathy]; you are too tense. You need to do less work and more relaxing so that such an offer doesn’t unbalance you so much in the future. Or, you could accept such offers as simple sex, so that people know how to approach you when they want to debase themselves. If people do not know how to approach you, then they will start to get truly creative. That back there? That was not nearly as creative as those people thought it was.”

Erick’s eyes went a bit wide. “Are you speaking from experience?”

“Oh yes. Very much so.” Tasar said, “Centuries ago, back when the t-station network first got passed around I had some embarrassing experiences with people who were very desperate and similarly willing. Only a few sexual things, thankfully, but when I told people that money and security at the t-station spots was all it took to get one, that cut down the number of incidents by 80%. I still get some sexual advances now and then, but a [Teleport Other] into the nearest body of water is generally enough to reinforce that that avenue of inquiry is unacceptable.”

“Ah. Yes. I could have blipped them into the lake. I had forgotten about that.” Erick said, “Thank you, Tasar. And… I probably should have some more solid Gate Network numbers, shouldn’t I. I shouldn’t allow myself to be bargained.”

“And methodology for getting a Gate; yes.” Tasar added, “But if you do feel like giving in to some of those lewder offers, then be sure that they’re not through politically-motivated people like that. Otherwise? Yes. Give in sometimes. You’re way too tense. It’s just sex… Maybe don’t do the [Reincarnation] thing that they were angling for, though. That would get weird.”

Mirth bubbled up inside of Erick like the dawning sun. To know that Tasar had given in a few times made him feel a lot better about his own near-collision back there. Erick smiled to himself as he walked through the [Gate], saying, “Thank you, Tasar. I’d like to talk more about the possible threats in a negotiation room another day, if you’re willing.”

“When you get those Cooks up and cooking we can share a meal again at a proper restaurant, and I can tell you some of the more embarrassing stories.”

“I’ll hold you to that!” Erick said, already feeling less freaked out about Portal.

As the [Gate] shut, Erick realized that it was still very odd that this was how the meeting with Portal had gone; that this was what the new worry assailing him from the Pearl Kingdom. Hot sailors and hot Trademasters, throwing themselves at him in a bid for power! Weird! Would other people follow in their footsteps? Erick hoped not.

… Mostly, he hoped not.

Poi said, “At least the offer was honest.”

Erick gushed, “It’s still so weird!”

“People get so much weirder than that, Erick. I have seen some shit, believe you me.”

“Multiple things can be true at the same time.”

Poi just laughed.

And Erick did, too.

- - - -

Erick’s day was not over, for he had at least one more meeting.

He held this one at Yggdrasil, on a little gazebo deep in the big guy’s fiery green canopy, behind many, many leaves. It would be rather hard to see Erick’s chosen location through [Long Range Scry]s, or any other sort of viewing magic, but he still put up Privacys around the space. This needed to be a secured talk and the words of Portal’s Trademasters had struck a chord.

Zolan had only been informed that ‘there would be a private meeting’, so Erick had had the rest of his evening blocked off for this.

And so, Erick sat alone in his nice little gazebo atop Yggdrasil, sipping a fizzy drink made from berries and sugar and his own CO2 condensing Particle Magic. It had turned out to be a rather nice drink which was different from the usual sorts, of tea, coffee, water, and beer, filling a different sort of niche, near to lemonade (which was another drink Erick had invented; Veird only had limeade which wasn’t very popular) but not quite lemonade at all. Dinner was still a while away, so Erick was still hungry, but Poi was working on that right now down at the house, making some fish that had been sent by Treehome as a gift a few hours ago. It was a gift of scarlet king fish, and Poi was very happy to have such good fish again.

The sun was setting somewhere to the west, beyond the green, but it was impossible to tell that the sun had set here inside Yggdrasil’s crown.

No one had shown up yet for the meeting, but that was fine. This meeting was a test. Apparently, though, as Erick sipped his drink and had to refill it, he realized he would have to actually make an effort if he wanted his ‘test’ to happen.

Erick blipped his drink and the remainder back to the house, and then he returned his attentions to his current location.

With a small cast of [Fairy Item], Erick created a pachinko machine. Such machines came in a ton of different varieties, but this version was a tilted table with a slot at the top, a bunch of pins in a rough triangle shape up and down that table, and a bunch of collection spots at the bottom. A ball placed into the slot at the top would roll down, randomly bounce around on the pins, and eventually end up into one of the collection spots, based on probability calculations that were beyond Erick.

Maybe a hundred drops would end up looking like a bell curve? Maybe a hundred drops would end up looking like an even distribution? Or maybe Erick had accidentally made a pachinko machine which would primarily drop the ball in only one slot? He didn’t rightly know.

All he truly knew was that he had a bunch of catcher slots at the bottom, and that only one of them was labeled. In crimson red ink, that one slot held the words ‘Kill 1000 people’.

This was a test of Benevolence, after all. A terrible test, for sure, but a necessary one.

… And yet, nothing had happened after conjuring the machine. No one showed up to stop him. Not a single message from Rozeta, or otherwise… But then again, ‘kill 1000 people’ was not a worldwide threat.

With his heart rate rising, Erick knew he would actually need to play the machine—

Erick sweated, sitting there in the cool air that filtered through Yggdrasil’s crown, as a terrible thought came to him. Perhaps killing a thousand people wasn’t a big enough deal to try and stop? Was he… Was he ‘too big to fail’ now? That thought hit Erick rather damned hard. He did not like that someone would not try to stop him from killing ‘just a thousand people’. But then again, what was a thousand souls to a Gate Network? Or when held against the weight of new worlds?

Nothing.

That was what a thousand souls amounted to.

Nothing.

This whole experiment had a problem, though. Maybe no one had shown up because Erick knew, deep down, that he wasn’t really going to do such a heinous act. How could he even consider such an awful action!? He couldn’t. But with this pachinko machine of death and destruction… The threat was out there. The possibilities of death for a thousand innocent people lay in one simple… tiny… little… metal ball.

Erick held that metal ball in his hand. He put it into the machine and the ball started rolling, hitting pins as gravity pulled it downward.

~plink plink plink plink~

~clack~

Erick’s heart had been in his throat, briefly, but now it settled back down. The ball rested in an empty space; a null result. Nothing would come of such a result. Erick conjured another metal ball, and waited, his heart seeming to move back into his throat with each beat.

He had specifically told Poi about this, before he set out to do this whole experiment, while also telling him not to tell anyone what he was planning on. Poi had shrugged, and said sure. He also didn’t think Erick had it in him to follow through with his test, so there was no harm in trying; no harm in testing Benevolence. No harm except for the mental harm that Erick was committing upon himself, at this very moment. Poi had told Erick that he probably shouldn’t even try this…

But Erick had to know. He had to test himself.

And he had to know how good [Benevolent Sight] was.

Erick had not told Aisha; he had not told Teressa. Those were the two people with [Benevolent Sight], and the two people who might be able to pick up on this experiment.

Aisha was back at the House. She had been working lightly in the Benevolence Research Tower in order to test the plants growing at the Benevolence dungeon. She was still a bit stiff in the joints, though, and she had been prone to some uncalled-for outbursts among her employees and everyone else she met, and so she had ended the day early to head to her room and sleep in her tub. But she was still there, doing her job for several hours. Only now was she sleeping.

Teressa was clearly still recovering a lot, though. After her prognostication battle with Treehome yesterday she had gone to bed, woken up for meals, and went right back to bed. She was currently sleeping, too.

Perhaps it was a bit cruel of Erick to try out this experiment right now, when both his prognosticators were sleeping and had soul damage.

… Life was cruel, and people needed to be ready for war at any time.

Erick put the second metal ball into the pachinko machine. Plink, plink, plink, the metal ball bounced around. It fell into another unimportant slot of the machine. ‘Kill 1000 people’ remained empty.

Erick conjured another metal ball.

The ball went in the slot. It plinked around. It fell into an empty box at the bottom. One by one, Erick conjured metal balls and slipped them in the slot. Plink, plink, plink. Clack. Clack. Clack. He went faster after the seventh null result.

Erick conjured the eleventh ball and placed—

Lightning flickered, and Erick pulled his hand away. The ball remained in his hand. He looked around, and noticed that there had been no lightning anywhere except for in his mind, or perhaps inside his veins. The power in his soul had barely moved at all, and maybe it hadn’t actually moved and he had imagined the whole thing.

But he had certainly imagined something.

Had that been a success? If not a success in drawing Aisha and Teressa out of their slumber, it had been a success of Erick testing himself.

… Maybe?

Erick tried putting the ball in the hole again. The ball went in easily and began plinking around. It landed, of course, in an empty catcher. Erick conjured another ball, and kept going.

On ball #26 he got another reaction. With his hand holding the ball in the slot, he waited a moment for the imaginary lightning to stop striking. And then the lightning passed. He put the ball through the slot. It landed in an empty catcher.

By now, some of the catchers in the middle and one on the far left were halfway full. By now, the only thing Erick knew was that he had not managed to make the pachinko machine distribute the balls evenly.

The killer box remained empty.

Erick got another reaction at ball #36, and then again at #39. He didn’t get his next reaction till ball #54. By ball #74, the slots to both sides of the kill box were filled. The reactions came faster and faster as the machine itself began to fill, and there were fewer and fewer places for the ball to end up outside of the kill box.

Erick kept putting balls into the top slot. The lightning became difficult to ignore, but only because Erick was truly focused on it. If he wasn’t looking for the reaction, he might merely pass off the feelings he was getting as pinging against his superstitions, or something similar. ‘Don’t walk under that ladder’! ‘Be wary of that black cat crossing your path!’ That sort of thing.

But Erick got more and more reactions, he realized that every time was just as bad as saying the wrong words to Kirginatharp, or to Rozeta, or to anyone else in power who had the ability and skill to end him, if they wanted. These imaginary flickers of lightning were what he felt when he fucked up a meeting, or tanked a negotiation in the worst way possible.

Erick wasn’t sure what to think about that.

There were a lot of nuances to this whole Benevolence thing that were freaking him out, but not because he didn’t feel in control of himself. Benevolence acted exactly how he wanted it to act. And yet...

Erick looked at his pachinko machine and held up one final ball. He pushed that metal ball to the slot, and felt his insides tingle a bit as though he was about to do something inherently wrong.

… He pushed the ball into the hole, anyway, pushing past his hesitation at the same time.

The reaction was immediate and exactly what Erick had been waiting and hoping for, though it did not happen here. Down in his home and over in his House, where Ophiels watched and waited, Teressa shot up out of bed and Aisha pulled together, waking up from her ooze form and becoming just a person sitting in a stone tub. Both of them instantly blipped away—

They reappeared on the other side of the gazebo, both looking terribly tired, both focused on Erick and on the pachinko machine, and upon the ball headed directly for—

With a bit of Benevolent light, Erick blocked the kill catcher, instead catching the metal ball himself. He snaked the ball back up and out of the pachinko machine then set the ball down on the table between him, Teressa, and Aisha. By the time their sleep-stricken eyes looked at Erick, and at the machine, Erick realized that they were only confirming what their own [Future Sight]s had shown them.

“Hello, Teressa, Aisha.” Erick said, “Sorry for waking you.”

Panic passed.

Teressa collapsed into her seat, her eyelids already drooping a bit, as she said, “I’m ready whenever needed, Boss.”

Aisha waved a hand and sat down too, saying, “I’m surprised this test worked as well as it did.”

Erick said, “I don’t think I could have actually gone through with it, so your guess as to why it worked is just as good as mine.”

With half-closed eyes, Aisha said, “You worked along a part of an Element that it is uniquely stressed to sense, plucking it like a spider’s thread. It doesn’t matter that there were no flies on the web and that there never were.”

Teressa sat back in her chair. “Sounds correct to me.”

Erick said, “I’ll make this meeting as quick as I can. Have either of you two discovered anything about Benevolence that I should know about? The basics of it all?”

Teressa briefly looked lost, and then she looked to Aisha.

Aisha breathed in, then said, “All Elemental Bodies generally allow for several basic uses. These are as follows:

“Sensing through the Element, and/or sensing that Element.

“Manifestation of the Element through various different ways.

“Shaping and control of the Element that already exists in the world.

“And then, finally, union with the Element which leads a bunch of different movement techniques, as a baseline.

“I use ‘Element’ in the loosest sense of the word, here. Elemental Stone is not stone, yet it is stone that one [Stone Body]s through when using that Elemental Body. Similar cases are had for Fire, Water, Air, Light, and Shadow. These basic 6 Elements exhibit the basic breadth of various skills associated with all Elemental Bodies; they are the baseline upon which all other Elemental Bodies are judged.

“The Esoteric Elemental Bodies are slightly more nuanced. They usually exhibit all the normal abilities that a normal Elemental Body has, in the case where someone is actually able to get an Elemental Body out of, say, Blood, which is rather rare… Esoteric Elemental Bodies tend to go far beyond the normal Elemental Bodies in very specific ways.

“Elemental Blood is very good at manipulating fleshy bodies. It’s also great at compounding effects and generally reinforcing magic it is a part of, as long as that magic is treated as a living thing that is capable of strengthening itself.

“Therefore, it could be said that Elemental Blood is uniquely good at Shaping and control of the element it is named after. Since most people are made of blood, this gives Elemental Blood, when used on a person, a variety of accidentally or purposefully corruptive effects. It also makes Elemental Blood great at hurting fleshy people.

“Elemental Mercy is very good at sending someone into a negative Health coma, which is about the easiest way to subdue someone without actually killing them… In most cases. Mercy also turns all other magic where it is used into something less directly harmful. Mercy is very good at cloying onto other mana when used in magic and producing this effect.

“Therefore, it could be said that Elemental Mercy is uniquely great at manifesting itself and making other mana take on Mercy-like effects.

“Elemental Benevolence seems to be uniquely good at various sensory based magics, and in specific scenarios; sensing loss of life, guiding hands to better outcomes for all, and other general prognostications in those sorts of directions. Benevolence also has capabilities in the manifestation arena, for it makes plants. Other than that, Benevolence is rather terrible at directly causing magical damage, doing less actual damage to living things than other magics; the effect-per-mana is terrible. Of course, we haven’t tested Benevolence against a Benevolence approved target yet, but we haven’t found one of those, either—” Aisha briefly brightened as she remembered something. “It’s also great at buffing and debuffing, as well. A former half-dragon from Ar’Cosmos— Ah. You know Clavog, sorry. My mind is rather frayed right now— Clavog made a [Warcry] which buffs him and his side of a battle, and debuffs the enemy. So that was a rousing success.”

Erick perked up.

Teressa perked up, too. “Shouting Magic?”

“Oh yes.” Aisha brought out a pair of blue boxes and handed them out, saying, “Much improved from Clavog’s normal version, too.”

Warcry, instant, medium range, 50 Health

Increases damage done by your people and decreases the damage taken by your people. Lasts 1 minute.

Benevolent Rally, instant, medium range, 75 Health 

Strike down the enemies of the world! 

Increases damage done by your people, decreases damage taken by your people.

May decrease the damage done and may increase the damage taken by others within range.

Lasts 5 minutes.

Aisha said, “The difference is practically Surface and Underworld, though it does have that ‘may’ clause in there. Of course, [Benevolent Rally] is a higher tier magic, made from [Warcry], but you don’t usually get such a good outcome from adding more Elements to that Carnage-based magic. Not a lot mixes well with Carnage, but in this case, Benevolence does.”

Teressa jerked. “[Warcry] is Elemental Carnage?”

Aisha looked to Teressa. “You didn’t know?”

“No…” Teressa looked at the boxes again, saying, “I did not. I used to do this sort of magic all the time back when I had a… A team. I didn’t know it was actually Carnage. I thought it was Thunder?—”

Teressa stopped.

Aisha did not speak.

Both of them were shocked to attention, their sleepiness completely gone, and Erick paused, too.

For a sudden oddness had occurred.

As though Erick had been given the script of a play he had practiced several times before, but which he was still wildly uncomfortable with, Erick woodenly followed along the small prompts in his head, asking, “Would you like to learn more about this Shouting Magic, Teressa?”

Teressa’s eyes flickered between Aisha and Erick as she spoke from the same script, “I would. I haven’t done it in a while, but it might be good to try again.” She looked firmly on Aisha, as though that what the script suggested, saying, “And I want to start working with the Benevolence team.”

Aisha broke from the script, whispering, “I am unsure if we should continue this.”

Teressa whispered, “I think we should.”

Erick whispered, “We’re doing this.”

Aisha stopped whispering, picking up her cue again, as she said, “We welcome you to the tower, then, Miss Rednail… But of course we would have anyway, I think.”

“You can call me Teressa, if I can call you Aisha.” Teressa said, “Though I honestly do not know if you even have a last name so I’ve been calling you Aisha in my head this whole time, anyway.”

“I do not have a last name, actually.” Aisha said, “And Aisha is my name, so that is perfectly fine, Teressa. As soon as you are healed, I expect you to be at the Tower as soon as you can appear… If that is okay with you, my king?”

Erick said, “It is.”

And then the script broke.

A moment passed as everyone in the gazebo felt as though puppet strings had been cut.

Teressa went, “Huh!”

Aisha breathed out, then said, “Okay then.”

Erick said, “That was weird, but fine. It was fine, right?—” He had a thought. “That was the first time I have actually experienced such a hyperliminal Benevolence Event— Nope. Wait. Back at the end of the Path, with Melemizargo, Rozeta, and the other one… And probably a lot more before that, actually.”

Teressa rolled her eyes, “Well that was the first time for me.”

Aisha stared at Teressa. “Perhaps my decorum is not up to what it should be right now, but you really just rolled your eyes at the mention of two gods and one almost-god? And a worldwide important event, as though it was a mere… happenstance?”

Teressa chuckled. “I might not have dealt with any of it personally, but I saw a lot of it first hand— Second hand? Second hand.”

“You were right the first time,” Erick said, “First hand.”

Teressa conceded the point, saying, “I’m not all here, either. Blame my lack of decorum on the… Whatever damage.”

Erick smiled softly, then said, “Sorry to drag you both out like this, but that test needed to happen, and now some things need to be said. Afterward, both of you can go back to bed. And take tomorrow off.” Erick said, “That means you too, Aisha.”

Teressa breathed out, relaxing. She blinked long, and then forced her eyes back to wide open.

Aisha merely nodded, and waited for Erick to say what he was going to say.

Erick said, “I think Benevolence allows the user to see the future in ways that no other Element truly allows.” Aside from maybe time, but Erick was not in control of Elemental Time; he was in control of Elemental Benevolence. “Therefore, I want both of you to only consider reporting to me about the larger things; the events which will cause death and harm on a large scale. Earlier, Teressa, you told me about a prognostication battle with Treehome that you won. I thank you for coming to me with that, but I don’t need to know small things like that.”

Teressa woke up a bit more to nod; she had heard and understood.

Aisha was briefly stricken with worry. “You had a prognostication battle, Miss Rednail?”

“You can call me ‘Teressa’, please, if I can call you ‘Aisha’ instead of ‘Overseer Aisha’— Uh… I already said that.” Teressa confided, “I also just remembered that you had a title and I should have used it. And yeah. I did have a prog battle.”

Aisha shook her head a little.

Erick said, “You two can talk about that later, but from what I see, Aisha did not have one of those battles at all, and this concerns you, Aisha.”

“It does. Greatly.” Aisha said, “But… I’ll take your offer of talking about it later.”

Erick nodded, saying, “I think Elemental Benevolence will allow for a great deal of abuse by many people who might learn how to wield it properly, and I don’t want that to happen. People should still have free will. People should not be beholden to whatever Benevolence tells them is the best path forward, and based on what we all just experienced, this is very possible. This determinism is a path that I want to cut off right now, before anyone goes too far down it.” He added, “Obviously we should test all this, but I don’t want this to become how we solve problems; we will not be ensorcelling people in Benevolence, like how one does with Fae Magic, or Mind Magic. If I need to do something like the Mind Mages in order to prevent abuse through Benevolence then I will, but for now… This is where we are at.”

Teressa simply nodded, as though she was seeing a confirmation of something she had already expected to see.

Aisha was torn for some reason. “You want… A less deterministic universe?”

“For the small things, yes. And… This is a very complicated topic that we can have again, later.” Erick said, “But to lay out what I don’t want to happen: For instance, Treehome was thinking of breaking Yggdrasil from my soul, of breaking the seal the gods put on him to keep him a part of me until a hundred years pass, but they decided not to because they understood that was a bad idea without needing to be told.

“This is something that I do not need to be made aware of. The knowledge of that event caused me to almost damage relations with Treehome, but I held back, of course… Which might be due to Benevolence or maybe I did that myself, and since we’re one in the same, then there is functionally no difference, but still.

“I thought about it for a day, and I realize that almost every single nation out there has probably gone through the same sort of thought process as Treehome went through with Yggdrasil, but for some reason, Treehome’s efforts actually pinged Teressa’s mana sense.

“I don’t need to know about that stuff. No one does.

“But in a larger, yet still smaller sense, there’s the fact that you both responded to this little pachinko machine. And then we three had that little guidance situation, there.” Erick said, “I can easily see someone else doing something similar in various games of chance around the world, or in other scenarios, and using some sort of [Benevolence Sight] in order to win, or whatever.

“A person might decide that if they win this next bet, then they won’t go out and murder a thousand people, but then Benevolence pings them and tells them not to bet, so they don’t bet. Or, someone could look at a battlefield and decide some military action through some similar action.” Erick said, “It’s all theoretical, but I could see it happening. There’s no other prognostication-focused Element, after all, and so this is the problem I foresee Benevolence having.

“So, when you’re better, we’re going to see if we can actually do stuff like this, and if I am worrying for nothing, or if I am worrying for real. The outcomes of these tests will determine how open we are about putting Benevolence into public magics, and other small decisions.” Erick finished with, “Perhaps we use Benevolence to guide various courtroom outcomes, or, we keep it behind closed doors and use it to keep the universe safe.”

Aisha had a laser-like focus on Erick’s words, but she was still only half-cognizant.

Teressa was 75% of the way to sleeping in her chair.

“… I’m going to blip you back to where you were, okay? You both need more sleep. And also some soul balm palm sap, or something?” Erick said, “I’ll see about buying some from Stratagold, or something.”

Aisha shook her head. “It’s not soul damage. It’s… It’s soul damage. Ah. Words… Words not wording well.”

Teressa jerked awake. “I’m awake!”

“And you can go back to bed now,” Erick said.

And then Erick blipped both of them back to their beds. Teressa instantly curled up with her blankets and started snoring softly. Aisha remained human-woman-formed for a brief seven seconds, then she dissolved into a gasoline-sheened mercury-like puddle, only kept together because she was inside a bathtub bed. She burbled a bit, then settled down. She slept.

Erick wondered… Had it been necessary to have this conversation right now?

Yes.

These words had needed to be said, and Aisha and Teressa would both remember this, even though they had been halfway out of it while they were here.

It was time to move onto another meeting, anyway.

Erick was alone again in his gazebo as he called out, “Rozeta? I need to talk about [Reincarnation].”

Rozeta stepped out of a flash of gold fire and into the gazebo, wearing her white human wrought form. “Hello, Erick.” She took her seat. “I suspect we’ll need to get Phagar in on this too, but we might not. For clarity: What is your exact concern?”

Erick got right into it, “Is [Reincarnation] going to be a problem if I solve death? I can already see myself headed in that direction, but I don’t want to cause a worldwide incident or a Forgotten Campaign.”

“… Ah.” Rozeta nodded, then she looked to the side, asking, “Phagar?”

In another splash of gold fire Phagar stepped into the space, looking like Erick but different. The God of the End and Time took a seat, and the world beyond the gazebo seemed to slow. “Hello, Erick. Rozeta. Talking about [Reincarnation], then?”

“And the solving of death, and the possibility of needing a Forgotten Campaign,” Rozeta said.

Erick almost said something more, but he decided to let Rozeta’s words ride.

Wasting no time, Phagar said, “Some people will accept your gift Erick, and you’re free to do whatever you want, but a lot of people experience life and then they are done. They don’t want to go through it again, no matter what offers you give them. They want to move on to the realms of the gods, to be in everlasting joy, or to become a part of the oceans, or the wind, or an angel or a demon. All you’re doing is offering another route, and a great many people don’t want immortality. They never will.”

Erick scoffed. “I have a hard time believing that.”

Rozeta smiled a little, seemingly envious of Erick’s lack of knowledge.

Erick added, “Or maybe I do believe you?”

Phagar gave his own small smile. “Let me give you some numbers, then. About 3500 people die per day, in a normal year, about 33% of them from old age. Most people die from sudden monsters, or accidents, or otherwise. This year was one of the worst we have had in a long while due to Terror Peaks, but ignoring skewing of the data...

“All of Veird’s elderly line up at your door tomorrow, politely waiting in line for [Reincarnation]s. No drama. No trouble. Just politely waiting. You now have 1,115 people getting [Reincarnation]s. For you, this means 278,750 mana. You can swing that per day, with your nearly million Mana Regeneration. But you spend about 10 minutes on every person.

“It’s 185 hours to do that much magic.” Phagar asked, “Now you want to learn more Time Magic? You want to swing that? I can teach you how. Won’t help you in this case, though, because you’re still limited by the Script Second.

“And so, there is the other option: you can build a better world. You can mitigate that cost of time out to every single city you build from the sands, where the death rate is lower. Every single person you raise to power, who helps ensure that people are safer, and healthier. Every single decision you make for the good of everyone around you.

“This is the path we gods walk.

“Through light touches here and there, we cause growth and existence.

“Or…” Phagar leaned back in his chair, saying, “You could do a minute [Reincarnation] per person, rush through everything as fast as you can, and get those 1,115 people restored to youth and better futures in a matter of 19 hours per day.”

Erick hadn’t done the math as much as Phagar had, and those numbers hammered in what pure goodwill could no longer obfuscate. He could not do this alone, and he never could.

Phagar continued, “But assuming you went forward with this ‘heal everyone’ plan: Politically, it could be a problem for what you build here because you would eventually make enemies which would want to kill you for what you were not willing to give them, for they could easily slip whatever bonds you put upon them, [Blessing of Empathy] or otherwise. Spiritually, some might choose to turn from their gods, and that would piss off some of us… But that is honestly not a large issue, considering living worshipers are worth a lot more than dead ones. These are all, actually, small problems in comparison to what Veird will gain from continuous [Reincarnations]. I’m fine with you devoting your life to this, if you wish, though the problem will only grow larger and larger until you can no longer keep up with demand.”

Erick breathed, taking it all in.

Rozeta said, “That switch from being capable, to being hindered and unable to help happens to every god, Erick. Don’t make the mistake of thinking it won’t happen to a Wizard, too.”

Phagar said, “Even with Time Magic on your side, there comes a point where you simply run out.”

Erick said, “I’m still going to try… But maybe I’ll put up some solid barriers to entry.”

“This is a valid tactic,” Phagar said.

Rozeta nodded.

Erick returned the conversation back to Rozeta, asking, “I was wondering specifically about the mana production, though, since you already warned me off of that once, when I did some stuff along these lines in Ar’Cosmos. Does my [Reincarnation] change the mana people produce?”

Phagar sat back.

Rozeta said, “Some people’s mana production changes when they become less monstrous or draconic. But human to orcol? Dragonkin to demi? There is an initial dip, but that comes back soon enough, and in some cases the person even exceeds their previous normal output. Mostly though, the output is the same. As the Goddess of the Script, I have no issue with [Reincarnation]. You using this spell on people is actually good for the world in a small, measurable sense, each time you do it, for the living —provided they live long enough— provide more mana than the dead. Not to mention almost every single person you’ve brought back from old age is already on their way to making more children, so that’s a net positive, too.”

Erick wasn’t sure what to say.

He had expected backlash, or some sort of restriction. Some sort of warning against doing what he had planned on doing, and yet, all he had really gotten was slapped with math.

“… I had thought that you would have words to say against this magic, Rozeta.” Erick looked to Phagar. “And you, too, actually.”

Rozeta smiled a little, while Phagar grinned.

Rozeta said, “You wouldn’t go throwing anyone into bodies they don’t want, but even if you did that it would still be a net positive for Veird’s mana. I have long ago said that the only things I concern myself with are the solidity of the Script, and this world; this remains as true now as it ever has before.”

Phagar said, “Death is not some sacred thing to be protected, and I’m not the God of Death. I struck the blow that killed that god 740,000 years ago and took his Domain as my own, and we’re all still better off for it.”

“… Ah,” Erick said, looking at Phagar, his thoughts turning oddly in his head.

Rozeta said, “Do what you want, Erick. Now… Moving on from [Reincarnation]—” She gestured to the pachinko machine which was still on the side of the table. “If you think killing a thousand people is what it takes to make a brighter tomorrow, then know that I would prefer you find another way if only for the continued security of the Script, but you go ahead and do what you think is necessary.”

Erick’s thoughts turned even odder.

All he could really pick out from the turmoil in his head was his own questioning of the morality of gods.

Phagar said, “When you eventually learn how to undo things you have done through Time Magic, and you wonder about doing something stupid and then reverting that change, I hope you can revisit the feelings you’re having now, Erick. We gods are required to act in certain ways in order to keep the world functional, and sometimes those actions are not in accordance with proper morality. Sometimes, the morality preached by certain gods is in direct violation of what other gods preach. All this goes to show is that gods should not be your arbiters of what is right and wrong.”

Rozeta tilted her head a fraction. She did not agree. But also, she did not object.

Phagar continued, “As long as you continue to follow your own morality, and continue to feel good about your own actions, then the feelings of gods should not upset you. We’re still above you in power right now, but that will change eventually. Eventually we’re going to be more like coworkers. I look forward to that day.” He smiled. “I look forward to asking you to run errands for me that I cannot do myself, and to be able to do the same for you.”

Rozeta nodded a little; now that, she could agree with. She said to Erick, “I have to take the stance I take to keep this world running, but if you want a Paladin or two with a much better set of morals than I, I can direct someone your way? Someone to keep you grounded, perhaps?”

“… No I’m— I’m fine. If [Reincarnation] is fine, then I’m fine, too.”

Rozeta said, “The only conceivable problem I could have with [Reincarnation] is if you start bringing back extinct races. Elves, dwarves, elementasi, or alvani. The first two are gone, and the only way to get back the other two is to change the Script, which I would fight you on, and I would win.”

A casual threat between coworkers already? Erick almost laughed, but Rozeta was serious.

Phagar said, “Regarding the elementasi and alvani, I agree, but elves and dwarves coming back would not be a problem.”

Rozeta sighed, then said to Phagar, “The elves coming back would be a problem— Well.” She said to Erick, “If you can solve the Rage of the orcols and make elves, then Aloethag would be grateful and I don’t see any problems there, but that would require large scale Wizardry, and I would prefer none of that. Stay away from large Wizardry, please.”

Erick had a sudden question, “Why would it require Wizardry to bring back the elementassi or alvani?”

Phagar looked to Rozeta.

For a moment, Rozeta debated with herself if she wanted to answer. Then she said, “I won’t answer that question at this time. Maybe in fifty years when you become more like a real co-worker, and less like a start-up operation in the same country as we gods. I might answer you then.”

Erick nodded a little.

Rozeta perked up, “Ah! That reminds me: I will need you to go and run an errand for me before you reach coworker-level. Not necessary right now, but before [Renew] happens in 8 months, I will need you to speak to Ar’Comos and get them to accept a wrought presence in their lands. They’re taking their time on that part of our agreement, and that reluctance makes me uncomfortable. We need to ensure that their expansion of Ar’Cosmos is orderly and within the current mana limits of the Script. If they expand too far, too fast, then they will start breaking vital infrastructure due to limited mana flow problems.”

“… Ah. That sounds bad.” Erick said, “I’ll talk to them.”

“It won’t be that bad for a while, Erick, but it does have the potential to be bad. Right now, the specific problem I’m having is the paperwork and bureaucracy Ar’Cosmos is pushing at my people, all in an effort to make my people an ineffectual force. Please cut through that paperwork at your earliest convenience.” Rozeta grinned. “On the plus side of this whole [Renew]-Ar’Cosmos thing, the increased mana production from having a secondary world right next to this one will more than make up for the problems the dragons produce, IF they actually stay on Fairie. Their world will be one without real monsters or real danger, so I expect a population boom there, just as I expect a population boom here in the Crystal Forest.” Rozeta said. “As long as the Dragon Curse holds true on this side of reality, then this whole thing might actually work out well.”

“Okay then.” Erick said, “I’ll schedule a meeting.”

Rozeta smiled happily, saying, “Thank you.”

Phagar said, “Aisha was too out of it to bring it up, but your experiment with the ball bouncer here is a fantastic way to judge how good someone is at prognostication, and to train that magical muscle. But for you, Erick, it will be a good training method to figure out what it means to change the past… After you figure out [Return], anyway. When you want to talk about that magic, I’m available at any time.”

Erick smiled a little. “Thank you, Phagar.”

“And we still have a boon to talk about!” Rozeta said, “If you’ll pardon the suggestion, perhaps a basic boon to not require you to accrete anymore? Something to make that automatic? I notice you still haven’t worked on that magic yet.”

“Ahh… I’ve been busy. But no thank you on that specific offer.” Erick said, “I’ll figure something out.”

“Let me know when you figure out what you want.” Rozeta said, “I can do almost any small thing, and most larger things. You deserve it. But now! I must be going. It was good talking with you, Erick.”

“And you as well, Rozeta. Thanks for showing.”

Rozeta smiled.

And then she vanished backward in a cloud of gold flames.

Phagar nodded, saying, “See you later, Erick.”

“See you later, Phagar.”

And then the God of The End and Time vanished, too, like so much scattered golden flames.

For a long moment, Erick just sat there, in the [Ward]ed gazebo in Yggdrasil’s crown. The world outside his little protected space seemed to go faster, or rather, time resumed its normal flow. Yggdrasil’s green canopy waved in the northern winds, while rainbow lights filtered down from further above.

Erick supposed that the gods had their duties, just as much as their limits, and they did not bother with many things outside of those imposed [Force Wall]. It had been kinda odd, and rather terrifying, actually, for Rozeta to say that the deaths of a thousand people were not a large concern to her. It had been kinda odd to hear that Phagar had killed Death almost a million years ago. It had been stranger still, for both gods to call Erick a ‘future coworker’. But this was his life now, he supposed.

And their limits were fine, the more Erick thought of it. He didn’t want to be constrained by higher powers, and he had locked in his own morality years and years ago. Benevolence was simply an expression of that morality, and his own Truth, that everything could be made better if you tried. ‘If you tried’ had certainly taken on a different meaning here on Veird, but it was what it was.

With a calm gaze across the world, through all of his Ophiel everywhere, Erick considered his next steps in this Candlepoint-thing he had going on. Apparently there was an actual need to schedule a meeting with Fairy Moon— or perhaps with Illustrious Moon, or Inferno Maw, or Bright Smile? Or all three of them the Heads of Houses? Including Fairy Moon? —Whoever showed up didn’t really matter, Erick supposed. What mattered was ensuring that Ar’Cosmos was getting along with the wrought, and that the bargains that Erick had helped to strike between Rozeta and Fairy Moon were coming along nicely.

He could do that in the morning.

“I have one more thing to do tonight.” With the bit of his body sticking out of the Privacy surrounding the gazebo, Erick sent to Tasar, ‘Hey, Tasar. Want to learn how to make a [Familiar] with their own mana right now?’

Tasar instantly sent back, ‘Yes. I’m in the Benevolence dungeon right now. Where can I meet you?’

Erick began sending an Ophiel that way. ‘I’ll have Ophiel blip you here and we can talk.’

A minute later Tasar sat across the table from Erick.

Erick smiled. “Hello again.”

Tasar was ready for whatever words might come from the Wizard sitting across from her—

But then she noticed the pachinko machine, and the red catcher at the bottom labeled with death for a thousand people.

Tasar decided to ignore it.

She simply said, “Hello, Erick.”

Erick got right down to it, saying, “You once told me how much it would hurt for Ophiel to mature and rip apart from my soul, but that the real pain would come later, when Ophiel grew old and died and there would be nothing I could do about it.”

Ophiel chirped on Erick’s shoulder. He didn’t understand exactly what was going on, but it was the same lack of understanding a baby in a crib had when their parents were talking; eventually, he could learn what all those squawking noises meant, and he could speak, too. He certainly recognized his own name and certain emotions, though he was not concerned, for Erick’s tone was rather light, even if his words were less than light.

Yggdrasil was still playing around with the Arbors of Treehome so if he was listening in then Erick could not tell.

Erick continued, “But while this is true for most people, it is not true for me. If such a thing should happen to Ophiel, then I will [Reincarnation] him into something that enables real continuance. I already offered the same thing to the Rockys —Tenebrae’s summon, you know— and they might take it. I might do the same thing for every single [Familiar] out there, if their final forms should prove nonviable. And for your next [Familiar], as well.”

Tasar stood adamantium still, trying not to breathe, or to give away her emotions, but a copper-bright tear rolled down her face anyway. It vanished into her black and green skin even before it finished falling, and Tasar inhaled in a shocked breath, and shuddered a bit. “I wish… I wish you would have been around a few centuries ago, Erick.”

“I’m here now, and it’s the best I can do.” Erick said, “I’m not willing to travel through time to change anything in the past just yet, and probably not ever.”

Tasar laughed a little, and this time copper-bright tears fell and she did not reabsorb them into her body. Drops of liquid sunshine fell and then peeled away from her skin like flakes of copper foil. “Not many people can say that without sounding quite a lot more boastful than they intended.”

Erick smiled a little. “So here’s the thing: To make a [Familiar] with mana, their creation must be more than a thing of math and intent given form. They must be a representation of you, or, perhaps, a certain reflection of you. A true wish given form. But these are things you have heard before.”

Tasar nodded, saying, “Yes. I have interviewed the Magisterium in the Wasteland Kingdoms when one Sizzi Zago divulged the technique she gained from you, to her uncle, who then paid off a debt by selling them that information.”

Erick nodded, then continued, “Here are some new ideas which I have only recently understood. The primary one being that in this act of creation you must make a [Familiar] that you have every intention of allowing to become a real person. With your act of creation, you are summoning something that you know will exist in the far, far future, but which is not yet here, in this time or place.

“There’s a word from my homeworld that works well here: You are not summoning a being of different manas, you are summoning a tulpa; A thing which starts off as an idea, grows to fullness, and becomes its own person. I could attach a lot more meaning to that word for you, and explain how such a thing existed on Earth where there was no magic, but you probably researched Sizzi, if not spoken to her directly?”

Tasar had a lot of different emotions as Erick had spoken, but now she was wondering just how far she should admit to spying. She went with the truth, “Yes. I had a small discussion with Miss Zago. A lot of that talk was about music and making the sounds of the magic ‘sound right’.”

Erick said, “The sounds were important for me; harmonizing them all together. They might be less important, or not; I am unsure.

“But as for tulpas and Sizzi: Sizzi had been trying to learn Summoning Magic in order to bring forth her childhood friends into the real world, but it wasn’t till I came along that she was able to make her own [Familiar]s how she wanted them. If you want a good example of what it means to make a [Familiar] with their own mana, then Sizzi’s example and this conversation right here is probably enough to tell you what a ‘tulpa’ is. I didn't even use that word when I spoke to her, but now, I realize what I was telling her to make. It took Kiri more than this, though.” Erick said, “Both of Sizzi’s summons were made outside of my sight and presence, but it took my direct presence to enable Kiri’s Sunny to manifest as she did. As soon as you get an idea of what it means to follow this path then I’ll be there for when you decide to make a [Familiar] like Ophiel.”

For a long moment Tasar said nothing.

Erick waited.

Tasar asked, “Is that… Truly all that I was missing? I need to make a [Familiar] that I want to be real? A childhood friend made manifest?”

And then she turned inward, her eyes falling down as she thought.

She was hurt for a dozen small and large reasons. Erick could only guess at a few of them, from Tasar not wanting to be hurt by the loss of a [Familiar] again, to feelings of inadequacy, to a deep self-loathing that the black-and-green woman never wanted to touch, but which Erick had exposed.

Erick briefly considered telling her about the mechanical, Time Magic-derived effects of his [Familiar]s, and how they were using mana from their future selves. But that seemed to be too mechanical to him, and such knowledge might bungle Tasar up even more if she thought that it could be solved mechanically. This was not a problem that needed to be solved mechanically, for it had already been solved emotionally, and three times already; twice by Sizzi, once by Kiri, and both of those young women couldn’t hear the mana at all.

Erick asked, “Can you hear the mana, Tasar?”

Tasar looked up. “That’s not how I do magic.”

“Try it once anyway. See if it works! [Familiar]s are just tier 2, able to be tried for again and again every day. It wasn’t until I knew exactly what I was making that I got Ophiel here.”

Ophiel chirped.

Tasar said, “… But according to you, if I don’t go for the full ceremony then I am not really trying.”

“Also true.” Erick said, “And there is one more secret to this that will probably hurt your chances more than it will help, so I won’t tell you that one yet. I’ll tell you after you make your [Familiar].”

Tasar frowned at him. “Just tell me now.”

“Let me ask you a question: Does what I have already said change how you would approach your [Familiar] creation?”

“… Yes. By a lot.”

“Then there you go!”

Tasar looked at Erick, and said, “If I were to give your apprentice this level of non-answers with regard to Spatial Magic then you would be very cross with me.”

“Ah ha! But you wouldn’t give her the secrets to [Teleport Other] so quickly, would you?” Erick said, “You would wait until she had learned how to [Teleport] first.”

Tasar lost her annoyance and a great lot of her emotional baggage in that moment. She leaned back in her chair, sighed, and said, “Fair.”

“How is Kiri doing, anyway?”

Tasar laughed once. “I’ve only been working with her for a few hours so far, but I already know she’s going to be a delight to teach. She takes in everything I can give her. Not as fast as some of the best minds I have ever taught, but certainly among the top 10%.”

Erick confessed, “I’m actually running out of things to teach her, so I think I might let her work with the House soon enough. I have to eventually pass down the Gate Network to another, and that person will probably be her.”

Tasar was briefly surprised. And then she asked, “But not your actual daughter?”

“Jane wants nothing to do with my magic or my kingdom. Which is fine! She can do what she wants. But I have to build something stable here and that means an heir, even if I do plan to stick around forever. And so, I have Kiri. Kiri is eventually going to walk the Worldly Path with you at her side, and that Path will end at me. She’ll start making Benevolence [Gate]s and take over my own duties.” Erick shrugged. “Or maybe she’ll just expand my Network? I’m not sure. Either way, I won’t be a failure point if I can help it.”

“… Well that is some monumental information I did not know, but which I suspected.” Tasar said, “I am actually quite glad that you are thinking like this, Erick. Kingdoms with heirs are always more stable than those without.”

“I haven’t actually told Jane this at all, so don’t you tell her this either, please.” Erick said, “I doubt she would care but… I want her to eventually find out from me. I haven’t told Kiri yet, either, but one hardly ever reacts badly to wonderful information so I’m a lot less worried about her... But don’t tell Kiri either. Just… Don’t tell anyone, actually. Jane is much more able to defend herself in a sticky situation than Kiri is.”

Tasar nodded. “Of course. It’s still several years before Kiri will be ready to walk the Path, anyway, and there is time to shore up her deficiencies.”

“I think she wants to build an empire, and so I will give her that if I can, but she still has to work for it; she has to get [Gate] mostly on her own.”

“What about Yggdrasil planting seeds on other worlds?” Tasar asked, “How does that fit into this situation?”

“Yggdrasil will eventually be able to open [Gate]s on his own as well, but that would be more for random expansion of the universe, I think. I love the big guy, but I’m certainly not going to force him to lead the way into the True Void for all the rest of eternity. Just like Jane, Yggdrasil will get a choice when he comes of age.” Erick said, “But Kiri is already of age, and she’s made her choices. She knows what she wants. Feel free to figure out the exact nature of what she wants, but try to be circumspect about it.”

Like a veteran soldier receiving duties, Tasar simply nodded, and said, “I will.”

Erick relaxed. “Thank you, Tasar. Thanks for coming on such short notice, too. Want me to blip you back?”

“No need. Thanks for trusting me with this information.” Tasar bowed in her seat, “Erick.”

And then she vanished in a blip of black and green magic.

Erick was alone again.

He smiled a little bit.

For a moment, he did nothing. He just relaxed.

And then he realized he had time to do some magic, for he did not need to sleep—

Well. Erick did need to sleep, and in fact, he kinda wanted to head off to bed right now. But Poi was almost done with dinner back at the house, and Erick wanted some of that scarlet king fish filet. Kiri would be back from her full day of work with Mox soon enough, and Teressa could wake up again for food, as she had done a few times today already.

Anyway! Erick would eat dinner with his family, and then he had time. He would use his [Hasted Shelter] and shove eight-plus hours of rest into one 10 minute period, and then he could do whatever he wanted with the rest of his night. He hadn’t done that last night because the Shelter made Ophiel uncomfortable after just twenty minutes, but this time, tonight, Erick could prepare the little guy for a night of rest inside a time bubble.

And when Erick came out of that bubble… What sort of magic would he make?

“I think… I think I’ll work on that magical iron problem.” Erick asked Ophiel, “What do you think, Ophiel? Magical iron that doesn’t rust?”

Ophiel chirped, happy to be included in the conversation.

“I think it’s a good idea, too.”

- - - -

Erick took one final look at his pachinko machine and his good thoughts vanished. A cancel command made the machine vanish, too. Metal and wood and glass fractured into scattered white fragments that then dissolved into the manasphere. It had been a terrible but necessary experiment.

Had he actually been willing to go through with it, if the ball had landed in that slot?

The question had merit, for eventually, in some unknown and a few known scenarios, Benevolence would make every single hypothetical metal ball land in a hypothetical murder slot. Erick would need to kill to make the world a better place, or to prevent a bad end. That day was not today, thankfully, but Erick knew how he had made Benevolence.

He knew what the future held.

The dark and the bright of it all.

This was not a new revelation for Erick, though.

He dismissed those melancholy thoughts and wondered if he was too stressed. If the job was getting to him. Being king was about as bad as having two jobs at the same time, and he had done that for years back when Jane was still growing up. If one counted ‘raising a child by themselves as a job’ then Erick actually had 3 jobs going at once for a long while. Being a king was easier than construction work and janitorial work and raising Jane, too; by a lot. But this job required a lot more mental effort… Which was not that much of a problem, though, now that Erick thought of it.

The authority he wielded over others and over the world, though… Now that was new.

And that was stressful.

After thinking about it for a while, Erick decided that Portal’s physical offers of companionship had rattled him more than he had realized, and mainly because those offers had been completely real. Sure, offering sex and marriage in a setting like that had been crude, but for Portal it was one of their best offers since war was not going to work at all. That whole scenario had been as crude as going to a bar and looking to hook up with another person, in the hopes of getting a long term relationship out of that casual fling.

Smart?

Mostly no.

But did it work?

Sometimes yes.

Did it work on the level of governments?

… It almost did, Erick was ashamed to admit.