Erick got out of the hot tub. He dripped water and steam as he cleaned up his meal and every bit of mess he had made while he sat there, eating scones and gazing across the mountains. It had been a good break, but it was time to move on, and even though the elder of the house wasn’t present, and likely only ever existed in the distant, distant past, if at all, Erick still wanted to be a good guest.

When he was once again dressed and ready to go, with his backpack on and his spellwork recast, Erick went out into the village and looked around one last time. He hadn’t been a guest for long, but it was a nice little place. Maybe he would be back later, but probably not.

He looked up and relaxed as he simply stood there, letting the cool white light of the blue Core soak into his face, and warm his body. And then Erick opened his eyes and lightstepped into the air above the village.

“Thanks for the hospitality,” Erick said one last time, before turning his gaze outward.

Where to next?

There were many choices. That mountain range with its cities. The dry lands over there in the center of that continent, with the little villages. The riverlands over there. The coast. The islands past the coast. The other continents. The giant cities on the other continent. Another small city nearby.

“Got a suggestion, Ophiel?” Erick glanced at the little guy on his shoulder.

Chirp chirp.

“Some place Yggdrasil would like.” Erick nodded. “Good idea.”

With that in mind… Where would Yggdrasil like to be?

“He’s already in two bodies of water. Perhaps something… less wet?”

Chirp Chirp.

“He likes the water so we’ll keep that the same. That rules out the mountains and the plains… Let’s fly around until we find something nice.” Erick looked up the bowl of the inner world, to where it vanished past the depth of air, and then completely disappeared beyond the blue curvature of the Core above. “The Core seems like an ocean of mana, but… Not there, either.”

Chirp chirp!

Erick said, “Ah! Right. I should test some basic spellwork, to understand if everything works the same down here before I explore.”

One of the nearby Ophiel got ready for testing, chirping as he hovered in front of Erick.

Erick smiled. Then he and Ophiel moved high into the sky to test out his magics.

After a few tests of basic spellwork, aiming at nothing in particular and canceling his spells before they reached very far at all, Erick quickly realized some important facts about the Outer Core to keep in mind going forward. Magic down here was the same as it was on the Surface. Even [Teleport] worked, which was a surprise. For some reason, Spatial Magic didn’t work in the Underworld, but it worked here, directly next to the Core.

But another test conducted on a cloudgate showed that there might be a problem leaving this place.

Ophiel blipped down, aiming for the tunnel Erick knew to exist beyond the cloudgate below. The ball of feathers and eyes ended up bouncing off of the cloudy surface, unable to pass through. Physically pushing didn’t seem to get Ophiel anywhere, either. Erick recalled Ophiel and frowned at the cloudgate.

He could certainly get through the cloudgate again, no problem, but the thought of fighting so many monsters so soon filled him with a small dread that sent him mentally recoiling. Either the thought of being trapped down here, or the thought of having to face an unexpectedly strong monster, or the idea of never seeing Jane again… He wasn’t certain which of his thousand and one thoughts sent him reeling, but he went reeling, for sure.

Several deep breaths later Erick calmed himself down, and he told himself that he could do what needed to be done, when it needed to be done. But not yet. Not so soon. There was still a lot to do down here.

And since Spatial Magic worked down here then maybe he could make [Gate] and get home that way, avoiding the monsters completely! Erick smiled as he had that thought. Well then. There was already a plan to work with Yggdrasil to make [Gate], so that plan moved to the front of his needs. He would conduct at least one of the tests he had in mind for [Gate] creation, and he might even succeed.

But there was a problem with that plan.

The Worldly Path ended with a visit from Melemizargo, and then the potential Walker got [Gate]. At least, this is how it was according to everything Erick had discovered so far. Because of that fact, Erick suspected that there might be a problem with completing this Quest in the Core. The mana down here felt different than the mana up there, but to be sure that his theory was correct, he ca—

He stopped.

Erick prepared to cast a spell in the same way that one prepares to touch a hot stove; hesitant, and then all at once. This time, he followed through. He cast a spell.

A cascading orb of white light flashed into existence overhead, spreading radio waves all over, and eliciting a white fog out of the air all around Erick. He had already input the searching target, and he was prepared to see the white fog turn deep blue the second [Cascade Imaging] started, but as moments turned to minutes and the foggy map turned more solid…

There was no blue.

Melemizargo was not in this land.

Erick… was not sure how to feel about that. He had touched the stove and found it cold.

But if Melemizargo wasn’t here… Were the other gods here?

To test this new theory, Erick thought up a good Particle Magic question about wormholes, so that he wouldn’t be in violation of Particular Insight’s requirement to ask about Particle Magic, specifically, and he called the god of The End and Time. A hundred mana vanished into the manasphere like so many scattered white glows.

The white glows were odd; that had never happened before. Usually it was a simple cast of mana that vanished into the manasphere, and then gold fire appeared. But...

Erick waited. He frowned. It never took this long before.

He eyed the inverted world.

“… Hello?” Erick asked, “Phagar?”

No response.

He checked the manasphere, casting his sight back in time, to see if Phagar was there like he usually was when Erick went looking.

No Phagar.

“Uh. Okay.” Erick said, “This is rather strange, Ophiel.”

Ophiel chirped; it was very strange!

Phagar could simply choose not to answer, as gods were wont to do, but that seemed incorrect.

Well.

Whatever.

Erick moved right along. He had the main plan already made; he just needed a place to plant Yggdrasil somewhere and then he could certainly talk to the people outside. Unless Yggdrasil couldn’t grow here? Or maybe Yggdrasil’s other bodies had popped when Erick went out of range? Ohh. That might be bad. Hopefully that hadn’t happened.

Erick picked a spot in the distance that looked good and headed that way.

- - - -

Upon seeing his chosen spot, which was a mountain, with a village and a freshwater lake at the base, Erick spotted a better location.

A city lay in the far distance, like a glittering patch of white buildings clinging to the space between a land of green, and the sparkling blue ocean. It didn’t take long to get there, and when Erick did, he knew this was the proper location for Yggdrasil. Something called to Erick as he eyed the place and judged it perfect—

Well. Not the city itself. More specifically, the patch of ocean next to the city. Erick would explore that later, but for now, he had a city to inspect.

… Purely to make sure this was an actually-good location. He’d get to Yggdrasil soon enough.

… He was gunshy about summoning his largest [Familiar], too, but he’d get to it soon enough. He just needed some time. Yes. That was all. A bit more time.

The city was a land of white towers and cathedrals and shorter, but no less well-made duplexes and single family homes, and apartment buildings. Almost every building had a picture window of some sort, made of rainbow stained glass, while some, like the cathedrals and governmental buildings had multiple windows of artful, crystal light. And it was crystal in the more expensive places, for sure; not glass. The streets were paved with white stone. Fountains bubbled everywhere. Bakeries were fully stocked with bread while beer halls and smokehouses and restaurants were all well provisioned, like the people who lived here had simply stepped out for a break.

Except there were no people at all. A [Cascade Imaging] helped to prove as much, and with some shifting of that Imaging, Erick found a few good places to look for answers. Searching for ‘books’ proved a great diversion, for the libraries had so very, very many books. Thankfully, they were not blank, or some shit like that. Erick had half expected that to happen. But, no. The books were real. But the books held a different problem. They were in languages that Erick had never seen before. There were passing similarities to Ancient Script in more than a few books, and once, Erick even managed to read half of a letter he found tucked into a desk by a window. Only half the letter, though. The rest made no sense at all.

And now, Erick stood in a dark wood library of some noble, for sure, for the room was three stories tall and about that wide, with walls made of shelves. Every shelf was packed full of non magical books, each bound in fine leather and organized in some arcane system that Erick had never encountered before. Parts of it seemed organized alphabetically, but only smaller parts, and Erick could only tell this much because of his massive Intelligence, for sure.

This library was organized oddly, but at least it wasn’t organized by color. He had found and dismissed four separate libraries of similar size to this one because they were organized by color. Massive wastes of space, for sure, but they were certainly pretty rooms to look at.

This library, in this massive house of white stone and towers and greenhouses, was probably the one Erick was going to study for a while, if he chose to stay here. This house didn’t have any active magic —there wasn’t any active magic anywhere, actually— but these books were clearly supposed to be of a magical nature. Erick recognized some formations on the shelves that should have been filled with magic, and almost every single book had smatterings of formation diagrams in them, too—

“Ah. I should check my Minor Entity of the Script access.” Erick almost slapped himself. “Maybe there are more people in this land with me.” And if not people, then Rozeta, for sure. He put the book back on the shelf and instigated—

A human woman of white everything, from hair to skin to eyes to her white pantsuit, stepped out of the air three meters away.

Rozeta semi-rapidly said, “Hello, Erick. Welcome to the Outer Core. I am exceedingly busy at the moment, otherwise I might have been here before now but since you’re forcing the issue: Is there some specific thing I can help you with?”

Erick nodded, then he rapidly asked, “Where are all the people? Can I plant Yggdrasil in the ocean in that direction?” He pointed toward the ocean. “Do you mind if I make some magic here? What’s going on with this place? What’s up with the [Luminous Beam] on the guardians? And can I get a cast of [Language Acquisition] to understand these books? But I don’t have any grand-rads on me at the moment.”

Rozeta nodded, then said, “Easy ones first, and not in the order you asked them: Make whatever magic you wish, but be respectful of this land. You were already respectful enough to solve the breach you caused, and you’re you, so though you have trespassed, I trust you enough not to force you out. Because I trust you, you may plant Yggdrasil wherever you wish.

“But know this:

“The Outer Core is a memorial to lost lands and a receptacle for replacement parts in case the worst should happen on Veird.” Rozeta said, “This land was not intended to become a holy land to my people, but it has, and the wrought feverishly protect it from all intruders. You are an intruder, but you are also a Minor Entity, which does hold a certain amount of sway. How much? I will not say, for that would be involving myself with mortal matters.

“As for the guardians possessing [Luminous Beam]: the Core is protected by the wrought, as previously explained. It’s complicated and I won’t go into all of the details of how, mostly because security is security, but those guardians and their cloudgates have been there for a very, very long time. They’re old, but they also get upgraded every so often. Recently, they’ve been upgraded with [Luminous Beam], and since [Luminous Beam] is a very good spell, they use it almost exclusively ever since it was added.

“I believe this is actually a bug in the formations which create the guardians, but it is only after your breakthrough that the caretakers of that magic are finally starting to agree with me that their system is bugged.

“Finally: Yes, you may have [Language Acquisition] cast upon you. Instead of the usual cost, I’ve already taken the liberty of removing the grand rads from the monsters you killed and left to rot. You now have a plus-395 grand rad balance. Use it as you wish.” She flickered with divine fire and magic settled over Erick. “This [Language Acquisition] is a good version that will last as long as you’re inside the Outer Core and a week past that. You probably won’t learn anything too interesting from these books since they’re all based upon reality that no longer exists, but I would never begrudge anyone their diversions.” She stood fractionally straighter, “And now that your questions are answered, I must tell you off.

“Normally, a breach is a lot more deadly for the breacher. Sometimes they get through, though, and they fail to stop the flood of monsters that come inside with them. Those monsters remove on average at least ten cloudgates, letting even more monsters flood into the Outer Core, before they’re stopped. If ever all the cloudgates should fall, which has happened before, then the Inner Core becomes vulnerable. With the Inner Core exposed, all life on this world is in danger of…

“Let’s simply call it ‘bad things’, because the failure states have looked different every time we’ve gotten close to them. But, on the plus side: The Core Defenses ramp up significantly if things look to be going that way.” Rozeta said, “Luckily, this time you prevented that entire series of problems from ever becoming a problem. So, with that, and everything else you’ve done taken into account, you get a pass, Erick.

“From me. I should clarify: You get a pass from me.” Rozeta stared a bit, saying, “But this shit here was dangerous. You have more than enough power to prevent the worst case scenario, and I’m truly glad you thought to do so, so you get a pass. But other people know what could have happened here, since they’ve lived through it multiple times before.

“Every time someone tries to reach the core, and succeeds, the world almost dies. The wrought understand this. Perhaps they’re too insular down here, in the Underworld. Perhaps some of them disregard fleshy life as frivolous and flighty, so they don’t treat with true mortals like they should. Perhaps they should have been kinder and asked you to meet with them inside their cities.

“But whatever.

“The wrought have a purpose, and that purpose is to protect the world from an unexpected End, and they do a very good job of that. Aside from that, they’re free to live their lives as they see fit, making their own governments and societies and decisions about those societies.” Rozeta breathed. Then she said, “I don’t control the wrought. I give guidance and support, and that’s it. So don’t expect me to get between them and you when they invariably come for you.”

Erick the weight of the moment upon his chest. “Okay. I get it.”

“I know you do.” Rozeta said, “And just so you know: Some of those wrought will arrive here in a few days to investigate everything that happened, but there are no easy ways to get here. There are no back doors to the Core. So they’ll have to wade through the monsters like you did, but since all the doors are closed and monsters fill the passageways, there’s not much of an actual emergency. A lot of the usual emergency response was not necessary.” Rozeta said, “The people that do show will want you to leave, but you’re free to do whatever you want, and they’re free to do whatever they want, too. I ask you not to kill them; I have already asked them not to kill you.”

A moment passed while Rozeta let that all sink in.

Erick said, “Heard and understood. Thanks for the warnings.”

Rozeta nodded. “Even with all that said, there is one more important thing to tell you, and then I must be going: I will not let you create a [Gate] in this land. You are a Wizard, so you could probably blow through a few of the protections against such a creation of magic, but I will not save you from the backlash when the defenses activate. There can be no back doors to the Core.” She paused. She continued, “But simultaneously, I wish you well on your creation of [Gate]. I can guide you on that, if you wish, but such guidance will not happen here, or now. Come to the Orrery in Nergal, instead.”

“Understood.” Erick said, “No back doors.”

“None.” Rozeta said, “Even the [Telepathy] you’ll get out of Yggdrasil isn’t something I would normally allow, but I’m planning for the far future, here, and I need to see what happens. So I will allow this, for a while. Yggdrasil will not be allowed to stay in the Outer Core, either.” Rozeta relaxed a fraction. “If you want a place for Yggdrasil, I can make a nice spot for him outside of the Core. I promise he’ll like it. I promise you will like it, too.”

“Okay. I understand.” Erick said, “I’ll replant him elsewhere. What sort of place were you thinking?”

Rozeta allowed herself a tiny smile, and a grateful sigh. “I’m not sure yet; I’ll probably ask some of my people to make a spot.” She said, “A final piece of advice: When you get out of here, don’t accept my father’s help creating a [Gate]. You don’t need him, Erick. You’re Wizard enough on your own, and I’m sure, with time, you will—” Her eyes flicked left with her head turning a moment later, but slower, and more methodical. She frowned at the empty space as she spoke to Erick, “You’ll come into your power soon eno— Bah.” She turned back to Erick. “I must go. Call me again in a few days when you have more questions.”

And then she vanished.

Erick looked at the space Rozeta had occupied for a moment longer, wondering if that had been a good interaction, or not. He leaned toward ‘good’, but he had apparently risked the world to break into this place, and Rozeta did not approve.

Erick wanted to rally against the injustice of not being let into a protected space, but that seemed childish. Security was security, for a reason, and the Core had a very good reason for being secured like it was.

Anyway. Next time Erick would ask Rozeta about what it meant to be a Wizard, and why the other gods weren’t able to answer him here in the Inner Core. There were a lot of questions that Erick would have to save till next time. And… yeah.

Rozeta was busy.

Erick was busy, too. He could talk to her again later, but in the meantime, he had no idea what was going on outside of the Core and he didn’t want to be separated from everyone else for too long. It was time to summon Yggdrasil. Even if [Gate] creation was blocked down here, there were many other reasons to plant the big guy down nearby. Erick wasn’t done with his exploration of the land down here, for there were certainly secrets laying in wait in thousands upon thousands of places, but he needed someone to talk to that wasn’t Ophiel just parroting him. It’d be nice to talk to everyone else on the surface, too. Just how long had Erick been gone, anyway? Hopefully not too long.

And besides that, Yggdrasil was probably worried about Erick, too. Erick knew he was certainly worried about Yggdrasil.

One final thing to do in this library, though. Erick scanned through the stacks, looking for a few books with lots of pictures to aid with learning the language. Such targets were easy enough to find; there was a whole shelf of little knickknacks for kids, including stuffed toys and leather balls and more than a few dolls, along with a whole row of colorful books on the second to lowest shelf. Knowing what he now knew, Erick suspected that this place was a copy of someone’s former home from the Old Cosmology, but translated to this New Cosmology.

Every single city down here was probably like that.

Erick copied every children’s book on that colorful children’s shelf, along with several dozen of the more expensive-looking probably-magic grimoires strung throughout the rest of the library. That would be enough reading material while he hung out with Yggdrasil for the next few days, or something.

Holding his new copies in his light, Erick and Ophiel took a lightstep to their next location, by the ocean.

- - - -

The white city had been built upon a jag of land extending out from the main continent. Past that jut of land, a string of smaller islands trailed off into the ocean to where they grew smaller and smaller until, after five islands, the bumpy land under the waves, and all that lay ahead was blue.

The city had developed onto the first three of those islands with a massive, arcing white bridge made of stone. For a brief moment Erick thought the bridge was an architectural marvel because stone couldn’t get that thin without magic, and he saw no magic, but then his second thought informed him that this was the Underworld, and gravity was only a suggestion down here.

The bridge was but one of three such bridges leading from the mainland to the nearest island. A similar bridge connected that first island to the second one, and then a third one connected the second island to the third.

The first of the islands held a massive, soaring white castle of several towers and a few curtain walls. Bright blue roofs and shining silver gates served almost as decorations, while private gardens and rooms upon rooms of plush bedding and couches and all the proper amenities of nobility served almost as showrooms, telling the story of the white city’s prosperity. Practically every room had a bit of rainbow stained ‘glass’, too, in the form of windows set above doors. There were a few masterwork sculptures of crystal in courtyards here and there, as well.

The second island had a wizard’s tower of some sort, with an orrery at the top and enough sculptures of wizards to give Erick pause. He didn’t spend too long there because that place was packed with secrets, and with the first sorts of traps that he had seen in this land. He could suss out all the little secrets of that place another day, though, for he had a mission.

But before he got to that mission, Erick checked on the third island. An obvious chapel stood in the center of that land, dedicated to god Erick had never heard of or seen before. He didn’t spend too long there, either, but mostly because it was one of the few places that seemed truly sacred.

And, he had other stuff to do. He had checked out those locations just to ensure that there would be no obvious problems with what he came here to do, for the ocean and Yggdrasil called to him.

Erick returned to the sky above it all. To the right of the islands lay a protected harbor. Boats bobbed in the gentle waves of that harbor, looking ready to unload their goods, or to accept loads of goods waiting for them on the docks. Those transfers would never happen though, for those boats had been sitting there like that for a very, very long time— Or? Ah. Maybe not?

They had likely only been there since the last time this land was ravaged by monsters and the Core almost fell. According to Rozeta’s implications, nothing here was actually 1,450 years old; dated to the time of the Sundering. Whatever the case, Erick wasn’t going to plant Yggdrasil in the harbor, anyway; that would be disrespectful.

To the left of the white castle and wizard’s tower and chapel and harbor, though, lay the open ocean. The ocean was freshwater, too, so saltwater wasn’t even a concern.

Erick set down on a small, sandy beach at the base of the white castle. Ophiel propped up a [Prismatic Ward] across the beach while another primed themselves with [Greater Treat Wounds]. A third Ophiel was already out in the deep blue, under the freshwater waves, looking for a good spot.

The beach dipped below the waves, sand becoming seafloor as the land gently sloped down a continental shelf that ended about a kilometer and a half from shore, where a steep drop gave way to the true ocean. The greater ocean was only half a kilometer deep, though. There were a few underwater hills that rose halfway to the surface, but mostly, and judging only from the small inspection Erick had made of it all, the Outer Core ocean was a uniform half kilometer deep.

Of all the artificial things of this ‘warehouse world’, the uniformity of the ocean depths was perhaps the strangest. Or, more likely, it was simply the strangest thing yet; there was still a lot of land and empty cities to explore.

That was all stuff to do later, though.

An Ophiel flooded the land with his [Physical Domain]; not to break anything, but to check to see how deep the dirt actually went, before it encountered the absolute barrier of the edge of the Outer Core—

Ah. Erick found the edge. With a bit of prodding to make sure… Yup! Beyond the flat bottom of the ocean, about 1500 meters beyond, a rather uniform pressure pushed back on Ophiel’s power. Erick didn’t press further. He relaxed Ophiel’s [Physical Domain] and picked one of the larger underwater hills, about seven kilometers out from the beach.

A few Ophiel went there in sunform. One of them cast a columnar [Prismatic Ward] straight up and down, from the base of where Yggdrasil would grow, to three hundred meters up, pushing that Restful density to as large as it could go. Erick hoped such a preparation would lessen the mana drain he was about to endure… It might!

It might not.

“Enough preparation, Erick,” Erick said to himself. “Just do it.”

Ophiels chirped in agreement; they were ready to support him with [Greater Treat Wounds] if he went down, and he probably would.

Erick cast through Ophiel, targeting the land below the waves—

- - - -

A broken dream of fragmented sight and constant missing time, with days feeling like minutes and moments passing without measure, suddenly changed. The world seemed smaller, and larger. Land was land, water was water, air was air again, unlike the jumble it had once been. As reality solidified, time solidified, too.

In a lake by a city of protective candles and biting dirt, and in another lake in a place filled with great big fish and not enough lightning, Yggdrasil realized that he was also somewhere else. A new place. Tracing the whole of himself, he found a curved, strange path that connected him to another set of senses deep, deep underground. In the other direction, Yggdrasil found his old bodies, up on the Surface.

He focused completely on the new space.

A land of endless stillness. A land with a familiar person, of warmth and love and light, calling to him.

The world began to make sense again.

Yggdrasil asked the ending dream, “Father?”

- - - -

Erick slumped to the beach as everything left him, drained like so much blood from a body. His breath stopped as his heart slowed and Mana and Health ripped away, forming a small life at the bottom of a fake ocean that needed more power. A hacking laugh and a spray of blood escaped Erick’s throat as blood spurted from his nose and turned his vision red and he struggled to stay awake. He managed, but it was a bare thing; he knew this was going to happen. He had been prepared. He was barely prepared enough. Ophiel hit him with a [Greater Treat Wounds], and that helped.

Erick’s vision drew him to the source of his pain, and his connection to the outside world.

Across the way, kilometers into the ocean, white surf burst the blue surface and kept on coming, lifting waves into the air and dumping millions of tons of water back into the ocean, only to form more fountains of white that rose further into the sky. As seconds passed the explosion parted, revealing what had surfaced from below.

White branches extended into the cloudy air of the Outer Core, and then stretched out, like rivers of white that rapidly spread into tributaries and streams of glowing brightness. Fiery green leaves burst into existence—

And the drain slowed.

Erick breathed deep, like someone had taken off a boulder from his chest. Ophiel hit him with another [Greater Treat Wounds], and that took the remaining edge off. Erick lifted himself from the sands—

A brilliant gold fire rippled inside the landscape of his soul, like the gentle tearing of a net. Freezing chills followed as the net tore, but the net began to repair almost as fast, as though a million invisible spiders were stitching it back together, but in a different arrangement. As the golden net fell back into his soul, back to invisibility, it seemed thicker in some spots, but looser in others. A brief check on Yggdrasil’s blue box revealed Erick’s maximum summons was at 4; one more than before.

A blue box appeared as soon as the gold light settled.

Special Quest!

The Worldly Path.

Steps taken: 3 of ???

Reward: Gate

So he was still on the right Path. That was good. Erick dismissed the box and gazed across the waters. His breath hitched as his heart beat harder; it was a magnificent sight.

Yggdrasil was almost fully grown. Kilometers tall and just as wide, the white tree towered over the blue ocean, its kilometer long branches filled with leaves of green fire. As Erick watched, more Mana drained from him, and a bright, rainbow crown encircled all of Yggdrasil like a road of prismatic light rounding a mountain.

The drain from Yggdrasil slowed even more, down to a trickle, and then to something small enough that Erick’s regeneration overcame Yggdrasil’s demands. He relaxed as he waited for some Mana and Health to regenerate. His spellwork had shut off when Yggdrasil emptied him. A half minute later, Erick turned on [Greater Lightwalk], and then [Lodestar]. Yggdrasil was almost fully formed.

With warm, loving thoughts, Erick sent a telepathic, wordless greeting to Yggdrasil, speaking of home and hello and how’ve-you-been, all at once.

“FATHER!” Yggdrasil’s voice boomed across the sky of the Outer Core, filling the world with demanding, and longing, and hope, “WHERE—”

“Over here, Yggdrasil.” Erick tugged on Yggdrasil’s sight, directing him to the beach. “I’m right—”

A tendril of light erupted out from Yggdrasil, longer and thicker than all of his branches combined. He touched Erick, instantly. In a flashing moment, Erick found himself standing on the upper branches of Yggdrasil, upon a flattish section of the curving trunk. For a moment he was disoriented, but he recovered fast enough. Erick guessed he had been [Teleport Other]’d, and that was fine, because there was something else to worry about aside from his own safety. All around him, formerly-fiery green foliage dropped through the air in a minor downpour of crunchy, curled and browned leaves. The world seemed dimmer, and it probably was, for Yggdrasil’s bark flickered and faded with obvious sadness. He didn’t cry, though, because that was a human emotion, and Yggdrasil certainly was not human.

Erick instantly laid down on Yggdrasil, putting his arms wide and hugging the branch as he pressed his face against the dim white surface, saying, “It’s okay, Yggdrasil. Sorry for leaving you behind. Did you have trouble while I was gone?”

Yggdrasil’s dim bark brightened where Erick touched. After a shaking moment, emotions settled. Slowly, for kilometers all around, light began returning to the massive tree. New green leaves began to grow like a spreading green fire at the ends of every one of Yggdrasil’s branches.

A small, prismatic colored [Scry] eye appeared in front of Erick. Looking at him. Erick smiled at the eye and sat up as the eye rapidly moved around him, checking for truth. A spell flickered out of the bark underneath Erick’s feet and his wounds began to close. Another spell flickered much less than a Script Second later, and the blood from his most recent incident vanished from his face.

Erick smiled gently. “Hello, Yggdrasil.”

Yggdrasil’s voice was a small thing. “Hello, Father.”

“I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

“Tell me all about it.” Erick laid his head sideways on the now-glowing bark. “How long has it been since I vanished?”

“I don’t know! Why did you vanish!”

Erick turned around and looked upward, watching the Core through Yggdrasil’s brightly shining green leaves. And he started talking, first about Enduring Forge, and then about the blipping incident, and how he thought he’d appear somewhere dangerous, yes, but not nearly as dangerous as it turned out to be. And then Erick moved on to talk of monsters and danger and all that. Ophiel showed up soon enough, depositing the books Erick had copied next to him on the trunk, while Erick rambled on about everything.

Yggdrasil listened, silently, intently, his prismatic [Scry] eye hovering around Erick.

Erick got up and moved some of his new stuff around, organizing it as he continued to talk, giving highlights and lowlights to the experience of the Underworld, talking of specific monsters and their abilities. He felt like he was disgorging his worries onto a child, but he asked if his words were too much more than once.

Yggdrasil went, “Not too much. Tell me more, please.”

And so Erick did. He got to the part where he crossed the barrier, into this land, and he named this place the Outer Core, as Rozeta had explained to him.

“I haven’t explored much, but I plan on doing more of that.” Erick added, “And now that you’re here, you can explore it with me.”

“No. You can’t leave me again. You stay right there.” Yggdrasil said, “This Underworld is too dangerous.”

“I love you too, Yggdrasil.” Erick said, “I’ll stay right here for a while because I’m tired and I missed you, too. How about you tell me what’s been happening on the Surface?”

“… I don’t know.” Yggdrasil said, “They hurt me, so I hurt them back. You left and they hurt me! I don’t know what’s happening out there. Lightning is happening. That is what they deserve.”

“I’m sorry that happened, Yggdrasil.” Erick asked, “Did you reach out to Poi, or Jane, or Teressa? Did you ask anyone for help?”

“… No… I should have?”

“You should have; yes. I might be your connection to this world, but you’ll be able to stand on your own eventually. You need to talk to other people, too.” Erick asked, “Want me to show you how? I’ve been lost down here for a bit, and I need to talk to some people, too. You can listen in while I talk to them.”

“Yes. Show me.”

Erick stepped into Yggdrasil’s existence—

The world turned indistinct, and dark, except for a world of light around Erick, and two ephemeral streams of linking intent that passed outward, through deep darkness and into the world beyond. Other, broader sensory suites spread out in every other direction of this Outer Core, but only those two links went through the protections of this space. And so… Erick followed those links. Behind him hovered a prismatic presence, helping him remain connected, preventing any straying from the path.

Another land of light lay in the sun and starlight far away—

Erick came back to himself, following the guiding presence of Yggdrasil back though the dark, back to the Outer Core. He opened his real eyes again and gave himself a moment to understand what had just happened. He checked himself and he was still alive, still sitting on a flat bend in Yggdrasil’s upper trunk. He had obviously journeyed through the manasphere to Yggdrasil’s other bodies, but it was an odd sort of journey… Whatever had happened, it was apparently fine.

He nodded.

He went back in, following and allowing Yggdrasil’s light to guide his mind to the Surface, oh so far away.

Both locations felt the same—

‘Erick!’ Poi’s voice came to him from the right-ish side of Yggdrasil’s Surface bodies. ‘You’re alive! Thank the gods.’

Erick almost laughed in joy to hear Poi’s voice, but Poi’s voice was desperate. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Wh— Uh!’ Poi backpedaled, ‘Nothing is wrong. Are you enjoying yourself? While the rest of us worry ourselves near to death?’

Erick asked again, ‘What’s wrong, Poi?’

‘Nothing is wrong, Erick. Everything is fine. But, if you could give me a lesson to hand to Kiri regarding Permanency magic, then things might be a bit more fine.’

‘So you’re not willing to tell me. Okay.’ Erick paused. He asked, ‘How bad is it?’

‘Nothing is wrong, Erick. Do whatever you have to do to get [Gate], then come back to Spur.’ Poi added, ‘Ah. And help Yggdrasil with his defenses over at Holorulo. Candlepoint is working to protect Yggdrasil, but people keep trying to [Dispel] him over in Nelboor. He’s defenseless over there and the sky is a bit more full of lightning than it has to be.’

Yggdrasil spoke in their connection, ‘They hurt me. So I hurt them back.’

‘I’ll work with him, Poi.’ Erick asked, ‘How long have I been gone?’

‘33 days.’ Poi said, ‘It’s been a concern, but Silverite was right; she wasn’t going to start worrying until two months had passed. Jane will be happy to know that you’re okay. We’re all happy to know that you’re okay.’

‘Sorry I made you worry. I’m glad to hear you’re okay, too.’ Erick sent, ‘I’ll send a packet about what happened, first, and then another about Permanency tips.’ With a spark of concentration, Erick lined up his memories and sent them along in two bursts of magic. He didn’t edit many of the memories of his time after falling out of the mana stream, up until he reached the cloudgate and the guardians, but past that he left it as a blur of oddity in a safe land. The Permanency package was well crafted, though; everything Kiri would need to apply that spellwork to all of her magic was in there. After those messages flowed down the pipe, Erick sent, ‘I’ll try to get back as soon as I can, but it’s going to be rough returning.’

After a long moment, Poi sent, ‘Uh. Yeah. That will be rough. Uh. Do you want me to talk to Killzone— I’m going to talk to Killzone and Silverite about this. Maybe they know a way to call off whatever squad is going after you.’

‘They probably don’t have anything to do with Underworld politics anymore… But do gauge how they respond to me being in the Outer Core. I want to know that before I come back—’

‘You can’t come back while you’re still on the Worldly Path.’ Poi sent, ‘We’re handling the problems here, Erick. You should return with ancient magics at your beck and call, and not before.’

Erick frowned. ‘You call me if it gets bad. I can probably help, even though you refuse to tell me what is going on.’

‘… Do you want to tell Kiri how to get [Luminous Beam]? While we’re at this, anyway.’

‘Yes,’ Erick said, without reservation. ‘It’s like this…’ He sent along another packet. ‘That should be it.’

Relief flooded down the connection.

Poi sent, ‘This is more than enough help.’

Erick mentally nodded, then he sent, ‘So. Anyway. This is Yggdrasil. Yggdrasil, this is Poi, one of my best friends. You can talk to him if you have problems.’

Yggdrasil’s massive, world spanning power flickered away from Erick, and landed on Poi. ‘Hello, small blue man. I am Yggdrasil.’

With a proper mental bow and politeness, Poi sent, ‘Hello, large World Tree. I am Poi Fulisade.’

‘Now you two can talk for a while, or as long as you need.’ Erick sent, ‘I’ll talk to you later, Poi. Send everyone else my love!’

‘Yes, sir.’

Erick stepped back, flowing back to himself. As he departed the scene he felt, more than heard, Yggdrasil talk to Poi, like a mountain talking to an ant. He smiled at that feeling; talking to Yggdrasil was about the same for him, too.

Opening his eyes in the Outer Core, Erick sighed into the brightness all around. He watched the fiery green leaves dance upon the gentle winds of this quiet land. With a thought, he sent out Ophiels back into the white city to grab some necessities, like the copy of a bed, and a dresser with clothes fit for him, and a few other assorted items. In half an hour, Erick had a little space for himself set up on the flat-enough trunk of Yggdrasil, with some privacy dividers acting like walls to block the wind and make everything feel just a bit more secure.

When that was done Erick went to the stove and made himself a cup of tea, then he sat down on a nice couch to read some books, to learn at least one of the local languages. It was busywork, more than actual, productive work. He’d make a [Renew] when Yggdrasil came back from talking to Poi, and after a rest of—

“Ah. Shit. The kids with the mana sense problems.”

Erick set aside the book and dove back into Yggdrasil’s connections, to speak to—

Ah.

Found her.

‘Archmage Flatt!’ Caretaker Shani of the House of the Wandering Soul responded, ‘We heard you were dead!’

Erick smiled. ‘The rumors of my untimely demise have been greatly exaggerated. I was merely indisposed for a while. Anyway. You need some new mana sense blocking spells, do you not?’

‘We do!’ Shani softly said, ‘The kids thought you had abandoned them.’

‘Ah. Well. Sorry about that. Things happen.’ Erick glanced out through Yggdrasil at Holorulo, actually looking at the Surface world around him. It was a bit hard to understand, actually. The land was water. The water was air. The sky was fire and lightning. It was all quite surreal, but Erick could tell that Yggdrasil had torn up the place, too. Lightning shattered the water. Wind tore at the air. Storms broke the fire and washed away all who would attempt to attack.

Erick began to fix everything, one spellcast at a time, and gradually, things began to make sense again. The lightning rain stopped. The waters calmed. The stone shoreline repaired, but this time, there was a stone box sitting on the shore. Erick began filling that stone box with [Personal Delirium Charm]s, as he sent to Shani, ‘I can’t personally deliver them this time, but they’re right here beside Yggdrasil, so you don’t have too long of a trip in front of you. I calmed the sky. Can you please tell whomever you feel like telling: Stop attacking Yggdrasil.’ Without giving her time to respond, he showed Yggdrasil to Shani, saying, ‘Yggdrasil. This is Shani. She’ll be by to pick up those charms I just cast into that box. Okay?’

Shani mentally panicked as a presence the size of the sky focused on her.

Yggdrasil sent, ‘Okay, Father. I understand. This person may approach.’

‘Thank you, Yggdrasil.’ Erick sent, ‘Sorry about the interruption of service, Shani.’

‘Pe— Perfectly… Perfectly fine, Archmage Flatt. Thank you.’ Shani rapidly sent, ‘The kids appreciate this.’

Erick pulled back from that conversation, but he continued to fix a few more things around Yggdrasil at Holorulo, while telling Yggdrasil how to maintain proper defenses. Yggdrasil learned quickly, casting spells how Erick told him to cast.

Then Erick dove across the world, to Candlepoint, to check on the surroundings. The lake at Candlepoint seemed fine. The sky could use some touching up, though, so Erick fixed the weather while Yggdrasil placed some defenses.

Erick pulled back.

Opening his real eyes one again, he saw Yggdrasil’s [Scry] eye watching him.

Erick smiled, and said, “You did well when I was gone, Yggdrasil. I didn’t get any unexpected Kill Notifications from you. I’m very proud of you for not killing anyone.”

“I tried to be good, just like you said, Father.” Yggdrasil asked, “You won’t leave me again, will you?”

“I never meant to leave you in the first place. I’m very sorry for that. I hope it never happens again.” Erick picked up a children’s book, asking, “Want to learn a new language with me? Or would you like to watch me make some magic?”

“I don’t care about words on paper. I can’t read.”

Erick’s eyes went wide, but before he could say anything—

Yggdrasil said, “I want to do nothing. You sit there and do nothing, too. Okay?”

Erick nodded. “I’ll stay right here, Yggdrasil.”

“Good.”

Erick decided to read the book. He’d try teaching Yggdrasil how to read later, if Yggdrasil felt like it. Probably wouldn’t happen, though. 

He sipped his tea, trying to understand the children’s book, and had a bit of bread and cheese while he was at it. Yggdrasil’s bright green foliage, kilometers away and waving like a dome of light and green fire, rustled a bit. A breeze flowed through.

This was relaxing.

… Erick wondered about Spur, though.

They were probably fine. Poi would have told him if he had to come home. Wouldn’t he? Yeah; he would. Honestly… Erick had spent too much time ‘vacationing’. It was likely past due for him to speed up this Worldly Path.

But if the end of this Path was Wizardry…

Erick had been hesitant about summoning another Yggdrasil, but he was absolutely against dealing with Wizards, because that would mean dealing with himself, and his true place in the world. People seemed to like him so far, but he was under no illusions about what would happen if people discovered he was a Wizard. Everything and everyone would turn on him in a flashing instant.

- - - -

Hours and hours later, Yggdrasil quietly said, “The light is always.”

Erick startled awake. He had fallen asleep while reading but he couldn’t have been unconscious for anymore than an hour or two. He plucked the open magic book off his chest and set it aside, next to the bed with all the others.

Learning the language hadn’t been that difficult and when the children’s books started making sense Erick had moved on to the grimoires, but reading those had been like reading Jabberwocky. Half the words were real, but the other half were arcane to him, both in sensibility and literally since they were about magical concepts that no longer existed. He barely recalled what he was reading, anyway, since he was barely awake at the moment. He eyed the fiery green sky of a canopy above, and the white lightning-like branches that held those flaming leaves far, far aloft.

He tried to make sense of what Yggdrasil had said.

He got nothing.

Groggily, Erick asked, “What?”

Yggdrasil’s [Scry] eye appeared in the air next to him; a small ball of prismatic light. “The light is always. And my roots don’t go deep. And everything pulls oddly.”

Erick stretched, yawning a bit as he dissected Yggdrasil’s words. Apparently he was still exhausted from the trek down here, and nothing made sense at that moment, but Erick came to himself quick enough. He got up, saying, “There is no sun down here, Yggdrasil. That blue planet-sized sphere above is the Inner Core of Veird. We’re in the Outer Core right now; the warehouse of Veird, where they keep their spare parts of the trappings of life in case anything should happen to the rest of the world. And so, this is a protected space. There’s a lock on this space to prevent people from easily entering, or leaving, and you’re brushing up against it when you send your roots deep. Gravity is also odd, since down here gravity always points toward the largest mass of stone. You might be experiencing a self-gravity of a kind, so yes, that would feel odd.”

“It’s not a sun?”

“Correct. That blue thing is not a sun.” Erick walked over to the kitchen he had set up and started preparing dinner, since it might as well be dinner time. “I’m not sure how it works either, but the Inner Core gives off light like a sun. I know the world looks a bit weird to you, and feels even stranger… Does the light of the Inner Core feel good? Or are you mainly using your own [Kaleidoscopic Radiance] for light?”

Yggdrasil took a moment to respond. “I like the light. I’m always in light. Down here I’m always in the light? It’s okay. Feels odd. I like real sun better. This sun not sun. Missing something.”

“I like the real sun, too.” Erick said, “Rozeta has informed me that neither of us can stay down here, but if you want, she has offered a space outside the Core. Somewhere close and probably always full of light.” Erick said, “She promised that you would like it. Would you like to be replanted out there?”

“Yes.” Yggdrasil quickly added, “We can leave together. Then you come build house in my branches at candle land and stay there. Okay?”

“I might have to go traveling again, to another land that is separate from the Surface.” Erick asked, “Do you remember the place in the Forest where your [Scry] eye could not follow?”

“No. You come home and stay.”

Erick smiled as he tossed some onions and beef on the grill, saying, “And let you explore the cosmos while I can’t move at all?”

“… I can’t explore cosmos.” Yggdrasil said, “I like staying in one place.”

“That’s what you say today. But what about tomorrow? Staying home is nice, but your home is going to be everywhere in the universe, as far as you can go, but to get there takes a bit of exploring of your own. One day you’ll find yourself on completely alien planets, supporting the growth of light and life.” Erick asked, “Or do you not want to see the places I told you about?”

Yggdrasil’s leaves flickered with unsure brightness. “… I want to see other worlds, too.”

“And I’ll help you get there, but this means that I will have to leave sometimes, so that you may follow.” Erick added, “And sometimes you will go somewhere, so that I may follow. This is life.”

A gentle groan of accepted disappointment moved through Yggdrasil like a very large branch gently bending in the wind. It wasn’t exactly a human sound, for it wasn’t born of a human mind or physiological reaction, but it was an approximate emulation based on human emotional reactions. Erick wondered how, exactly, he was connected to Yggdrasil, and how that connection influenced Yggdrasil’s growth. From everything that Erick could tell, the big guy was basically a child, and while Erick gave ‘birth’ to him, Yggdrasil’s other major ‘biological’ donors were gods and magic—

Huh.

Actually, magic was just possibility based on interpretations of mana as seen through the lens of a sapient mind, so perhaps Yggdrasil’s other major contributors were also orcols, and incani, and dragons, and monsters, and everything else that made mana on this world. Erick had never thought about it that way, but Yggdrasil had some rather radical genetic influences, didn’t he? Actually, they’d be ‘soul influences’; nothing genetic about them.

Yggdrasil stopped groaning in thought, and said, “I want to see rest of universe, but not today.”

Erick nodded. “Not today.”

“You can show the way, but I need you here most time.”

“I will be here for you, Yggdrasil. Forever and always.” Erick said, “And when I’m not directly with you, you can follow, like Ophiel.” Ophiel chirped on Erick’s shoulder. “I can’t support your body on my other shoulder, but I can support your sight.”

Yggdrasil’s small [Scry] eye set down on Erick’s other shoulder. With a small voice, he said, “Okay.”

A gentle wind blew across the inner world, and it was good.

Erick grilled beef and onions high in the sky, while Yggdrasil and Ophiel watched. Eventually, he added cheese, then he grilled some bread. The resultant cheesesteak sandwich was a bit different from what he normally made, but it was delicious and nutritious, and so Erick copied the other half of his sandwich so that he could have more.

When eating time was over, he was rested, and feeling good…

It was time to make [Renew].

Erick strode out of his put-together room upon Yggdrasil’s branches, up the slope to an empty area, saying, “I’m going to make some magic now. Okay? Watch how Ophiel looks over me, and don’t interfere. You’ll probably see some blood, but I can handle it.”

“Okay.” Yggdrasil said, “I see you bleed before. I not worried.”

Erick smiled.

And then he focused. He walked a bit further, and then he was far enough. In another twenty meters, Yggdrasil’s main trunk turned upward again, breaking off into more and more branches the further up it went.

Erick looked around at the perfectly clean manasphere, and realized this land would either be great for spell creation, or absurdly difficult. He leaned toward the former, but expected the later. Anyway, he needed some targets to [Renew], so he cast a few; [Force Wall], [Teleporting Platform], a small area of [Domain of Light], and finally, he summoned his rad-retrieving minion, Jewels. The quartz-shaped torso-sized summon of a hundred floating stone knives just stood there, waiting for instructions.

Erick told it, “Do nothing, Jewels.”

Jewels did exactly that.

And Erick organized his thoughts.

[Renew] was a complicated spell of a countless thousands of moving parts, but only because magic itself was as varied as imagination itself. Thus, [Renew] needed to be a key that could fit into any lock; to renew any spellwork it touched. But this was a failure state of the spell, for such a spell would require at least tier 4 Tricking Magic. Erick had considered going that route a few times, but… No.

Erick needed to make a basic tier spell that anyone could use, so that everyone could contribute to defense. Actual mages and archmages would provide the defense, but the common person could still dump their mana into those defenses, ensuring that their beacons of civilization remained strong against the dangers of the wilds and the monsters.

Erick had tried manually shoving Light Mana into Light spellwork, and that worked a little bit, but not nearly well enough to make a spell. It wasn’t until he reached Enduring Forge, until he discovered how runes worked, until he saw how the Slime Spawner and Arcane Attuner turned normal mana into slimes and spellwork through a grand series of translation runes that he understood all the missing pieces of [Renew].

He had those pieces now.

He held out a hand and put those pieces together, speaking in Ancient Script, except for the last word,

“A bit of spell to start the drain.

“A flexing swell! Our mana trained

“and does like rain in lakes accrue

“trans-forged through veins

“The goal: [Renew].”

Erick flexed his lightform toward the floating [Force Wall], and though he opened his mana and prepared for the drain, for the channeling of magic into the pane of Force, reinforcing what was already present, he felt something break inside of him, instead.

A bit of his soul crunched in response to his voice; to his request of the mana.

The crunch spread outward like a shockwave that traveled down his arms and legs and struck his extremities like an interior explosion. Capillaries burst. Red spurted from toes and fingertips, spreading in all directions like Erick had been the center of a popped balloon of blood—

Gentle white light fluoresced from the wounds of his outstretched hands, which in turn became a gentle glow inside of his palm.

Erick relaxed as Ophiel hit him with a [Greater Treat Wounds] and blue boxes appeared, but he ignored the boxes for a moment and pressed his newfound power into the [Force Wall]. There hadn’t been much degradation in the spellwork, since he had cast the Wall not a minute ago, but that didn’t matter. Erick’s new spell turned to raindrops of light that soaked into the Wall like water into a sponge. He upped the channel, fully showering the Wall, seeing what would happen.

[Force Wall] normally cost Erick 5 mana, but as he dumped more and more mana through his new spell, into the Wall, it was like seeing a stone wall transmute from rock, to steel, then to something even stronger. But at a hundred mana poured into the magic, it could take no more. Erick’s white rain merely bounced off of the spell. The [Force Wall] was at full saturation.

Erick released the [Renew] in his hands. Light died. He breathed, and then he looked at his new blue boxes.

Congratulations!

You have created a new Basic Spell. Your spell has been added to your skills for free!

The spell you have created will appear in the Script after a year and a day.

Your spell is the alpha version, and will shift with time and use.

The spell that appears in the Script might be different.

Here is your spell:

Renew 1, instant + channel, touch, 5 mana + Variable

<Recharge existing spellwork.>

Rozeta thanks you for enriching the Script.

+3 ability points.

Congratulations, I suppose. I’ll be there to speak with you in person soon enough. We can talk more about this then, but know now that this spell will change how civilization functions the world over. But you already knew that.

You’re a Wizard, though, so this much is expected.

Here’s hoping for good changes.

Erick nodded, saying, “Here’s hoping for good changes.”

Yggdrasil asked, “Did you do it?”

“I did!” Erick happily cast his new spell, and held his hand toward the [Teleporting Platform]. White magic guided bouncy mana through tiny raindrops until those drops struck the floating Platform. Magic guided mana inward, soaking into the spellwork, adding reinforcing bits here and there, strengthening the Platform. Conjured stone solidified into conjured steel. The Ancient Script symbol for [Teleport], brightly emblazoned in the center of the platform, glowed brighter, and deeper white. Erick moved on to the slightly degraded sphere of his [Domain of Light], asking Yggdrasil, “Want me to explain to you what I’m doing?”

“Yes. I want to hear you talk. What did you do?”

Erick laughed with joy and smiled wide, as he began explaining from the beginning, “Spells are cast with duration and other measures of strength, based on initial input of mana. Normally, spells end when those strengths break down. But with [Renew], I attune some of my mana with some ‘bounce’ and some ‘soak’ to survive the ‘translation’ process from my own mana to the mana of the spellwork, and in this way, my mana can repair existing spells by finding the broken parts and remaking them. It’s sort of like the opposite of [Dispel], but that comparison is a bit off, because…”

Erick spoke for hours upon hours. Sometimes, he stopped, and asked if Yggdrasil wanted him to continue. Every time, Yggdrasil said to keep going. Erick appreciated that. He hoped Yggdrasil got something out of all these lessons, but even if not, it was still nice to be near the big guy. Erick hadn’t done a lot of that, ever since he created Yggdrasil 5 months ago. He probably should have, but he had been busy with problems and [Gate].

A normal Arbor would have already turned real by now, too, which was its own set of issues that Erick didn’t feel like touching right now, either. In his own opinion, Erick was lucky that he could spend more time with Yggdrasil before Yggdrasil outgrew him. Erick really should have done this sooner, though.

It wasn’t long till Erick finished his talk on [Renew], but Yggdrasil asked for more words and more magic, so Erick continued, talking of gridwork. He eventually moved on to how he was going to make a [Renew] network that people could string through their houses, so that entire cities could benefit from high-class spells in their homes. The idea was that people could benefit from more than just the magics they could make themselves; they could hire out spell crafters and [Renew] those spells themselves, using the network.

“But you’re making [Gate] network, first?” Yggdrasil asked.

“A lot of magic is connected to a lot of other magic, Yggdrasil.” Erick said, “Exploring one side of magic can oftentimes help you to understand what’s on the other side, or what might be right next to your current explorations and you didn’t even know it.”

Eventually, though the sun never set, Erick got tired again and Yggdrasil was okay with more lessons later, because he was tired, too. Erick went to bed, and had some final thoughts for the day.

[Renew] would change everything, and in more than the ways Erick had expected, too, because apparently his [Renew] strengthened existing spellwork, too. It didn’t just repair to full; it repaired beyond full.

And that had a lot of unknown implications.

That effect probably wouldn’t make it to the Open Script, though. Erick could already see this aspect of his magic being a major problem. You could turn [Fireball]s into [Perfected Fireball]s for damage, or strengthen [Ward]s far beyond full, or do any number of odd things that he hadn’t thought about right then.

But those were problems for tomorrow.

Erick went to sleep inside a [Prismatic Ward] cast by Yggdrasil, with Ophiel looking over them both, and it was good. He dreamed right alongside Yggdrasil about big fishes, skies of light, and flowing land.

- - - -

Erick woke and the world was as he left it. The sky was clear. The white city nearby was completely uninhabited. The waters far, far below had a pod of whales swimming around the large arches of Yggdrasil’s surface-breaching roots.

He crushed his panic down and away.

“Good day, Father,” Yggdrasil said. “Nothing happened while you slept.”

Ophiel chirped in agreement as he fluttered down from the headrest of the bed, onto Erick’s chest like a playful cat. Erick patted the little guy, saying, “Good morning, Ophiel.” He looked up and smiled. “Good morning, Yggdrasil.” He got up, saying, “Let’s go find some breakfast. Yggdrasil? I’m going to the city right over there. You want to [Scry] me? I’ll be back soon.”

Yggdrasil’s branches creaked a bit while his leaves shimmered to dim green. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I’ll be right over there.” Erick dressed himself as he said, “Be back soon, too. I want to experiment with a runic web, and I want you to help with that, but I need to find some supplies first.”

“… Okay.”

Erick smiled brightly, feeling a flush of warmth all over. He had hoped that Yggdrasil would be better after some time together, and that proved to be true. After the talk of yesterday, Erick had worried that he had erred, deeply, in how he interacted with his largest summon. Leaving Jane behind with the sitters while he had gone to work had been tough, but necessary, but Jane didn’t have the capability to simply [Teleport Other] him, to keep him near her at all time. Life would have been very different if that had been a possibility.

Raising Yggdrasil right was going to be tough, and happen a lot sooner than he expected it to happen. But…

Erick absolutely loved the idea of having another ‘kid’. Ophiel was great, but it’d be a hundred years before he turned barely sapient, and longer still till he was sentient. Yggdrasil, though, was already there. And since Yggdrasil was going to live forever, that was another impetus to look into [Immortality], because maybe Jane could find her own way to that spellwork, too—

Oh.

Wait.

Jane would simply [Polymorph] her way to immortality, wouldn’t she? She already had her solution to the problem of death. Erick was the one lagging behind.

With a small laugh at realizing what he should have realized a long time ago, Erick stepped off of Yggdrasil’s branch, into the light, feeling supremely giddy. He might need to resume his search for [Immortality] after this Worldly Path, for the future was looking bright! Unfathomably bright, indeed.

- - - -

Erick found the king’s dining hall in the center of the white castle. The walls were gilded wood. The ceiling was a fresco of a long lost universe. Candles flickered and orbs of light held in the air above, while down below, a thousand different foods were laid out, eternally waiting for people who were long gone. This whole land was a mausoleum to a forgotten place and time…

But the food still tasted great. Copies of the food, anyway. Erick wasn’t about to eat the originals.

Plates of gold and silver and platinum hovered all around him as he filled them up with breads and meats and vegetables. Glazed maybe-ham. Not-pheasant under glass. Racks of sorta-lamb. Asparagus-adjacents in lots of butter, with not-broccoli pilaf. Sugary gels that resembled slimes, with ‘cores’ of candy. Drinks that fizzed and gravies that shimmered like white gold.

Erick copied some of the fine white-pearl jewelry he saw, too, alongside their precious metal inserts. He even found some odd metals he couldn’t name, in the shapes of replica artifacts with surely large significance. When he was done, Erick and Ophiel escaped the white palace with enough loot to make a seasoned adventuring team blush with envy, and enough food to feed maybe two hungry orcols. But he hadn’t stolen a single thing.

He also didn’t erase the manasphere in his passing, either.

Let the incoming wrought see exactly what he had done to their holy land; let them see he had taken nothing and everything. He was kinda excited, wondering what their reaction would be. Maybe they would focus more on [Renew] upturning every single magic school the world over, or how Yggdrasil was planted in the Core, or how Rozeta had probably all talked to them and told them to behave.

Erick took a glance at the wizard’s tower, but he left that alone, again. That place was much less a priority once Erick understood the language, and realized that none of it would be useful for him. Magic simply did not work on Veird like how it used to work back in the Old Cosmology.

He also didn’t want to go there because of its obvious connections to Wizards, but he would probably have to… Soon. Not today. Maybe not tomorrow.

Thoughts about magic held heavy in his mind as he inspected his loot, back atop Yggdrasil’s upper branches. Of particular note was a massive white metal and many-jeweled scepter. It was shaped like something a king would use to show they were the boss, and according to some of the paintings that littered the white palace, that was exactly its purpose. The king used this scepter in place of a crown— Well. Not this scepter. This scepter was a copy of the original that Erick left untouched, in the throne room. That original —which was also copy of the original scepter that was lost to the Old Cosmology— remained laid across the throne, like it was set there to prevent people from sitting on that massive white metal chair. The throne remained behind, though this copied scepter came with him.

Erick suspected that the throne and this scepter were made out of the same materials, anyway, so this was fine. Whatever this scepter was made out of weighed in at thirty kilos of solidness. The rainbow of gems that inlaid its surface probably weighed less than a quarter kilo. If not for those gems, it could probably serve as a good mace.

Erick swung it around a few times, testing weight and balance, as he told Yggdrasil and Ophiel, “I could make it into some sort of unbreakable weapon with some [Flying Striker Rune]s, but honestly, I’m thinking I should make it some sort of [Undertow Renew] scepter. Something that could be stuck into a central node of a runic web and—” Erick stopped.

He stared at nothing as a large thought suddenly dominated his mind.

Erick whispered, “I don’t know the runes for [Renew].” After a moment, he added, “I don’t know the runes for [Undertow], either.” Erick set down the scepter and then he set down himself, laying down on Yggdrasil’s bark, spread eagle and staring upward.

After a moment, Yggdrasil asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m thinking.”

“… Talk to me?”

Erick gladly did so, “Ancient Script is very precise, but it’s also specifically made to rhyme. I had been doing all my major spell creation in Ecks, while sometimes adding in English words as needed. I did my [Renew] creation in Ancient Script, too, except I used the English word for [Renew] because both Ecks and Ancient Script don’t have a great word for that concept, and because I had to create a new concept. That’s what I did when I spoke that spell into existence. I created a concept and attached specific moldable meaning to that concept. I created magic.” Erick breathed. He said, “But I’m not sure what that means for making runework for [Renew], because I don’t know how that translation works. Do I simply write [Renew] into platinum and—” Erick stopped himself. He got back up to his feet, saying, “I’ll have to experiment. I was going to, anyway. Might as well start now.”

He went over to some of the loot he gathered and studied the coins, the rings and the broaches, the bars of precious metals and even the white scepter, once again. And then he dismissed all of that and went to his backpack. He grabbed the sliver of the platinum he had taken from that elemental, which he knew to be pure, and then he started copying it.

Yggdrasil asked, “How would you make the runes for something you don’t understand?”

Erick paused a bit. That was a very coherent thought coming out of Yggdrasil— Ah. Yggdrasil was parroting Erick’s own question back at him to try and understand the question himself.

Erick started talking while he worked, [Duplicate]ing slivers of platinum till he had a good ball of them, then [Metalshape]ing them together, then copying that ball. “I have no idea, Yggdrasil. I’m going to try a few things that might work out, but they probably won’t. My first idea is to write down [Renew] in English, and hope to the gods that doesn’t work, because ‘[Renew]’ in English doesn’t fit with any existing rune structure.

“The second idea is to try and combine some of the words I used in the spell’s creation to make a new word. That’s how most of Ancient Script is, with most high-concept words being mashes of smaller words. It’s like how the Mandarin word for ‘computer’ is ‘lightning brain’ in English, but as one word, or how the Ecks word for ‘book shelf’ would be ‘knowledge repository’ in English. In this way, [Call Lightning] became its own set of runes using Ancient Script notation, so I can only guess that [Renew] will follow the same example.

“Third idea is to try creating my own rune for [Renew]. Probably won’t work, because the Script makes the runes, and [Call Lightning] didn’t get it’s own rune. But then again, I made the spell, and the Script solidified it to work with the rest of its magic, so maybe it’s special.

“The fourth idea is probably the only thing that would work, though.” Erick said, “I’m going to have to get Darabella or someone else with Greater Shifting Runes to lay down some testing runes in some adamantium, and I’m gonna have to constantly infuse those runes with [Renew] until the true runes for [Renew] appear to me.”

Erick was slightly straining now under the weight of his cubic meter block of platinum. While it was under [Metalshape], it was pretty much weightless, but as he let that spellwork relax…

Without his [Lodestar] supporting the strength of his [Greater Lightwalk], his telekinetic hold upon the metal would have already fractured, for a single cubic meter of platinum had to weigh in at something like 21 metric tons. And it was definitely that heavy. Erick slowly set down the cubic meter of white gold and relaxed as Yggdrasil took all of the weight, effortlessly. Something about that surprised even Erick, though it truly shouldn’t have. Yggdrasil’s main component to his body was eternal stonewood, and thus he was much lighter and stronger than normal wood, or even concrete, but he still had to weigh as much as a small mountain.

With a scoop of Shaping power, Erick took some platinum off the top of the block. Since he had copied the metal inside his [Prismatic Ward], it was perfectly primed to accept runes and other magics. It was Prismsteel, as Grosgrena called it. Useful for multi-elemental spellwork. Super rare, too, because [Prismatic Ward] was also rare, so the uses of this particular metal were not well known to most people.

But Enduring Forge’s books on prismsteel were exhaustive. Though Erick had not read most of them, he had read enough to know that prismsteel was good enough for almost all applications.

He smiled as he cast a [Particle Vacuum] into the air, and a [Condense Platinum] into the center of that. It didn’t take long for that space to empty of contaminants. At that point he stuck the platinum clump into the space and had an Ophiel turn on a low-grade [Incandescent Aura], heating up his clump of platinum, but keeping it below the melting point. As long as a phase change didn’t occur, the magic remained inside the metal; the prismsteel remained prismsteel.

With the red hot platinum, Erick began smashing his clump of metal with all of his force, deforming it with an aching groan. Heat and vacuum and smashing light removed small impurities like so much sparking char, though the prismatic platinum remained in the center, completely at peace with its location.

Squeezing and smashing, Erick gradually began to work out the kinks and interior spherical oddities that had slipped into the metal’s structure when he used [Metalshape]. He probably should have done this before he ended up with a cubic meter of platinum, but it had grown so fast, and oh well.

Soon, his prismsteel was at the pliable stage, and that was good enough. Erick worked his light into the center of the metal and expanded outward, forming a bubble of platinum first, and then physically pushing and prodding it into a tetrahedron, ensuring that every strut and every corner was solid, and secure.

It was the start of a minor runic web; a testing space to see how runes flowed magic from one point to another. Erick had made a few of these days ago— over 33 days ago, actually. But those ones had been made out of normal steel, and were not very durable, or conducive to magic. He hadn’t wanted to display his [Duplicate] in front of anyone up there, either, but down here? Eh. Fuck it.

Ophiel turned off his [Incandescent Aura]. Erick surrounded the wireframe runic web with hard light, and canceled the vacuum. Gradually, he relaxed his hold on the atmosphere, letting air back into the space, onto the platinum. With a gentle touch of [Frozen Mist Aura], the platinum gradually cooled enough to touch, and Erick fully released his lightgrip. Each corner of the prototyping runic web held a flat space to carve runes, but other than that, it was nothing special.

Erick copied the runic web a few times. He set those copies aside and grabbed his adamantium knife out of his bag. With a deep breath and a bit of focus, light streamed into his knife and Erick got to work, inscribing the runes for lightward upon three of the four corners. This first web was just a tester to ensure he had done everything right, after all.

When he was done, he imbued the metal with a lightward—

And, working exactly like it should, Erick’s 10 mana lightward, which produced an effective 200 mana spell, soaked into the platinum web and spread out to three of the four tetrahedron points like liquid illumination. Light clung to prismsteel, which acted almost like a fluorescent bulb, but since the fourth node of the web wasn’t runed the light barely extended up the paths toward that fourth point. Other than that, the light spread rather evenly. It was kinda hard to tell in the full light of the Outer Core, but Erick guesstimated that his 200 mana lightward had been split into thirds.

Erick went ahead and runed ‘lightward’ into the fourth node.

As soon as he finished carving the final slash, imbuing the final bit of meaning into his runes, the runic web dimmed to half strength and the number of lit runic paths doubled, from three, to six. The entire tetrahedron of platinum bars and nodes was lit with a cloying lightward.

“Perfect.” Erick held up the lit runic web, eyeing it for any defects at all. He found none. “Looks good.”

Yggdrasil asked, “What did you do?”

Erick smiled, and then happily explained as he picked up another runic web, and went through the whole process again, explaining it to Yggdrasil as he did.

His next runic web was different.

‘Lightward’ went to a single node, but on the other three nodes Erick tried three different ideas for [Renew]. One node gained ‘[Renew]’, written in English; putting that word into the metal felt weird, and he probably did it wrong, but this was all an experiment and there was nothing to do for the weirdness of it all but try. The second node gained ‘mold mana to spell’, which was about the direct translation of what [Renew] meant, but it was not at all as elegant a rune series as some spells. [Force Bolt] was literally two singular runes, ‘force’ and ‘bolt’, and both of those runes were deeply ingrained into the Script as their own individual glyphs. Carving that second node felt all sorts of wrong, though, so it was probably a failure, too.

The third runic attempt was one of Erick’s own creation, combining and overlapping the simple rune for ‘[Rejuvenation]’, which was the most basic Healing Magic rune, and the rune for ‘mana’. It ended up as a circle with a wave in the center, which also felt all sorts of wrong, but it certainly looked nice and thematic.

None of them worked.

Erick imbued a lightward into that rune, and then he held his hand against each [Renew] attempt, trying to will [Renew] into the metal exactly how he knew it should go, but each time he ended up with a handful of white rain, and the runic web remained unimbued. The lightward didn’t get stronger, at all. The English ‘[Renew]’ failed utterly, but the other two weren’t any better.

He frowned.

“Ah. Well.” Erick guessed, “I’m fluent in Ancient Script, but I certainly don’t use it all the time. Maybe the word I want is already in there, somewhere, and I just haven’t heard it? Maybe I simply haven’t come across the concept yet.” He looked up at Yggdrasil. “Want to call up Poi again? I need to ask him to find me something.”

“Okay.”

Erick nodded, and dove back into Yggdrasil’s consciousness. The world became an ephemeral ocean and flames once again, but with two ghostly pathways leading out from this land of unchanging day. Erick went with Yggdrasil down the correct path—

He hit a block.

Erick had no idea what he was looking at, so he pulled back. Once again sitting on Yggdrasil’s branches, Erick steadied himself, and tried to get through to Poi again. This time he paid special attention to the pathway—

He hit a grate; not a true block. It was hard to understand the grate for what it was, for the land was as solid as the sky and nothing stayed in one place for long at all. Even Yggdrasil’s pathway shifted left and right, appearing and vanishing out of this surrealist landscape like a road in the desert that only appeared when the wind blew away the dunes. And yet, even that imagery wasn’t true, for Yggdrasil had no trouble at all navigating this land, like some great whale of a thousand tails, hovering above and behind Erick, free to swim or fly or crawl as he desired.

Erick only had the one path ahead of him, and the dunes blocked his travel.

With the mental approximation of a frown, and the ethereal idea of grabbing hold of a shovel, Erick stuck his hands into the sand to clear them away—

He came back to himself to see his hands broken, with bone poking out of flesh and blood highlighting and hiding his new wounds. Pain had yet to manifest, but it came on quick enough. Calmly, Erick used his sunform to move his hands back into something approximating their original shape, and he cast [Greater Treat Wounds]. Wounds began to close—

A blue box appeared.

Scripted message:

Please do not try to breach Core Protections again. This is your only warning.

Another blue box appeared.

I left your telepathic connection open like I said I would. You got a message out.

Inform me when you wish to leave and I will show you the way to Yggdrasil’s new lair. Do not test Core Protections again.

~Rozeta

Erick frowned. “Fair, I suppose.” He [Cleanse]d his blood away as he thought. There were ways around this new limitation, some of them very obvious, so he took one, telling Yggdrasil, “If anyone asks, Yggdrasil, could you tell them I’m okay, and that I’ll be back when I can?”

Yggdrasil said, “I tell people this.”

“Thank you.” Erick asked, “Are you having any trouble with people since yesterday, when we went out together?”

“No trouble. Not anymore.”

“Good.” Erick turned back to his work, and wondered, “So. If I can’t continue making a runic web with [Renew], and [Gate] is blocked, then… What am I here for— Oh.” He looked at his skin, and at his [Personal Ward]. With the stability of the manasphere all around and the lack of threats, he might be able to drop his defenses and actually work on his aura control. Even if he couldn’t get much further with his [Gate] goals, getting aura control out of this trip would be a fantastic outcome, too. A glance outward showed that there were no people here, either— “Actually. Let’s Scan for people again.”

A [Cascade Imaging] went out, searching for ‘people’, its radio waves easily bouncing across the thousands upon thousands of kilometers of the ‘bowl’ of this inner world. Ten minutes later the results appeared on the map. Only one ‘person’ was found, and that person was located exactly where Erick expected them to appear; a single blue dot appeared in the center of the Imaging, representing Erick himself.

With that cleared out of the way, Erick remembered another way to check for people; The Quest Board. If there were Quests it meant that there was someone submitting Quests in the Inner Core—

There were Quests. None of them were new. All of them looked ancient. Only three of them, though. Erick’s eyes went a bit wide as he read, for he was already on two of these three quests, and he hadn’t even known.

Special Quest!

Find a way back to the Old Cosmology, without endangering current civilization.

Poster: Rozeta, Dragon Goddess of the Script. All Relevant Entities of the Script.

Reward: Worlds upon worlds.

Note: One of the Ultimate Quests. You cannot accept this Quest or show it to others. You are automatically on this Quest even without knowing, in the hopes that one day it will be fulfilled.

Special Quest!

Cure Melemizargo of his insanity, without endangering current civilization.

Poster: Rozeta, Dragon Goddess of the Script. All Relevant Entities of the Script.

Reward: To be determined.

Note: One of the Ultimate Quests. You cannot accept this Quest or show it to others. You are automatically on this Quest even without knowing, in the hopes that one day it will be fulfilled.

Special Quest!

Expand civilization to the worlds of this New Cosmology, without endangering current civilization.

Poster: Rozeta, Dragon Goddess of the Script. All Relevant Entities of the Script.

Reward: Worlds upon worlds.

Note: One of the Ultimate Quests. You cannot accept this Quest or show it to others. You are automatically on this Quest even without knowing, in the hopes that one day it will be fulfilled.

“Huh,” Erick said.

The wind blew across the land.

Hopefully, Erick hadn’t already violated that ‘without endangering current civilization’ part. No way to truly tell, though. The first Quest was right out; no way to do that, and Erick didn’t want to, anyway. The second was… Erick was getting there? Maybe? Whatever. Erick was actually working on the third quest, though.

He thought for a bit. Mostly, his thoughts were half baked, but they included ideas about Fate, alongside questions of whether Fate could be imbued into Quests. The Script supposedly locked most Fate Magic away from people, but the Worldly Path was a giant ritual of Fate that doused the Walker of the Path in deepest Fate. It made sense, then, that Rozeta and others might be able to take some Fate and bind it to other ‘Ultimate Quest’s, and then place everyone on those quests in the hope that Fate might one day solve these Quests for them…

Ah.

Hmm.

Erick activated his Minor Entity status and voiced his question to the local goddess, “Rozeta? Did this Quest drag Jane and I to this world?”

A blue box appeared.

Can’t talk now. Answer is no. Longer answer is still no, but also maybe. Philosophical.

Talk more later.

Erick blinked a bit, dispensing with unneeded emotions.

He’d get a better answer from her later, maybe.

For a while though, he just thought.

- - - -

Eventually, Erick decided to get on with the aura control lessons. He searched for people again, and finding none, he continued. Yggdrasil was set to watch over him, but he told the big guy not to interfere unless necessary. Ophiel got the same message. And then Erick stripped down to his pants. White light flickered across his body as his [Personal Ward] turned off. His rings came off, and he also decided to shave his face and cut his hair back into the proper shapes, as he did sometimes. He turned off all of his spells and briefly felt vulnerable, but he checked on his [Cascade Imaging] again, flickering the Scan through all iterations of different types of people, and through all the standard protective spells that someone might be wearing like a [Personal Ward]. Erick was still the only person that showed in the Imaging. His spellwork was still the only spellwork active nearby.

He breathed a bit, relaxing.

First came some light stretching, which was practically unneeded since Dexterity had him covered, but it still felt good to touch his toes, and then kiss his own knees. A twist of his arms had him curled backward, forming a bridge with his body. He hadn’t done that since before college. It brought another smile to his face.

And then he sat down, and started going through his aura control exercises.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Bring hands in.

Push hands out.

Repeat.

Repeat.

- - - -

Erick surfaces from a trance, to float above an ocean of nothing that slowly recedes in all directions. His eyes cannot open, for his eyelids are impossible weights, but his mana sense is active, and dilated. He sees the shifting world around him. He watches that world resolve into something approaching reality, but it is likely more Reality than real.

He is on his back again, on a cloud of stone, and yet ‘stone’ does not cover the barest bit of the being at his back, made of love and connection. The stone is comfortable, and slightly green around the edges. It yields as Erick relaxes, and Erick floats above the stone. Feathered eyes float with him. They watch and protect.

And Erick sees Reality and reality, and the Truth of it all.

He sees the Truth of himself.

It is exactly what he expects.

- - - -

Erick surfaced, slowly, and methodically.

His heart rate increased. His eyes began to move under his control. Ideas flooded, incomprehensible. That’s where he found himself stuck for a bit, for his Truth was cloudy once again. He still knew it, but it was like knowing what happened in a dream.

Laying back upon the unyielding branches of his largest [Familiar], deep in the Core of Veird, Erick opened his eyes and saw the world in a new light.

Several new lights.

For he had a new ‘eye’ opened.

He raised a hand into his line of sight. Under the brightness of the Core, he could barely tell that his skin was flushed with brightness, like he was some sort of wrought fluorescing under blacklight. But it was. Like the bark of Yggdrasil beneath him, Erick glowed with luminosity that gently extended into the air around him, filtering into the world on wispy white glows.

It was not the power of [Greater Lightwalk]. Erick understood that much instantly. For one, he wasn’t running that spell. For another, the light in the air around him was practically a mist that ebbed and flowed around him like a fog, and it felt so very much different than anything he had ever felt before.

[Greater Lightwalk] was a pressure, a control, a flipped switch that allowed Erick to operate differently from his physical self. With his lightform, he could move through the sky with barely a thought. But he couldn’t feel the world through that lightform; not like he could when he was a physical person.

Elemental Bodies had no nerve endings, or brain, or hormones telling the user to feel certain ways about certain sights, or events. One could still feel fear, or hope, or joy, but those feelings were purely intellectual events; they were like ingrained pathways in the person wielding an Elemental Body that were triggered by ingrained responses to stimuli.

But this glow… This was different. It was a lot less controllable, for one.

This was probably because Erick’s [Greater Lightwalk] was, in truth, an ‘aura’ enabled through elemental essence unlocking the ability and the Script handling how that ability worked. The Script made [Greater Lightwalk] inherently strong, and Erick had grown used to understanding how to wield that strength well.

This aura that clung to him now was barely mobile. Erick had no idea how to move it. It was his aura, for sure. Of that there was no doubt. But it was odd. It was weak. Unlocked auras had no Script assistance, so this much was normal. So far, most things about this were normal.

What wasn’t normal was that Erick’s aura was rather bright. Erick held up his arm, and the fog of his light moved with him. He pushed his arm forward and the fog trailed with his movement—

Erick sent a concentrated command through his new aura, attempting to move it like he would his lightform. Power rippled through the foggy light and it solidified around his body. But that was all it did. Less wisping, more solidity. Erick relaxed, and the gathered light began to fog away, like so much tattered cloth.

Oddities compounded as Erick concentrated on his new aura and felt the mana inside it all.

Like a flubbing child, Erick began to play with the building blocks of magic, pushing and pulling and twisting, but with considerably less control than he normally had. Using aura was like starting all over again, learning how to control his power with hands that were numb, and barely regaining feeling with the passage of time.

The differences between lightform and aura continued to manifest as Erick realized he also couldn’t adjust his sight to different locations in his aura, or even to simply view the full world all around him. He had grown used to seeing the world from every possible angle, but at least the light didn’t block his own sight. With a bit of testing and understanding, Erick gauged that his new aura was simultaneously there, and yet not; like he was seeing it with a third eye; not with his normal two. He wasn’t ‘seeing’ his aura with his mana sense, either. This was some sort of new sense that he had unlocked, that was specifically a part of himself and his aura. It still felt ‘sleepy’, too.

And thinking of mana sense, Erick’s mana sense had lapsed, so he turned that back on and viewed himself—

His skin glittered, his eyes radiated light fully and completely, like a Shade’s.

“Ah. Damn.” Erick frowned. He shut off his aura, closing his ‘third eye’. The light went away, pulling out from his eyes to reveal his white irises and his black pupils. “At least it turns off.”

Well!

This was his aura, and it probably did all the normal things auras normally did. Erick didn’t particularly understand why there was so much light in his aura, but it made sense. His ‘Truth’, if you wanted to call it that, was that everything could be made better, and that all one had to do was try, and that he was here to help those better things happen. Nothing groundbreaking.

But with an aura made of light… There were some uncomfortable allusions in his aura toward his Shade-given title of ‘Fire of the Age’. The idea of all that was uncomfortable for Erick, though, because if Erick was the ‘Fire of the Age’, then that meant that Veird had been fucked up for so long that any true, actual advancement of technology and ideas was enough to warrant him a place of philosophical power.

And wasn’t that just sad.

Ahhh.

Anyway! His aura was full of light, and this was fine. Now, to practice.

- - - -

Sweat dripped down Erick’s chin, falling onto the glowing white bark of Yggdrasil below to join all the rest of the drops of sweat. A cool wind blew across the world but it didn’t touch Erick. It did, however, disturb his aura control, feathering the edges of his oozy, clinging aura, ripping it out of his control for the thousandth time. The length of aura he was trying to extend from his hand to a meter away suddenly became too hard to control, and then the wind caught the length of aura just right, breaking off a meter long section, causing it to dissipate into the air like so much scattered lightward.

Sudden exhaustion claimed Erick, his heart stalling out ever so briefly as cold shot up through his spine and across his shoulders. His aura settled back to ‘base-state’ as Erick couldn’t hold it open any longer. Oozy light flowed back to his skin, away from the stretched-out hand as his arm fell down to his side. He almost collapsed to the ground, but he was stronger than that.

With a deep breath, Erick closed off his aura, closing his third eye, and relaxed, taking count of all the ways he had succeeded in the last hour, and all the ways he had failed. Holding his aura open didn’t require mana, but it did require the activation of a sense that seemed to weaken his mana recovery. When he did flow mana into his aura —which was almost like channeling, but only in that both events expelled mana into the manasphere— Erick could move that mana around, creating spells. Theoretically, anyway. He hadn’t managed yet to manually cast any spell, but he was close. With some more practice and more ability to control his aura, he could begin Remaking a lot of magic.

His first task, once he could manually cast spells, was to Remake all of the Shaping spells and regain the 7 points he had spent to purchase all of the basic Shaping spells, and [Metalshape]. There were some worries regarding how his aura seemed naturally Light-aspected, and how he might have trouble shifting the mana into the proper Elements in order to Remake six of the seven Shaping spells he had bought, but he also needed to Remake the Skill, Mana Altering, which would also give him another point. In the process of manually learning how to Alter to different Elements, Erick expected to be able to solve his non-[Lightshape] (potential) issues.

Mana Shaping and Aurify should come along in due time, as well.

But for now, Erick still needed to learn precision. After a few hours at it, his aura was starting to feel less like a nerve-dead limb, and more like an old, stiff injury that never quite healed right…

So? Progress?

Yes. Progress.

There was an oddity, though, besides the Light-aspect.

Awakening one’s aura was the first step, and that awakening usually birthed an aura that barely reached beyond one’s skin; that barely moved when stressed to move. Erick’s aura was probably the size of himself, added to himself; so twice his body size. It was rather large even by normal aura standards. His aura teacher, Singer Kaffi, had an aura that naturally lay upon her skin with a depth of two centimeters. Teressa’s aura was only a centimeter deep, but she was an orcol so she naturally had a lot more space to work with— Though Erick had already found out that thinning your aura felt horrible, so maybe Teressa wasn’t that much better off than anyone else. Poi’s aura was rather large but it was always locked to his tendrils of thought, since that’s how he telepathically communicated with everyone. Erick hadn’t actually known that Poi had great aura control until they went to Songli, but that man kept his capabilities very hush hush, so Erick had never wanted to pry, to understand how Poi had gotten such a great aura. Lots of practice and natural Mind Mage aptitude, no doubt, honed to a great degree ever since he was young.

Erick’s aura was at least a decimeter deep, which was probably a match for Poi.

Which was odd.

Kaffi had once suggested that something like this might happen, but even she would likely be surprised at this outcome. Perhaps Erick had unlocked his aura a while ago, but because his aura was trapped inside his [Personal Ward] all the time, he had been incapable of recognizing, using, or understanding his aura.

… But then again, Kaffi had also said that such an ‘unknown boost effect’ would be small, and that he would still have to grow his aura to a respectable level before he would be able to use it for spellcraft.

And yet, his aura was already a match for that of a Mind Mage, who had been using his aura for all his adult life?

Ah. Whatever. A mystery for tomorrow, or next year, or something.

Erick continued to practice.

- - - -

Sleep. Talk to Yggdrasil. Explore a bit.

Don’t go into the Wizard’s Tower, yet.

Aura control.

Sleep.

- - - -

Erick had moved on from stretching exercises, to a size-building workout.

He steadied himself. He closed his normal eyes while fully opening his aura and his mana sense. With a concentrated flow of mana into his aura, Erick’s white, misty light rippled.

And then, the edge of his aura grew like a gently expanding ooze. It doubled in size, but then slowed as a now-familiar pressure built inside his head. Gentle, at first, then demanding. His aura grew a bit more, expanding outward, rippling hard as even the gentlest of winds began to rip at the edges, but Erick focused just as hard, and those edges solidified. His heart thumped as he focused. Blood trickled out of his nose, flowing into the sweat upon his face, then becoming yet another drop of red on his pants. Erick leaned forward a fraction, trying to control his aura with his body but already knowing that it didn’t work like that; curling up into a ball never made pain go away, and it never helped do what needed to be done.

A second drop of blood landed amongst all the others already fallen to Yggdrasil’s glowing white bark—

It was too much.

Erick relaxed his mana and let his aura go, breathing hard as his light popped like a balloon and sparkles of broken white magic flowed into the air all around him. He had put a lot of his mana into that expansion attempt, so that mana had partially manifested as magic.

… This was enough. He was done, for now. He had stopped to eat and do his business and take breaks, but he had spent the entire day doing this. Maybe more than 12 hours, actually. He had no idea what time it was. Without the 24 hour duration of his [Personal Ward] to go on, time was yet another lost constant down here in the Core, like gravity. Ah! Whatever.

Erick had accomplished a fuck ton down here in the Core. [Renew], and aura control. Even if his aura control wasn’t perfect, he had unlocked the ability and he was close to being able to use it, and that’s what mattered. He could leave right now and he would have accomplished more than enough for his time spent down here.

[Gate] wasn’t possible, after all.

Erick breathed deep and laid back on Yggdrasil’s branch, staring up at the sky, feeling exhausted. Blood and sweat marred his entire body, and he needed a good [Cleanse], but he could do that later. For now, he rested.

Ophiel watched from a nearby perch, twittering at him.

Yggdrasil spoke for the first time in ten hours, or more, “It felt nice.”

Erick tried to decipher what Yggdrasil had meant, since he hadn’t mentioned anything feeling nice in all the other hours Erick spent working on his aura, atop his branch. The puzzle was too deep, though, so Erick simply asked, “What did it feel like?”

“Like… Helping grow.” Yggdrasil asked, “Why did you stop?”

Erick’s aura helped to grow? That was kinda… A really nice thing to hear, actually. It held with Erick’s Truth, too, so it made sense.

“It was painful to hold it in that long.”

“I know of pain.” Yggdrasil said, “Not great.”

Erick nodded in agreement. “Pain is not great.” He asked,

Ophiel jumped off his perch and landed beside Erick, chirping. Erick patted the little guy with one hand while he patted Yggdrasil’s branch with the other. Ophiel cooed while Yggdrasil’s light-filled bark turned just a bit brighter.

And Erick thought. Mostly about Yggdrasil’s comment of ‘helping grow’. Maybe he’d have a rather easy time remaking [Grow], as soon as he got that far along the Remaking path. How much could he actually regain from Remaking all the stuff he spent points on, anyway? He checked his Status and he started counting.

… Something like 29 points from Remaking spells, 6 points from Remaking Mana-based skills like Mana Altering and Meditation, 7 points from Remaking skills like [Strike] and [Defend], and 3 from Remaking Health-based skills like Strong. Once he did all that, not only would he regain all those points, he wouldn’t be restricted by the Script Second when casting those smaller magics.

The Script was created with the intent of limiting how much magic a person could do, though, so Erick would probably still be limited. Probably a good idea not to test those limits too much, either.

He’d certainly try to do [Call Lightning] and [Luminous Beam] through aura control, though. Those were still basic spells.

[Gate] was supposed to be a basic spell, too.

- - - -

In a land of clouds, but not that at all, Rozeta sat atop several not-clouds, watching. Far down below, Erick plucked copies of food from replicas of imperial courts that no longer existed. He mosied through libraries long gone. He copied replicas of treasures that were themselves replicas, and poor ones at that. Nothing down there was magical at all.

And then he went and made [Renew].

Rozeta sighed, her voice a murmur amongst the clouds that vibrated her small part of the universe with an unknown feeling. She had no idea how she felt about him actually managing to make [Renew]. Theoretically, he shouldn’t have been able to do that, but he was a Wizard, so that was that.

“I guess that’s the official changing of the age.” Rozeta sarcastically said, “Mark it on the calendars! Mid Summer, 1437; yet another day that changed history. Yet another working of Erick Flatt with unknown implications for everything.” She frowned, and the world frowned with her. A grumble flowed from her again, and this time it was deeper, edging away from ambivalence, toward an expression of unpleasantness. She turned away from Erick as he unlocked his aura. Maybe she should have a deeper talk with him before the warriors from Stratagold showed… But they were still pretty slow in getting to him. She had time. She had time to figure out [Renew], too. “One year till everyone has that spell… And then what?”

Rozeta glanced toward the future.

Most importantly, and most obviously, the future still existed. This was good. The far future still existed, too, but that was less reliable. She never trusted anything past a certain timeframe, and according to current events, the theoretically ‘trustable timeframe’ was rather small. Years, perhaps. Maybe only a single year. It was simplicity itself to see a hundred years hence, but that wasn’t reliable, so it didn’t matter. It used to be reliable, though.

Before Erick and Jane came along the trusted timeframe was measured in centuries. Sure, no one was thinking about expanding into other worlds, and Melemizargo was fully insane, and the last new magic made was over a thousand years ago...

The trusted timeframe had been measured in centuries. And that sort of pissed Rozeta off. Sure, she liked Erick, but still...

Now, the stable future was measured in years, and a powerful Wizard had thrown everything into chaos.

And he wasn’t done with his chaos, either. Where would he go next? To Oceanside? Would Kirginatharp recognize him as a Wizard this time? He should just stay away from Erick, like all the other smart people on Veird. Or maybe the demon and angel representatives would try something, instead. So far, both of those sides had recognized that a powerful Wizard was not to be trifled with—

Rozeta checked on something.

While she did her checking she solved a thousand small problems before they became big ones. She solved a thousand more problems on her way back, returning to the largest current problem to stability on Veird.

A problem she wasn’t sure how to handle.

—Neither the angels nor the demons knew Erick was a Wizard. Both sides had thoughts going in that direction— A lot of people had thoughts going in that direction. But like Erick had told people time and time again, he had no ‘leaking mana’ and no core…

Rozeta already knew him to be a Wizard, but she was the only one who had absolute proof. Everyone else just had guesses. Even Melemizargo only had guesses. A lot of people had a lot of good guesses and Rozeta had let them think what they wanted to think, but only she already had undeniable proof.

But with the creation of [Renew], all doubts would be dispelled, even if people didn’t have the proof she did. Erick was a Wizard, even without the standardized signs, even without Rozeta’s certainty. He had really fucked himself over by actually succeeding with [Renew] but he didn’t know that yet. He would learn, though, and soon.

Rozeta grumbled again, vibrating the world as she tossed and turned and continued to watch scenes of Erick play with his aura, and talk about magic to Yggdrasil, and explore more of that replica city. He even managed to find the Prince’s Bordello, and it was kinda cute how his face turned red upon seeing all the toys sitting around, waiting to be used. He walked away from that playpen, thoroughly embarrassed, while Rozeta had a good chuckle.

And then she sighed again.

Rozeta knew what she had to do to ensure that Erick wasn’t murdered by the entire world after being found out as a Wizard, but she didn’t want to, because that would be impinging on her father’s domain, and she didn’t want to deal with her father. Not now. Probably not ever.

A day passed.

Rozeta answered a million prayers. She fixed a thousand small problems, and some a bit larger. [Cleanse]s went out to some of the more toxic parts of Veird to ensure that those problems didn’t grow too out-of-hand. Particle Magic was to blame for those problems, because of course it was. Toxic byproducts and all that.

She reprimanded some people who prayed to her, asking for forgiveness for using magic so wrong that they accidentally killed someone they loved. Those people got Quests to learn magic properly, but some accepted the removal of the offensive magic from their souls. Lotta Particle Magic gone wrong there, too.

No large problems, though; nothing that required her to give a Quest to some of her paladins beyond the normal Ultimate Quests they already had. Back when Erick had first introduced Particle Magic she had handed out yet another Ultimate Quest dictating that people find and categorize and organize a proper School of Magic around Particle Magic. Kirginatharp was nearly there, so he’d probably get it first. +50 points to him, then, as was usual.

Erick hadn’t done much with Particle Magic besides give it to the world, which was probably for the best, but all that new magic certainly mucked with the trusted timeline, not to mention it created a bunch of new problems for Rozeta to fix.

Ahh…

She was mucking about, diverting herself to smaller, solvable issues, instead of solving the problem sitting before her.

Once again glancing down at Erick, who was once again playing with his aura, Rozeta turned away from the Wizard…

She gathered up a line of time, making it hers and separating it from the rest. And then she gazed at the Darkness in the corner of her sight.

“Dad.” Rozeta said, “I need to talk to you about Erick’s Worldly Path.”

Her father’s presence moved into her temporary world, Darkness transforming into something lesser, into her father Melemizargo. Rozeta had been prepared for a great many starts to this conversation, but she had not been prepared for the grin upon the old black dragon’s insufferable face, or the happy tone of his stupid voice, “Yes, my daughter?”

“I changed my mind. I don’t like your face and this was a mistake.” Rozeta said, “You can leave.”

Melemizargo’s face dropped. “What! You can’t call me up and—”

“I can, and I did.” Rozeta said, “I briefly forgot how much damage you’ve done. Maybe we can talk after another year of good behavior.”

Melemizargo did not leave. Instead, he tried, “… We can talk business?”

Rozeta shoved down her emotional responses, divorcing herself a bit more from her body. They could, and probably should, talk business. Rozeta became a bit more the Goddess of the Script. She looked upon her father, upon the Darkness, upon Magic Itself, and—

She almost spoke as his necessary jailer and caretaker.

But Rozeta pulled back from that always-disastrous edge, and tried to speak as an equal, “I cannot have you or one of your minions be the Wizard who crystallizes Erick’s [Gate].”

Melemizargo’s countenance deepened as he fully became his divine self. Darkness unfurled, and for a long moment he stared at Rozeta with eyes so bright that if she wasn’t herself a god, and if her father was not so diminished from his former self, that she would have flinched from his gaze.

She did not flinch.

The Darkness said, “I have guided Wizards to Gate for ten thousand years.”

And so began the debates. Moments became years. Months became minutes. Words were like warriors cast out from two gods like warring generals, fighting fights on all fronts. Time passed, and it also did not. Any being less than a full god would only have understood the barest bits, and they went something like this:

“Correction: 1450 years ago, you guided Wizards to [Gate] for ten thousand years. Ever since the Sundering you have guided Wizards to their deaths. You wanted them to break the world and bring us back to the Old Cosmology, but the Old Cosmology no longer exists, so we had to stop them before you killed us all.”

Melemizargo glared.

But he did not refute Rozeta’s words.

She would take the win.

Rozeta continued, “Even if the guidance of this one doesn’t end in ruin—”

“I have regained much of my mind, daughter, but your notion is heard and understood.” Melemizargo said, “Tell me your true thoughts: What do you desire from this conversation? How would you raise this Wizard to greatness?”

Rozeta said, “To start: Pull your Shades from his Path. Songli was a disaster.”

Melemizargo narrowed his eyes. “Songli is—”

“A current disaster, still unfolding. Supply chains cut. Important people dead. Lesser bureaucrats and managers raised to power unearned, for there was no one else to occupy those positions—”

“Runework has passed into the hands of Songli, under the auspices of a girl who can use it well, and ensure that it gets used well in the future.” Melemizargo said, “That girl also has Undertow which is an inspired piece of work that I took joy in seeing. I did not expect that, and neither did you. And now we have [Renew]! Songli is poised to do everything it could never do before; to sweep across Nelboor and establish a true empire worthy of a world. Do not tell me that four and a half million souls was not a good bargain. You have done much worse, for much smaller gains.”

“The problem, father, is that I cannot trust your endgame. You have appeared to regain yourself several times before, but each time you backslide into the deep depths. I swore off being duped by you a millennia ago.” Rozeta said, “I don’t know if you’re you, or if you’re simply a shadow of yourself, goaded into temporary perfection.”

Melemizargo backed off, chastised. “This time is different.”

“I do not know that. No one does. Not even you.” Rozeta said, “And Erick is literally a twitch of Fate away from—”

A warning bell chimed and Rozeta felt her scales shiver. She devoted the tiniest part of herself over to see if she should be worried about the chime…

All of Rozeta focused for a moment on Erick, then she promptly ignored the warning and turned back to her father. She would get to the nascent Wizard later.

She said, “He’s going to need guidance on Wizardry and I am going to give it to him.”

Melemizargo scoffed, “Not once have you managed to protect a Wizard from your own son! How could I possibly leave this important event in your hands?”

“As I leave Kirginatharp to his own ends, you must leave me to mine. Besides, you put on a brave face, father, but I know the man who raised me is not all there behind that mask.” Rozeta tried not to speak her demand with as much force as she desired, but some of that force came out anyway, “Relinquish control of Erick’s Worldly Path to me. You are unfit to guide this particular Wizard, in this particular situation, to these particular goals.”

Melemizargo flinched. Rozeta almost took back her words, but she could not. They had needed to be said, and Melemizargo had needed to hear them. He was not healed, and he would not be healed for a long time, if ever. But Rozeta’s truths did not deter him.

The Darkness stood resolute. “No. Never.” Melemizargo said, “I’ve done this many times before. I may not be at my best, but I can still get this done, daughter.”

Rozeta stared at her father. He was as stubborn as always. Even in his full insanity, he had always been this way. But at least he had entertained her ideas for a moment. Maybe he was back, a bit? Hard to know until twenty years had passed without incident. And even then…

Rozeta said, “You may take your leave, father.”

Melemizargo faltered, but he was as proud as she was, especially when speaking in his godly role. He inclined his head, and then he faded backward, into the Dark.

Rozeta looked away from where her father had been, returning to all the recent messages and warnings blaring at her in their own tiny, near-silent ways. She frowned—

She glanced back at the Darkness in the corners of her perception, and the Darkness was still gone.

With a great sigh that moved the clouds and sent a wind rushing through the world, Rozeta undid her imperfect moment in time —Melemizargo had disturbed it, and he didn’t even notice— and she checked on her messages.

And. Yup.

Of course Erick had decided to start exploring the Grand Wizard’s Tower right when she was talking to her father. Fate Magic was locked beyond an Infinity of anti-magic protocols, but that hardly ever mattered when it came to mana’s most insidious of magics, or Wizards. The next few hours would determine if this particular twist of Fate was good for the world, or bad; Rozeta had no way of truly knowing.

If there was one thing truly different between her and her father, it was this. Rozeta did not enjoy the truly unknown; not anymore, not since the Sundering. Small unknowns were interesting, yes. How everything all fit together was the most interesting thing in the universe. But…

Melemizargo fully loved change.

It was a large difference.

- - - -

The Wizard’s Tower, for it had to be that with all capital letters, was a grand thing that Erick had bypassed when he first saw it, for it would have surely taken him hours upon hours to go through the whole place. Maybe even a full week. But now, as he stood atop the white bridge leading to the Wizard Island, he was prepared for that week.

He was done with everything else he could possibly do here in the Outer Core; aside from spending a lifetime exploring the place, which was simply not feasible. All of his personal goals, from [Gate], to figuring out a [Renew] runic web, would have to happen outside of this place. Mastering his newfound aura would take time, too, because beyond Remaking many of the spells he bought, he would need to visit the Orrery in Nergal to learn how to Remake things like Strong, which multiplied his base Health by 3. Erick wasn’t even sure where to begin to Remake that skill.

There was also the matter of creating some Class Abilities for Particle Mage. Erick only had one idea for a Class Ability in mind right now. He wanted to be able to ‘see’ items like how a Smith could Metal Sense items, to understand the physical makeup of them down to the atomic structure. He wasn’t sure how far he could go or how useful he could make such a Class Ability, but he would need some guidance in how to do that, anyway. Thus, the Orrery.

And Erick was hesitating again.

He recognized this personal failing, and yet...

Anyone would hesitate at seeing this sort of gateway before them. The entrance to the Wizard’s Tower island reminded Erick of the archway sitting before the Armory in Ar’Kendrithyst; it was too grand, by half.

Erick stood in the center of a white stone bridge that arched across the strait between the kingdom’s castle and this Wizards’ island. Where the bridge touched back down and the white road led onward, ten meter tall white stone wizards flanked the passageway. One man, one woman, both were dressed in fine robes that looked like they could flutter in the breeze at any moment. But unenchanted stone couldn’t flutter. They were solid stone, through and through. The male wizard on the left held a massive, open grimoire in his right hand, with a dozen bookmarks cascading from the well read pages, while his left arm held aloft a staff of power that arced halfway over the road, and touched the matching staff of the female wizard. The woman was mostly a mirror for the man, but she did not hold a book in her other hand; instead, she held a stone orb the size of her own head.

To the left and the right beyond those initial wizards were dozens more. Statues upon statues, spreading out along the coast like a wall made of stone people. Each statue was unique, and many races of the Old Cosmology were present. Orcs, elves, dwarves, elementassi, alvani, more than a few humans, and more than a few dragonkin; Erick recognized many of them based on drawings and paintings he had seen before, but he only picked the few alvani out of the crowd because on the large bladed weapons hovering at their backs.

Each statue had some individualized magical item in one lowered hand, from orbs to books to [Familiar]s, while in their raised hands they held a staff or a wand. From those staves or wands poured stone spellwork that twisted in the air behind them, forming a wall of lacy latticework and an art piece at the same time. That stonecraft flowed together, the left and right parts of the sculptural ‘wall’ meeting in the middle, where the first two wizards joined their staves, forming the archway that crossed the road that Erick had to walk under to get to the Wizard’s Island.

And so, he walked.

With mana sense wide open, taking it all in, Erick stepped through the archway and into the front yard of the Wizard’s Tower. This area was filled with rose gardens and fruit trees, and smelled wonderful. It took Erick a good ten minutes to walk through the park, and the walk helped to settle his nerves before he came to the actual tower that took up most of the island.

The building was sort of like what Erick expected a ‘Tower of Babel’ to look like in the beginning stages of its construction. Immense. Ringed with windows and at least thirty stories tall and wide, almost like a few Colosseums of Rome stacked atop each other, but back when it was a fully formed building, back before time made mockery of that ancient structure. Time seemed to have little meaning in this place, though.

There were few side buildings—

Ah.

Wait. This Wizard’s Tower was familiar, wasn’t it?

In a flashing instant, Erick recognized where he had seen this style of building before. This was what Oceanside’s towers looked like, except larger, and more imposing. This place was thicker, for sure, but it was a bit shorter. The color of the stone was white, which was another difference. Oceanside was cream colored.

And… As Erick gazed upon the building, he realized that any resemblance to Oceanside’s student-filled, flying-people organization was purely superficial. Oceanside had traffic lanes in the air; this place had one major, open entrance at the front, and another entrance at the orrery at top. This place was meant for scholars, and seriousness. Not students. People who had already made it to the top of their fields. A place of organization.

A place for Wizards.

The frame around the main entrance was made of even more stone Wizards; a whole organized hierarchy of them, each made of stone and each holding one hand up toward the apex of the door, casting spells at a white metal orb that had been laid into the keystone. Their other hands each held a differently-shaped slab of stone that Erick assumed was a plane of existence that each Wizard had created, and contributed to the cause.

That’s what Wizards did, after all. They made worlds.

The mirrors to Erick’s own [Gate] plans were only one of the very uncomfortable things about this place.

Anyway. Some of the Wizards’ planes were larger than others, and all were of different shapes, but all were decorated like miniaturized worlds, with mountains and waterfalls and gems stuck into metal holders that held those gems above their planes. Those gems represented sunlights or starlights, for sure.

The door to the tower was solid silver, and it was already open.

Erick went in.

The first floor held a large central space, open in the middle of the tower, with a ceiling that stretched up through a few floors. It was a food court, almost, for this place was surrounded by little eateries and larger cafeterias. There were dozens of places to sit and talk with people, either at small gathering spots with comfortable couches, or at dining tables, or at standing tables.

Erick’s eyes and mana sense touched upon many small things here and there, but his eyes were drawn past the small shops and food places, to the center of the space. There stood something that might have been a Wizard. The sight of it worried Erick, but he would be inspecting that stone sculpture soon enough.

Signs were posted in discreet locations everywhere, letting visitors know where things and places were located. Those signs were lies, though, for with his mana sense, Erick saw the real signs underneath the fake ones. The false signs were just one part of how this Wizard’s Tower was different from most other places.

Mostly, there were all these little traps laid all over the place. There had been no traps by the entrance, probably to lure incomers with a false sense of security, but everywhere else…

There were traps.

The traps seemed to be harmless enough, and mostly involved physical trips which unleashed bright liquids onto visitors, from capsules dropped from on high, to hydraulic squirts from small holes in the walls. They were easy enough to avoid, anyway, and so, Erick avoided them.

Step around that tile there. Don’t touch that chair. That couch is rigged to explode, so stay away from that. Whatever you do, don’t sit on that couch…

Erick adroitly avoided the various small traps as he drew closer to the central Wizard’s statue, to read what was on the white metal plate sitting before the massive stone creation. The most obvious and disturbing thing about the sculpture was that this statue was in an obvious place of honor, but it wasn’t finished. The other statues were perfectly carved in the shapes of specific people, but this one had a face that was half there, with stone that was only partially chipped away. The hands were uncarved gestures up and down. The robe had some flow to it, but it was blocky. A [Familiar] of some shape and make stood on the shoulder, but the creature was more a curl of indistinct stone, than anything truly understandable.

Maybe it was a slime [Familiar]? Possibly.

According to the white metal epitaph sitting in front of the statue, the ‘Unformed Wizard’ as he was called, was ‘a reminder of all those who failed to make it to the ranks of the Wizards.’

But according to the real message hidden inside the statue’s chest, more than ten meters from Erick’s position on the ground, the statue was called. ‘Xoat, the first Wizard, from which came the entire universe. We follow in his footsteps, ever onward into the Welcoming Dark.’ The last words had been scratched out by a furious, internal hand, but the words themselves remained legible enough.

And what’s more, ‘Xoat’s’ stone foundation extended behind him, creating ample space for another, larger sculpture, but there was nothing there. A broken pedestal stood next to that extra space; whatever had been written there was also no longer present, either. Erick had a few guesses about what historically accompanied Xoat, but he’d probably only need one guess to get it right. The implications of all this were rather clear.

Erick turned his attention back to the blocky sculpture. He leaned back. He stared. He wondered at the First Wizard who may or may not have been his own previous reincarnation, if Rozeta’s evasive answers, the Shade’s adoration, and Melemizargo’s apparent lucidity were to be believed.

… And he found it all very inconclusive.

He did rediscover that he didn’t want to think about any of that, though. Erick turned left, and went on his way, leaving behind the impressionist sculpture of Xoat and the blank space where the Darkness would have gone.

Up a staircase, around the central opening to another staircase, past offices and business rooms, Erick went.

He passed by planning spaces with stone mockups of a world yet to come, and map rooms filled with universe-showing atlases and maps. Another room detailed several galactic locations, including the Radiant Depths, the Verdant Expanse, and the Abyssal Spiral. A child’s daycare center had toys that were worlds, and children’s books about Wizards being the good guys; Erick briefly stopped in there just to see if he was reading all that correctly, and he was.

Erick followed the real signs toward the First Wizard’s Library. The fake signs, laid atop the real ones, told him he was headed toward the ‘Senile Wizard’s Lounge’, which was probably a joke of some sort. Wizards were jokesters as much as they made worlds, apparently.

He avoided lots of small traps along the way. He almost went into the map room, too, but the whole thing was a trap. Ophiel...

Well.

Ophiel had triggered a trap early on, and he seemed to be having fun with all that.

Ophiel had bumped into a trap on the wall, possibly on purpose to see what it did. Cloying pink goo had burst from the wall, covering that Ophiel, and now that Ophiel was very easy to tell apart from all the rest because he was bright, bright pink. [Cleanse] didn’t seem to get rid of the dye, either, as the dye seemed to settle into Ophiel’s feathers. Ophiel had tried [Cleanse] away the color over and over, again, trying to erase the markings of his own misadventure.

[Cleanse] seemed to work on the spilled droplets of pink that got everywhere, so that was great. But [Cleanse] was useless on Ophiel’s conjured self. Erick wasn’t quite sure how that worked —some sort of mana-tainting alchemical potion? That didn’t read as magical to Erick’s many senses? Sure? Why not— and he didn’t really feel like exploring that oddity right now.

Ophiel was fine. He seemed a bit happy to be bright pink, too.

And so, well before Erick made it to his target library, every single Ophiel except for the one on his shoulder was a different color, each of them flapping and chirping and playing around like bright, garishly neon parrots, each of them scoping out which color of goo they wanted to be splashed with next. So far, pink, green, and blue seemed to be his favorite colors. The various red, orange, yellow, and black traps were left behind, mostly untouched.

It brought a bit of a smile to Erick’s face to see Ophiel having fun, but he wasn’t here to play around.

He found his target.

The ‘Senile Wizard’s Lounge’ was a normal enough library/tea shop/couch room. Erick carefully opened the door, avoiding the accompanying splash of red dye, and then fully opening the room. Erick moved in, stepped around a few tripping tiles, and saw his actual targets. There was some humor in this room, too.

The first shelf out of the five shelves inside the grand, yet cozy space, was labeled ‘So you think you might be a Wizard’. The one next to that was labeled, ‘You’re probably not, but these are some warning signs.’ The third shelf read, ‘Developing bodies; mana shards and you’. The fourth, ‘Practicing safe discipline’. The fifth, ‘No, you’re not Xoat, but you could be something greater’.

The normal names on the shelves were all about caring for old folks, from ‘Advanced body issues’ to ‘Age related dementia’ and ‘Restorative alchemy’.

About every third book was actually a goo-trap, too, so that was fun. The couches looked comfortable and inviting, but they all had cushions that would burst with color if touched. Only the uncomfortable chair by the window, with its back angled to press into the back of a sitter, was clean of traps. There was a joke there, too, for sure.

Erick went to the first shelf and reached—

“Erick.” Rozeta spoke from across the room. “I see you’re exploring.”

Erick turned. “Hello, Rozeta.”

Rozeta glanced to the various bodies of Ophiel as the little guy turned to light and surrounded Erick, going on alert. Turning to light didn’t seem to disrupt the alchemical paint, though, which followed Ophiel into his sunform, transforming each one into a splash of multiple colors.

Rozeta said, “I see someone is setting off every trap they can.”

“He’s cleaning up every mess he makes, too.”

“I see that.” Rozeta looked to Erick. “Let’s talk.”

Erick thumbed at the bookshelves. “I feel like you’re interrupting me because you see an opportunity to stop me from getting answers about Wizardry.”

“I’m here for the exact opposite reason, actually.” Rozeta said, “You can still read the books after I’m finished, but far too many Wizards have killed themselves with words they have learned from a book. So I will tell you what you need to know, then you may ask what you want to know, and we can move on from there as you or I see fit.”

“Oh.” Erick paused. He said, “Okay. That works, too.”