The sky was black, and though distant stars held in that grand expanse above, their fearful light did not do much all the way down here, on the Surface of Veird. The world was quiet. Even the wind seemed shy, for Darkness stood upon the land.

Melemizargo’s glowing white fangs and shining white eyes were the brightest lights here, warning everyone who held the true power in this place. The dragon’s size did a lot for that announcement, too, at being nearly 40 meters tall, while the back of his throat glinted with a restrained white fire, reminding everyone present that he could burn away everything, should he be given reason to open his maw and let loose that annihilation.

Erick’s Benevolent sunform and accompanying jolts of lightning were a nightlight compared to the brightness of the God of Magic. The only presence Erick outshone was that of Goldie, though her bright white eyes were a tiny mirror for Melemizargo’s. At that thought, Erick wondered why he was thinking of the sizes of lights. He came to the conclusion soon enough: he was terrified.

Only an idiot wouldn’t be terrified in this situation.

Everything was happening, all at once.

And yet, Erick was ready; as ready as he could ever be. His Ophiel were around him and wrapped in defenses, and so was he. He took a calm breath, and turned his sight to the horizons, all around. Where was everyone else? Shouldn’t Rozeta and the wrought and Kirginatharp and the Mind Mages all know that Erick was back? That he had finished the Worldly Path? That it was time to face the Darkness?

They had to know that Melemizargo was threatening to upend the entire way that life worked here on the Surface of Veird, right? Taking [Teleport] away from every single person, or preventing [Teleport] from working up here, would have catastrophic cascading effects.

Some people lived directly below the ground in hiding holes with no connection to the surface, or inside well-defended mountains, and the only way to get to town and back was to use [Teleport]. In a much larger sense, [Teleport] was the backbone of overland-based trade. There were still a lot of shorter-distance, caravan-based trades that happened between farming field and main towns, but everything between all major cities was mass-[Teleport] driven—

Well. There was shipping-cargo-based trade, too. That wasn’t [Teleport], but only because ships could go very fast and haul a lot of cargo a long distance. The basic [Teleport] spell simply didn’t give enough bang for the buck when it came to hundred-thousand-ton shipments that needed to cross the oceans, or through the Underworld.

The Underworld would be mostly fine if Surface trade collapsed, for almost all of their direct shipments were point-to-point caravans between Geodes or outlying Geode-adjacent cities, but many deep cities still traded through the Surface. The Geodes all had Surface-based trade in some way, too. In those cases, a city would usually have a long road connection to the Surface, which then connected them to all the production up here, and to [Teleport].

… Perhaps everyone did know that Melemizargo was making threats.

Erick saw no [Scry] eyes in the sky—

“I blocked casual observation,” Melemizargo said, his voice rumbling like a quake. “If anyone wants to participate in this conversation then they must come forward and actually participate. You’re risking it all appearing in person, so they should too.”

Erick fully resigned himself to the outcomes of the day, and forced himself to relax. It worked, a little. “The gathering is taking longer than I expect, so I’m going to make some furniture.”

Without waiting for confirmation of acceptability, or anything like that, Erick went ahead and began [Stoneshape]ing simple stone chairs out of the ground. They were little more than orange blocks with a bit of a backing, but he made himself one, and then he made five more. The stone chairs formed most of a circle about twenty meters in diameter, while leaving a large section un-chaired to account for Melemizargo on the north side of the space. Smaller, broader Shapings turned the land into solid stone, while leaving multiple extra spaces open for other chairs to be placed, if more people came.

Erick glanced over to Melemizargo’s space, and saw that he had transformed his own rather large area into stone, too. Erick nodded at that, and then he turned back to what he had made—

“Six chairs?” Melemizargo asked.

“There’s space for more, but...” Erick looked at the chairs. “Rozeta. Koyabez. Phagar. Kromolok. Kirginatharp. And me. And you. I’m not expecting and nor do I want the full Relevant Entity pantheon…” He paused. “But maybe a space for Dinnamoth, the Demon King, and Adavido, the Crown of the Host? I’d like to enact a lasting peace there, too— Ah. And… Not Fairy Moon. But one of them from that side—” Erick suddenly stood straight. “Bright Smile. Yes.”

Melemizargo leaned his head in a little, saying, “Wouldn’t work. Kirginatharp would want to kill her on sight. Fairy Moon will speak on their behalf.”

… Probably best to avoid the topic of Bright Smile’s Benevolent Lightning collar, anyway. This was already going to be a tense discussion.

“Would Kirginatharp react the same way to any dragon?”

“Yes.”

“… No other dragons then.”

Melemizargo grinned. “Having Fairy Moon here would make all others rather more compliant with the words of this meeting.”

“I would rather whatever agreements we come to be enforced through understanding and compassion, rather than magical compulsion.” Erick realized that he was speaking through fear, though, so he added, “But I suppose she is an ally now, and I should take advantage of that to at least protect myself.”

“Quite right!” Melemizargo added, “And based on the natures of all invited peoples, the words spoken here would have a deep weight beyond their physicality. In attempting this talk, you are making a type of uncategorized magic that would usually fall apart before it could even get going; an agreement of gods. My advice for what comes next is to go small, and precise. Write down lines you don’t want crossed, while leaving the vast majority of interactions free of fetters— Ah! Speak of the fae and they shall appear.” Melemizargo glanced down at the circle of chairs.

Fairy Moon sat on one of those chairs, her green and pink eyes gently glowing along with her pink and white dress. A crown of rainbow flowers adorned her head. “Of course I would show for the show, you younglings! I was too busy burying bodies last time to be raised to Relevance, but this day is different. Today I turn up to the table.”

The sky shifted.

Rozeta’s voice boomed outward, “This is not a time for Relevance.”

Blue skies retook the roof of the world, pushing back the darkness, transforming utter night into a lesser twilight. The sun was still hidden somewhere up there, but the land was brighter, and that was good.

Melemizargo didn’t care about the sky, or about theatrics that weren’t his own. He stared at one of the chairs Erick had made, watching as a splash of golden divine fire coalesced out of the air.

Rozeta stepped out of that gold fire, looking like a human-shaped wrought woman. Kromolok stepped onto the stone behind her by several paces. Both of them were technically nude, wearing their bodies as their clothes, but that was normal for them. Rozeta wore a white pantsuit, while Kromolok had his body shaped into his official Inquisition robes of office.

Fairy Moon glared at Rozeta. “I want Relevance, if only to prevent your prevarications and the Silences of your Script. I want my race restored.”

Rozeta sat down in her provided chair, to the south of the circle, saying, “I’ll help Erick make a Script that allows for such, but it won’t take hold on Veird. The next world, or preferably the next one after that.”

Fairy Moon’s eyes went wide and she sat up in her chair, almost coming off of her stone seat. It was only now that Erick noticed she had taken the chair in the west.

Erick decided to sit down in his own chair, in the east.

He had a thought. With Melemizargo in the north, this gathering of four (and Kromolok standing behind and to the right of Rozeta, while Goldie stood in front and to the left of Melemizargo, both of them positioned closer to Erick than to Fairy Moon; and wasn’t that a thought!) would likely be everyone, because this gathering included all four corners of the world. Erick’s sunform even shone upon the eastern chair, while Fairy Moon’s gentle glows were a much more subtle reflection of Erick’s own. She even had that ring of Benevolence upon her hand, as though she had taken some of his light, as the moon would the sun. Rozeta, at the south, was the ground and stability, while Melemizargo at the north was the great darkness beyond everything solid, though both of them likely themselves the other in certain situations. Melemizargo certainly saw himself as the creator of foundations. Rozeta saw herself as the true inheritor of the title of the God of Magic, as the true Darkness, or as what Darkness should be.

Ah.

Intellectually, Erick had known what he was doing when he called this meeting. But he didn’t truly know until it was here.

This, then, was the ritual changing of a world.

Melemizargo chuckled, low and menacing. “You truly are opening the cage then, daughter of mine.”

“Not for a long while.” Rozeta said, “If we were to gain decades upon decades of good, sensible behavior from you, then perhaps I would feel better about everything you have done to get us here. Erick’s Elemental Benevolence might have solved an overarching Sundering problem, but it has still not solved the problems you have created, and will continue to create.” She looked to Fairy Moon. “As for you! Don’t even pretend to me that Elemental Benevolence and Erick’s new world order will change how you operate, either. Kidnapping and mind control! The worst part is that you are also incapable of seeing how what you did to Erick was wrong.”

Fairy Moon shrugged. “I got gains. You achieved aught. Besides! He allied with Ar’Cosmos! If your kin-killer would have gotten to him first, then Erick would be as eradicated as all the other enemies of your wrought.”

“Erick is not our enemy.” Rozeta said, “We were wary in the beginning as all sensible people would be, but he has proven the merit of his character ten times over. Similarly, you, Fairy Moon, have proven yourself a million times over.”

“Tell me true!” Fairy Moon demanded to know, “If he would have went to the criminal Kirginatharp and dined with demons and acquiesced to angels, would he remain himself? Or would Erick have been eradicated? If I hadn’t harbored him, then would he have died from Relevant recidivisms?”

Rozeta said, “Kirginatharp would have stepped in and prevented such a tragedy. All you truly did was grab Erick, force him to see you as people in need of saving instead of under necessary control, because that is who he is, and now we’re here. You are unworthy of being allies with anyone, for all you know is mind control and manipulation.”

It was here, that Erick decided to step in, saying, “I would like to start there, and suggest the first of agreements to come out of these talks: No more unwanted mind control by anyone—” And because he knew it would only be making a problem to solve later, or be rightfully argued against, Erick added, “—except by those in active pursuit of the best possible worlds, against the worst Mind Magic offenders, or only in extreme circumstances. The average person —or even the head of a state— acting in normal fashions, should never have to worry that they will be mind controlled against their will by anyone, for any reason.”

Fairy Moon almost leapt out of her chair, happily saying, “So you agree! My actions were acceptable!”

“Actions can be acceptable based upon the outcomes, and still be the worst possible actions to take.” Erick said to Fairy Moon, “I am not comfortable enough with you to visit Ar’Cosmos on a normal basis. Not now. Maybe not ever.”

Fairy Moon just nodded, like she had expected that. “The land of no-lies is dangerous to denizens and transients alike, and we’ve even had dragons there for a while, if you witness. Transforming that tenet or the truth of our tenants is likely not to happen here or hence, so your reluctance to residence is recognized. Doesn’t mean Ar’Cosmos is done with you, though.” She asked, “Are you still an ally? Are we to rescue you from the ravages of the wrought when wanted? Or are we to be without any Wizards, once again?”

“You have at least one Wizard locked up under Stasis spellwork.” Erick said, “So don’t pretend that you are actually ‘without any Wizards’.”

Fairy Moon smiled. “Who is she when compared to the sun that is thee? That woman is trash for true. But what about you? Are you an ally?”

And that was the big question, wasn’t it. Rozeta lightly stared, needing to know the answer. Melemizargo wondered, too, though he was mostly just intrigued by everything happening all around him. He didn’t expect this to actually work, and so he was ready to do whatever he needed to do after everyone else was done talking.

Which was probably bad.

Erick spoke, “I wish to be an ally to all who would abide by a few basic rules of interaction. No violence. No attempts to magically control. Honest communication. Honest interactions. Forgiveness of foibles. The eradication of true evils, not merely perceived evils. Approaching each other from places of goodwill, in the hopes that such interactions will both create a better world, and be that better world in the act of trying.

“Here, in this space, I would like to act less as individuals, with individual needs and wants, and more as guides of what comes next. What we want the world to look like. How we want to interact with each other. What sort of interactions are acceptable, and what sort of interactions are not acceptable. For instance—” Erick turned to Kromolok, and said, “As far as I know, Kromolok, the Mind Mages I have worked with have always been professional and scrupulous when it came to their magic. A continuation of that is fine with me.” He turned to Fairy Moon. “What you did was wrong, though, and has needlessly added drama to an otherwise… Well it was always going to be a contentious talk, but I’m still mad at you.”

“I accept your anger, and the aftermath of my actions.” Fairy Moon said, “Ask a wish to weaken your wrath, and I will make it manifest.”

Erick instantly said, “When you go around judging people for their actions, take your judgments to the local justices, first. I don’t want you just killing people out of hand. If justice is not granted in the way that you judge it should be granted, then step back, evaluate if you are wrong or if you are missing all of the facts, if your judgment is too harsh or not harsh enough, ask another competent, trustworthy person to evaluate your judgments, and then go through the whole system again. If justice truly cannot be achieved through the mechanisms of the society in which the offender lives, then, and only then, should you consider execution, or whatever other justice you deem necessary, Fairy Moon—” He turned to everyone, and said, “Which brings me to this next problem—”

Fairy Moon had maintained most of her composure while Erick spoke at her, but she still sputtered with minor rage. Erick’s attempt to move on was too much for her, though. She interrupted, “I critique correctly in all courts for all claims and claimants!”

Erick let her finish, then he said, “Okay. Well. I don’t know your whole story; I admit that. All I have heard are the words of the wrought, about how you were the Letter Killer, who went around Stratagold killing nobles and wrought and leaving behind letters detailing… the crimes of the guilty, I suspect.”

Fairy Moon triumphantly said, “That is correct! The guilty were nobles and hidden ne’er-do-wells who would never have been banished or brained as they should have been, so I did the braining myself! They were secret slayers one and all, and especially that child-killing Kydyr. You cannot tell me that killing that killer was incorrect!”

“This brings me to yet another problem that I wish to solve; as I was saying.” Erick said, “Kydyr killed an orphanage in a war in order to deprive an enemy country of future soldiers. I would call this a war crime. You do have this term, ‘war crime’, here on Veird, but it is not well used, or understood. Know this: I feel that war is unfortunately necessary in some situations, but the prevalence of war is way too high in this world. Literally any time of day or night or twilight, someone can come along from some enemy nation and attack wherever they want, killing whoever they want, and the war never ends. The terrorism never ends. The Angels and Demons are particularly guilty of this phenomenon. They even call it the Quiet War when it's between their various proxies, and the Forever War when it's between themselves.

“Therefore, I would like to propose some rules of war. Maybe Sumtir, the God of Righteous War, would like to get in on this, but that might need to happen later. For now, I would like us all to agree to some basic rules for all sides to follow in all wars, henceforth.” Erick said, “In the stated example of Kydyr and that orphanage, I would like someone like Fairy Moon to be able to bring forth charges against a hypothetical Kydyr, and for the law to step in and do what is right.

“But perhaps even more than that, I would like continual wars to stop.

“I believe that war should be declared between parties before open war happens, and even in the case of open war, all fighting should be kept away from civilians. Any other types of fighting should be declared war crimes, and many war crimes should be punished by—” It pained Erick to say this, but he did, “—If the aggressors purposefully harm civilians, or plan to harm civilians in the course of normal warfare and then harm those civilians, then they should be punished by death.”

Fairy Moon rapidly said, “I agree!”

Rozeta frowned a little, then said, “I see no problems with this.”

“No problems!” Melemizargo laughed. “You’re forgetting something.”

“Forgotten Campaigns are wars to save the world from itself, and they coincide with the rough idea of acceptable versus unacceptable that Erick proposes.” Rozeta said, “We have always tried to limit the scope of those Campaigns to those who actually prove problematic. When possible, we remove memories and magics and problems without touching the person, but some of these magics have been insidious, and thus death was the only answer.” She eyed Melemizargo, saying, “You have made these magics insidious.”

Erick spoke up, “That brings me to another problem. I believe that this Elemental Benevolence is a true solution to the Sundering problem, but I have seen several nearby issues that need to be solved to ensure that Benevolence remains intact—”

“Don’t say anything else,” Rozeta rapidly said, her eyes locked tight to Erick, her voice as serious as a [Luminous Beam]. “Melemizargo will use your words to break Benevolence—”

“I will not!” Melemizargo said, offended. “Besides! I can already see who the problems are! It’s that Red Dot Mage and that Terror Peaks fellow.” He gave a small, disapproving scowl at Rozeta. “Did you not Sight this before you came here? Tsk tsk, daughter of mine. Benevolence is rather easy to work when you work along the lines it likes.”

Rozeta wasn’t offended, though. She was stunned. “You… You already know? And you haven’t tried to support these bad ends? To kill Benevolence in its crib?”

“Normally I would have been offended at such a suggestion, but I haven’t been myself in a long time so your reaction is understandable.” Melemizargo said, “Know this: I quite like Benevolence. Reminds me of Altruism from the Old Cosmology, but with a lot less self-harm and a lot more possibilities for building a strong base of power. Can’t be benevolent without an overabundance of self-power, after all. I fully approve. Therefore, I and my clergy won’t do anything to harm Benevolence, and we will be assisting Erick as he deigns to ask. Goldie, here, already desires to enter into his service, but he has yet to accept.”

Goldie had remained standing tall this whole time. That did not change as almost everyone glanced at her. Erick just glanced all around, though, and specifically not at Goldie. He wasn’t ready to accept that probably-poisoned gift just yet.

Erick barreled ahead, saying, “Since everyone now knows at least two of the three problems approaching Benevolence—” He looked to Fairy Moon. “—and since I don’t want to be a tyrant delivering justice as I see fit, no matter what Benevolence gives me Sight to see—” He cast his gaze around, saying, “—and since I know that the issues presented by Patriarch Xangu Terror Peaks and the Red Dot Mage are existential threats to a lot of lives, I present the problem of them to this small group, to ask what should be done, and to hopefully have someone else carry out the sentence. It is not right for one to carry out all their own justice, after all.”

Fairy Moon didn’t like that last part, but she got over it.

Rozeta said, “Xangu’s machinations have killed millions of people and the Mage’s actions have directly killed tens of thousands of people. I declare summary execution for both. Kromolok could do this, or Sitnakov could do this. Sitnakov wishes to make amends for his previous actions, Erick, so this would be a good first assignment for him.”

Fairy Moon brightened, now that it seemed that execution was really going to happen. She happily declared, “I could make examples of these enemies! Extreme Light eradication for Xangu. Ten thousand thrusts with a rapier for the Red One.”

Melemizargo said, “Goldie could do this, quick and clean. It is what she does.”

Erick was almost surprised at the quick agreements all around, but he wasn’t; not really. He was surrounded by killers, and he was a killer, too. Everyone had their reasons to agree to Erick’s denouncement of Xangu and the Red Dot Mage, and yet… He felt a little hollow. Erick kept himself well together, though, and said, “Fairy Moon brings up a good point, and a reason for why I will not accept her help with these executions at this time. I do not endorse cruel and unusual punishment in the enacting of justice. I would rather they die painlessly, and without complication.”

Fairy Moon simply shrugged, though Kromolok and Rozeta and Melemizargo were all waiting for him to continue.

Erick gestured outside of the meeting area. Two Ophiel fluttered over there, to hover above the sands about ten meters from each other. He said, “Goldie.”

Goldie sucked in a small, heavy breath. She waited.

“I assume, that by your presence here and the offer given by Melemizargo, that the Blessing of Empathy emplaced upon you is not nearly as strong as it had been at the beginning? Or perhaps it never had much of an effect upon you at all?”

As though she had been expecting this, for she probably had since she was one of the best prognosticators in the world, Goldie instantly answered, “Your Blessing of Empathy remains strong, but it will not prevent me from doing what must be done, just as it will not prevent you from doing the same. Xangu deserves what is coming to him, and it would be an honor to be the one to deliver that justice unto him.”

“So be it.” Erick said, “I charge you with bringing the justice of the executioner’s sword to Patriarch Xangu, for his role played in the murder of millions. I also demand you to discover all who played a part in that Chelation War, and that includes you. You estimated 200,000 dead. The final count was over four million. Why did this happen? I am particularly interested in learning how Xangu acquired all of his unexpected Extreme Light materials, and all of his soul spears. I do not care the order in which you enact these commands, but in the end, I expect the threat of Xangu to be completely eliminated, and for your trace upon this situation to be as though you were never there. If you accept, then I will open a portal to him right now.”

Goldie slammed a fist over her chest, saying, “By your command.” In a flickering instant she had moved across the sands to stand near one of the Ophiel.

Erick explained, “The portal will open one kilometer from Xangu, hidden under a bridge in a town called Bluite Falls, in the Underworld, three hundred kilometers north of a Geode called Oloritian. Xangu is recovering from the war and planning his next moves at the house of a distant relative, which is a mansion directly under the light of a large blue crystal hanging from the ceiling. The relative’s family name is Donara, and their house is well defended from all outsiders. I could wipe the place from existence, but I would prefer a surgical strike, killing only the one who needs to be killed. You will need to find your own way back.” He asked, “Do you need more instruction than that?”

Goldie’s bright white eyes seemed to shimmer as she stared. “That is a great deal more than I usually receive. I can take it from there, Wizard Flatt.”

Erick nodded.

With a flicker of power, a ring of silent white lightning sparked out of the air beside Ophiel.

Goldie rushed through.

Erick shut the portal.

He wanted to breathe deep and then sigh out for a while, but he did not, for he was in his sunform and he couldn’t relax, anyway. Instead, he turned to Rozeta and Kromolok. They seemed to be less than thrilled that Erick had used Goldie to enact any sort of justice at all, for they were both fearful of Erick going over to Melemizargo’s side.

Melemizargo, though, seemed absolutely thrilled about everything that just happened.

Erick said, “The next target is the Red Dot Mage, and I would have your assistance, Kromolok, or whoever you would assign to such a task. How would you go about this task?”

Melemizargo and Fairy Moon eyed the white metal incani standing behind and to the side of Rozeta. Rozeta did not turn, but she did nod toward her Inquisitor.

Kromolok stepped forward. “I would ask you a few questions, first.”

Erick was prepared for this. He nodded, and waited.

Kromolok asked, “How have you chosen your targets?”

“Inside my [Gate Space] I see the whole of Benevolence stretch out into the far, far distance. The Benevolence catches upon itself like paths of lightning tangled upon Fate. Some of those tangles are problems. Some are opportunities. In the smaller of cases, it is hard to tell which is which. In the larger cases, it is easy to tell the difference.

“In a hundred years, when Yggdrasil matures and his seal vanishes and new worlds open up, there are so many tangles and all of them are so complicated that describing any of those events as simple ‘problems’ or ‘opportunities’ is near impossible. I can only really see one of those events, and only because I know the participants, but I can’t tell if that event is a problem to be murdered, or a person to be assisted.

“The closer, larger tangles are easier to tell, by far.” Erick said, “Here, in the near future, the Benevolence tangles upon three situations, turning destructive, blackening the sky and revealing the sources of that blackening. First, there is Patriarch Xangu, then we have the Red Dot Mage, and then… there is a minor cacophony of assorted, smaller problems, each adding up to their own catastrophe. Taken as a whole, these problems will cause the death of Benevolence and open the way to the return of the Sundering threat.”

“Murder them all!” Fairy Moon said, her voice deathly serious.

“I agree, and yet...” Melemizargo frowned for the first time, his displeasure heavy in his voice as he said, “I don’t appreciate you conflating ‘black’ with ‘bad’, Erick. That was why I Cursed adamantium to black. Now they can’t disparage that color without disparaging themselves.”

Rozeta glared at her father, saying, “If you didn’t want to be associated with evil acts then perhaps you shouldn’t do so much evil.”

Erick blinked a bit, though, completely caught off guard. And then he said, “It’s a valid complaint, I suppose, but I’m not sure what you want me to do about it. Black is the opposite of light. Uh. If it makes you less wary, even the beneficial things look like blackening in the lightning; a confluence of possibility that could go multiple ways.”

“Oh!” Melemizargo instantly perked up, shifting a bit as he said, “That’s perfect.” He chuckled a little bit, adding, “Oh. I quite like that, actually. Very good, Erick. This is fine. Black as a simple alarm color is wonderful.”

Rozeta narrowed her eyes at Melemizargo, then let that hate go, and said to Erick, “It takes a skilled hand to know that simply marking out all the bad things would lead to a bad end.”

“Well. Yes.” Erick said, “I was not about to create a magic— An Element, in this case, that would be twisted into a license to murder every single person touched by it.”

Melemizargo chuckled again, then said, “Some people will use your Benevolence in this way, but then that’s on them! Ah. This is great.” He looked to Rozeta, and then to the Kromolok. “Are you going to clear up this little Red Dot Mage problem? Or shall I secure even more of Erick’s goodwill by sending another Shade at the problem?”

Fairy Moon spoke up, “Let me put this problematic person into prison! That’s your true yearning of justice, is it not, judge Erick?”

Everyone turned toward Fairy Moon.

Erick stared at the pink and green fae for a short moment that felt a lot longer than it actually was. He did want more justice than the edge of the executioner’s ax. That was very much a goal of his. And yet… Did he want Fairy Moon jailing the Red Dot Mage? For the first time in a long time, Erick’s thoughts spiraled. He took longer than a moment to think and to answer.

Fairy Moon took this delay as evidence of her win. She smirked wide and happy, then hopped off her seat and moved toward Ophiel—

“No,” Erick said, his mouth moving faster than his mind.

Fairy Moon stopped in her tracks. “… No?”

Erick’s answer had been instinctual, but he was able to gather a few thoughts after the fact. He asked, “Was your plan to mind control him?”

“I will lay down laws against the lad as I laid them against you.” Fairy Moon shrugged. “If he should harm another, then I will make him harm himself as well. I suspect this mirrored mandate will simply slay the slayer soon enough.”

“That would qualify as cruel and unusual punishment.” Erick said, “I would rather he just die, or be eliminated as a threat without causing excess harm to him, or to others. If you can manage the second one without mind control, then I will listen to your thoughts.”

“‘Excess harm’ is an excessively halfway phrase, Erick,” Fairy Moon said.

“You don’t like the soul mutilations of my [Blessing of Empathy]. I don’t like the way you mind control people.” Erick said, “In a perfect world, neither of those things would happen, and we wouldn’t need to execute criminals either. But this isn’t a perfect world, though that doesn’t mean we should stop trying. I choose to draw the line at mind control… and I probably won’t be doing much of that soul mutilation, either. At least not against people who don’t ask for it.”

“Ah! I have imagined a solution!” Fairy Moon said, “I suggest I give this guy a great choice! Execution. Control of Mind! Control of Soul! Let us see what their selection is for this slaying scenario.”

Let the convicted choose their fate?

… Unfair, or perhaps the most fair?

Erick made a decision, “Okay. Sure. I can abide by that sort of justice. You will take the Red Dot Mage in hand and bring him here for him to make a choice of his own. And then we will carry out that choice.”

Kromolok spoke up, “Mind control to get someone into court? Are you sure you want to go down this route, Erick?”

“In this specific scenario, the Red Dot Mage has proven that they are a mass murderer who is incapable of being dragged to justice any other way. I had thought that Messalina had captured the guy, but apparently she has not.” Erick said, “I will likely need to deal with her later, but, as stated, that will happen later. What is happening here is too important to be delayed overlong in the execution of it all.”

Kromolok gave a tiny nod of acceptance. He did not agree with Erick’s use of mind control to get someone into court, but the needs of the situation demanded harsh choices be made quickly.

“Enough dallying!” Fairy Moon said, “Ar’Cosmos must prove itself as presentable to the public, and thus, I go to grab a great killer and keeper of faces. Now where am I wandering?”

Kromolok said, “If this is really happening like this, then the wrought wish to participate in the enactment of real justice, and to extend a hand toward Fairy Moon and Ar’Cosmos, in the hopes that a treaty between our peoples can be founded on even, new ground. We hope to open dialogues based on mutual constructive words, and the rule of law is a good place to start.”

Erick was dumbfounded, yet again. Fairy Moon had much the same reaction, but writ large; open jaw, narrowed eyes, a huffing voice that wasn’t sure where to start. Erick recovered first, and said, “I thought making a treaty between your peoples would be the most difficult part of these talks.”

“It will be difficult, and Fairy Moon has already broken treaty with us once.” Kromolok stared at the offending fae, saying, “But she’s not the true problem of Ar’Cosmos; that honor belongs to all the dragons trapped in there.” He looked to Erick, “You might have already solved most of the real issue of dragons by telling Kirginatharp that he gets the next world, and that all the other dragons have to wait for him to leave Veird. If he takes this offer, it is one way in which this whole scenario is made easier.

“But in the hundred years that it will take for this to happen, two other things will happen:

“One, is Ar’Cosmos will multiply in size ten thousand times over, creating a separate sort of world for all of the dragons to fight over, while leaving this one alone. We hope to create treaties to ensure this happens, and that it happens in an organized manner.

“And two, the people you reincarnate into non-dragons won’t pose nearly as much of a danger to Veird as a true flight of dragons, and anything these reincarnated people do is outside of the scope of the duties of the wrought.” Kromolok said, “Separating the dragons from Civilization has worked to keep their danger away from everyone else, and so we see no reason to stop this. In fact, we wish to encourage this separation.”

“Erick.” Rozeta spoke up, “Even in the best case scenario, we expect you to use your Sight to see the grand problems before they happen and to inform us of those problems before they happen, and when necessary, to ensure that no dragons shall endanger Veird. Kirginatharp will be working with you to kill such dragons, if you will have that alliance.”

Erick didn’t know how he felt about that, but he was somewhat… glad? Sure. He was glad. Melemizargo looked intrigued, but not overly concerned. Fairy Moon obviously had some deep thoughts behind those heterochromatic eyes of hers, but Erick could only guess at them.

Fairy Moon said, “I want the Script restrictions on Elemental Fae relaxed to full. Do this, and I agree to keep the full dragons to our own world until such time as they won’t start dragon fights in this one.”

Rozeta frowned at Fairy Moon. “That wording is very loose. ‘Until they won’t start dragon fights in this one’. Fights are only half of the problem. Greed and territory demands are another. I also have an issue with your use of ‘full dragons’. The mangled Essence dragons are still a problem.”

Fairy Moon shrugged. “Those are the terms I choose to chance with you charlatans of this created court.” She added, “And besides that! More dragons in my domain means more duties to keep them demure. I cannot contain them all on my own; the only thing that can do that deed is the Curse of that kin-killer— Oh!” She stared at Rozeta. “And I want Kirginatharp’s left eye. Or left testicle. Or... left arm. Or... horn? Yes. Horn. Any option will work. Any body part firmly parted from that person.”

Rozeta probably would have been turning red with anger if she had blood.

Erick spoke up, “You ask for too much, Fairy Moon. Kirginatharp is Rozeta’s son, too, just like Idyrvamikor was.”

Fairy Moon huffed, lifting her chin at Rozeta. “Feh on your kin-killer child! Bad upbringing! Blame the mother, and maybe the grandfather, too!”

Melemizargo chuckled, saying, “Those two always hated each other.”

“Shit in all your eyes,” Rozeta spat at Fairy Moon, and Melemizargo.

Rozeta had been dealing with Fairy Moon and Melemizargo and their involvement in the death of her son, Idyrvamikor, for the last 1400 years. She had been dealing with Kirginatharp’s involvement in that, too. And she was a dragon. Not a single one of these facts wasn’t already well known by Erick, but in that moment, hearing her curse at the causes of some of her pain, it brought it all together.

His heart went out to her, but he remained silent.

Fairy Moon didn’t care about Rozeta’s verbal curse. She turned to Erick, saying, “Guide me to the guilty, my wishful Wizard!”

Erick gestured behind him, to the Ophiel still hanging out over the sands. From Ophiel, Erick cast a lightward image of the target. “The Red Dot Mage is currently this man, a fisherman at a farming lagoon in Archipelago Nergal. I have no idea how long it has been since he has stolen this person’s life, but he was fishing on a boat in that lagoon the last time I looked through Benevolence. I will open the portal a kilometer to the south of his last known location, inside the jungles. You can bring him back through the [Gate], too, and we can bring this problem to a close in the next ten minutes.”

Fairy Moon did a little twirl, her dress transforming halfway through. She stopped and did a little pose. She now wore high-quality brown leathers, with embroidered pink flowers twining down the legs and on her chest armor. “Qualified for questing!”

Erick opened the portal.

Fairy Moon vanished from where she stood. All Erick managed to see was her boot vanish beyond the lightning [Gate], as her voice whispered on the wind, “See you soon.”

Rozeta said to Erick, “I can understand why you chose to ally with Ar’Cosmos, but I feel you will come to regret this in the coming centuries.”

Melemizargo said, “That’s a laugh! You expected him to ally with the wrought? Forgetting all the other nuances of such an alliance, your people keep this world chained down and unchanging. Proper Wizards cannot be contained, and you shouldn’t even try! Look at what such meddling almost cost Fairy Moon.” He looked to Erick, “You should have taken her for more.”

“Maybe another day,” Erick said.

Rozeta seemed to deflate a little, as though she was preparing to speak on the same sad argument that she had had with her father for the millionth time, but then she sat a bit straighter. She had extra words to say this time; something new. “We keep this world secure because it is the only one. When there are new worlds, and when your existential threat is no more, then my people can think about relaxing our standards. Only then, will the wrought be able to truly let societies live and die on their own merits. But I wonder about that. Specifically the part about you not being a threat anymore.” She looked to Erick. “I doubt you would be able to Sight it if he doesn’t wish it so, but is Melemizargo one of the existential threats you see?”

Melemizargo went a little still. And completely unreadable.

Melemizargo looked at Erick from thirty meters away, though the heat of his Sight seemed right up in Erick’s face. Ah. Well. Here now was a danger, wasn’t it? Well fuck that.

Erick looked away from Melemizargo, to Rozeta, and said, “I can’t see anything, one way or the other. I can’t see anything upon you. I can’t see anything upon Kromolok. Fairy Moon was clean, too.” As Erick spoke to his small audience, they started to relax, and ponder. Erick was pondering too. He gave voice to those thoughts, “Which is quite odd, isn’t it? To me, none of you are nodes of change with regard to massive changes in population, either for or against. I’m sure there is some godly business going on, but Kromolok, at least, I would have expected to see a bright ring of lightning around all of him, for there is surely to be at least one more Forgotten Campaign in his future. I cannot see such a Campaign on the horizon, but it must be there, right? Somewhere?”

Melemizargo narrowed his eyes at Kromolok, studying the man. Rozeta even turned a bit to take in the sight of her Inquisitor.

Kromolok’s eyes just went wide. And then he softened, and quietly asked, “Perhaps… There are to be no more Forgotten Campaigns?”

“… Oh.” Erick said, “Well. While possible, and I do hope for as much, I doubt that—”

Fairy Moon strolled through Erick’s portal, her left hand casually holding onto the braids of a severed head. The Red Dot Mage. Erick’s heart sunk. Red blood dripped onto the sands under the fae’s feet, while splatter clung to the embroidery of her leathers.

Erick just stared. Was he angry? Sad? Feeling hopeless? Probably.

Probably all that and more besides.

Fairy Moon waggled the head back and forth once, as she said, “An easier event than I had envisioned for when I offered options, he decided upon death, and thus I enacted execution.” She held forth her right hand, showing off a perfectly spherical, bright red core. There was little blood upon that core. Most of the blood was on Fairy Moon’s hand. “Your Red Dot Mage was a free dragon. One I have broken fast with before in Ar’Cosmos, and have had cause to contain at least once. He appears to have gone back on his agreement to be an agreeable person, so now he knows the fiercest of freedoms; the freedom from this life.” She looked to Rozeta, and said, “I can do this mediation for a multitude of millennia if certain situations are solved to my satisfaction. If you stop the squeezing of the Script on my society of souls, I will produce a partially-permanent deliverance from dragons, one way or another.”

Rozeta stood from her chair. She stared at Fairy Moon for a long moment. “[Renew] will allow Ar’Cosmos to expand to the limits of the Script, but you will ensure your lands do not infringe upon the Core of this world, or any other.”

Her words were merely the opening salvo of many more to come, from both sides.

Fairy Moon flicked the severed head and the red core to the ground. The head flopped into the sands, gathering grit upon all of its wet surfaces. The core merely vanished, leaving a wet spot on the ground. No one seemed to care about the dead guy, or that Erick had ordered Fairy Moon to bring him back here for questioning, and sentencing. Erick’s myriad of emotions had transformed into a hollow anger. How dare Fairy Moon flagrantly disregard his words!

But…

That kind of thinking was unproductive.

Erick let that anger go.

Fairy Moon still had a lot of anger in her, though, as she said, “[Renew] will lease our land to infinity and beyond. Your clause for a non-Core breech is beneath us and I will not agree to this amendment.”

“Is this to be an agreement for all time?” Rozeta asked, “Or an agreement of the moment? It certainly seems like you’re trying for whatever suits your needs, without regard for the wording we hammer out of this gathering.”

Fairy Moon pulled back a bit, relaxing. “An agreement for the moment is monumental enough. I’m still offering millennia, though.”

“Yes. Millennia of easy times for a universe of more problems later,” Rozeta said sarcastically, then she cleared her sight, and stared at Fairy Moon. “Here now is an offer: You and your people both living and never-dead, keep the danger posed by dragon fights, on Veird and in your own lands, to at least the current level it is now, or lower, while accepting competent wrought and otherwise oversight inside Ar’Cosmos and other fae lands. We will be allowed inside your lands, Fairy Moon, and you would treat my people as perfect guests, and leave them free of your influences, or attempts to influence. Obviously, if they do wrong, as codified by standard law here on Veird, and agreed to by you, then you will evict them. You will not do your own justice to my people, as you have done here with Erick’s request. You will honor both the intent of this agreement, and the wording. In the case of a necessary Forgotten Campaign, you will fulfill that necessity yourself, with minimal involvement by us.

“Agree to all this, and I will begin to relax Elemental Fae’s band of intent within two years, after we see the results [Renew] has upon Ar’Cosmos. I will start with an increase from 1, to 10.”

Fairy Moon’s eyes went wide in shock. Whatever ‘bands of intent’ meant, it was important. Erick guessed that ‘bands of intent’ likely had to do with what the Script classified as ‘Elemental Fae’ or ‘Elemental Fire’, or any other Element out there. It probably didn’t have to do with why Elemental Fae self-destructed in the presence of other Elemental Fae, though, because Elemental Fire did not destroy other Elemental Fire, for example. But perhaps the bands of intent releasing on Elemental Fae would mean that there would be ten types of fae that could live near each other without destroying each other.

Melemizargo looked on, eyes a little wide in wonder, mouth a little open. He had not expected this sort of outcome, but he was happy to see it happen. Rozeta noticed her father’s eyes, too, but she judged his casual enjoyment as not a problem right now. Rozeta was very wary that Melemizargo might somehow be stringing things together behind the scenes to cause a grand destabilization of Veird and the Script, but that was an old worry.

Fairy Moon tried bargaining for more. “Ten bands is not enough.”

Rozeta had expected this. She said, “If, in the next fifteen years, this sort of arrangement seems to be working, I will allow Elemental Fae to expand to 100 bands of intent. If, in 100 years, this arrangement has been solidified as calm and beneficial to all, then I will allow Elemental Fae to multiply to 100,000 bands of intent, or maybe more, depending on how much mana your slice of reality actually produces on its own, compared with how much mana your land absorbs to remain functional. After all, my only purpose in controlling this world’s magic is to ensure that a Sundering will never happen again, that magic remains open for all, and that this world continues to produce positive mana.” She warned, “If your people should threaten the integrity of this world, in any way, such as the myriad of ways you have threatened this world before, and as you threatened to do in the beginning, then these bargains are nullified. I will shunt you back down to a single band of intent and consider never opening that floodgate ever again.”

“Accepted!” Fairy Moon smiled brightly, saying, “I look forward to seeing the sincerity of your sayings in your Script.” She bowed to Erick, then rose. “A successful start to a benevolent new balance, my wishful Wizard. See you soon.”

And then she twirled sideways, and vanished. The blood upon her leathers fell away from the space she had been occupying, to land on the stone ground like red water—

“A good bargain. It might actually last a while, too.” Melemizargo asked, “So what’s next?” He smirked. “Shall we solve the Forever War, too?”

Rozeta scowled at the space where Fairy Moon had been for a moment longer, then she rid herself of all expressions and faced her father. “I want to know your plan with that soul slime’s Truth.”

“I think not.” Melemizargo said, “It is not time for that reveal. Let us deal with some more politics instead. Who is next? Perhaps Kirginatharp?”

“No one else is coming.” Rozeta said, “Kirginatharp won’t go near you. The Angels and Demons want nothing to do with Erick, and even less to do with you. Every Relevant entity that wishes to speak to Erick has private matters to discuss with him and they don’t want you involved. This whole thing with Fairy Moon and Erick’s Benevolence and… We’re done, for now.” She looked to Erick. “I know you wanted something more foundational to a new beginning, but this has been more than enough. The dragons will remain behind their [Fairy Gate]s, though they will try to interact with Veird through you, as you have put yourself in a crossroads position. Don’t let them harm this world, Erick. Fairy Moon is going to screw over our agreement in some way, for sure, but it will likely be a small problem. This alliance between you and Ar’Cosmos was completely unexpected, but… It might be for the best.” Rozeta said, “Know this, though: The wrought want the opposite of war. They would like to reaffirm their commitment to building civilization, and that means that Stratagold wishes to retain their alliance with you. All the rest will be following Stratagold’s example, but in their own time. Do you understand?”

All eyes turned to Erick.

Erick asked, “No danger of being Mind Controlled out of power?”

“Not from my people. My people wish to work closely with you to both understand Benevolence and to use it to ensure the integrity of this and all possible worlds to come.” Rozeta said, “As far as I know, the Mind Mages wish to work closely with you, too, so there’s no danger from them, either.”

“… What about Kirginatharp?”

Rozeta tried not to be exasperated for a wholly different reason than all the other ones that had come her way today, and she mostly succeeded. “I would like you and Kirginatharp to sit down and have a discussion about what happens next, and what you plan on creating out of your part of the world. Kirginatharp is not your enemy, Erick. Not now, and not as long as you continue to be who you are.”

“So you’re saying Kirginatharp was a danger to me, at one point in time,” Erick said. “At at least one point in time.”

“Yes.” Rozeta did not mince words as she said, “You were a danger. You are still technically a danger, but with Elemental Benevolence, most of the true danger of the unknown has passed. We know the measure of your soul, and we have decided it is good. Now, comes the test of time; the test to see if you are capable of handling the power you have claimed. I wish to work closely with you to ensure that you pass this test, so please don’t get paranoid on me.”

Melemizargo chuckled, saying, “It’s not paranoia if they truly are out to get you.”

Rozeta glared at Melemizargo, saying, “The only reason anyone is out to get you is because of all the horrible things you have done over the last 1450 years.”

“Tsk tsk, daughter of mine!” Melemizargo smirked, saying, “It’s only been 1436 years since the Sundering. Imprecise language like that is why your little deal with Fairy Moon will turn rotten in a few decades.”

Erick spoke up, “I plan on being around in a few decades, and so I would like to continue to ensure that relations stay stable between all parties here at this meeting, in whatever capacity I am able. I wish to keep stable and to grow along normal lines the relations between Ar’Cosmos and the rest of the world, and the wrought.” He looked to Melemizargo. “My desires for stability also include whatever sort of stance you decide to take, Melemizargo, but I would appreciate if it your stance was one of calm direction toward a better future, and less horrors all around.”

Rozeta pulled back a fraction, glancing between Melemizargo and Erick. She rapidly decided that Erick’s words were likely for the best, so she let them stand. Melemizargo had been somewhat stunned by Erick’s words but he recovered just as fast. The Dark Dragon turned back toward Rozeta. Both of them had wanted certain things from the other, and though they weren’t getting those things right now, both considered that they might get those things in the future.

Melemizargo raised his head high, then looked down, and spoke, “Small disruptions and expansive growth. This is a treasure to be protected. And yet, this is nothing new. Fae lands have always been on the other side of existence, until the Sundering, and the Script. Wizards used to be welcome on all worlds, and they used to create new ones all the time, as Erick has already done, and is planning on doing. We are close to how the Old Cosmology used to work. It is not perfect. It is not what I would truly want, and so, I will be adding my own touches here and there to bring better Realities in line with where reality should be…” With a light stare upon Rozeta, Melemizargo said, “I won’t be too disruptive unless I have to be. It was good seeing you.” He turned to Erick. “Goldie is now yours to command. I’m sure she will return to you when she has a full report. Let me know if you want control of all the rest.”

And then he vanished.

Just like that. Simply… gone.

The twilight air shattered all at once, revealing the sun above and restoring the warm winds of the north. Heat washed across the land.

And Erick panicked a little—

“Okay! So!” Rozeta happily said, “That went about as well as it could have. Great job, Erick. With everything, too. All around, wonderful work. Looks like I need to make some adjustments to Elemental Fae, though, which… Unexpected!” She gave a nervous, half-chuckle, then said, “Truly unexpected. But workable!”

Kromolok sighed, muttering, “That’s going to be a disaster.”

“Ohh!” Rozeta said, “Maybe not. With this agreement, I have literally removed the problem of most dragons from Veird. It’s better than the war I was expecting.”

“You have added nine more fae to this world, each at the power of Fairy Moon.”

“Well yes.” Rozeta said, “But this should be manageable. Fae normally only ever interact with mortals or immortals in the playful sort of sense, and the nine she should choose to resurrect might keep her busy with her own for the foreseeable future, which is good enough. Anyway. That’s a long discussion and we need to make plans for those events.” She turned to Erick. “Would you like to participate in those discussions, or are you ready for a break?”

“… Are we actually done for the day?” Erick asked, looking down at the solid stone he had made out of desert sand. “I expected a lot more people… and talking.”

But not really; not once he had seen that all the possible occupants of his ritual had taken their positions in the four cardinal directions. Still, though, he wanted to solve the Quiet War.

“No one is willing to meet with Melemizargo right now for all of their assorted reasons. You are actually approaching that same category due to your affirmed alliance with Fairy Moon and Ar’Cosmos, and the acceptance of Goldie into your retinue. I would warn you against getting too comfortable with the Fae or with the Dark, but you already know this. Your Wizardly nature has likely scared off all the rest of possible people.” Rozeta strongly added, “Never forget, Erick, that if you didn’t have power, then those two wouldn’t care about appeasing you at all. Don’t slip, or else the fall will be horrific. I will help you stay on top as much as I am able, but I can only do so much. I’m sure other gods will help the same, though, so don’t be afraid to ask for help.”

“I’m… Painfully aware of that, and also that I don’t have nearly enough power.” Erick asked, “Any material advice?”

Rozeta smiled softly, happy that she was being asked and that Fate was seeming to come together in the best possible of ways. “Don’t go back to Spur, but don’t cut your ties, either. Build a house and a city of your own at Candlepoint or somewhere nearby, as I think you have already planned. Accept the wrought contingent that I will be sending to you and make them a part of your workings. Build whatever defenses you require. Keep yourself and your people safe, and continue to prove the merit of your being. And open a Gate Network!

“It will be a rough road for the next few years, but if everything goes well, then in about 70 years I can start working with you to create new Scripts for the new worlds to come. I’m sure there will be a lot of problems between here and now, but I’m also sure you can handle them.” Rozeta said, “If you can’t handle them, then that is what we gods are here for. Don’t hesitate to ask. We all owe you a great deal.”

Erick felt trapped in a whirlwind, but he managed. He said, “Okay. Your advice is heard and understood. I appreciate it.”

Rozeta looked at Erick for a moment, then she said, “I know it is hard, but you shouldn’t let Fairy Moon change how you interact with others. Saying ‘thank you’ is not a curse. See? Watch.” She bowed deep, then rose, saying, “Thank you, Erick Flatt, for everything you have done. I look forward to working with you in the future.”

Erick chuckled nervously, but he couldn’t let go of the tension in his heart just like that. “Ah. Yeah. Thanks.”

“Good!” Rozeta clapped her hands, then she said, “So today has been great and terrific all around, but I’m getting notifications of problems that need fixing. I’ll see you all later.” She turned to Kromolok. “Talk with him.” She turned back to Erick. “If that is okay?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Erick said, “We have lots to talk about.”

Rozeta happily said, “We’ll talk later about a unique Blessing, too.”

The Goddess of the Script stepped backward and vanished, leaving white clouds in her wake that scattered on the northern winds like golden fire in a breeze.

Kromolok instantly started with, “Goldie is going to be a problem.”

“Surprisingly enough, I’m more worried about the wrought than the repentant Shade.”

Kromolok continued, undaunted, “There will be more hard choices like the ones you made with Xangu and the red dragon. Are you sure you wish to proceed with this life? You could always run and hide.” He sent, ‘I know Rozeta granted you that power, too.’

Erick frowned at the guy. ‘Thanks, I suppose, for showing that you can still get into my mind even when I don’t have a physical mind at the moment. Have you removed any memories as well?’

‘Unlike the fae and the dragons you have been interacting with, we don’t use our powers for personal gain, or to make existence easier.’ Kormolok said, ‘The only time we ignore that adamantium rule is in the case of a Forgotten Campaign, and that won’t be happening to you. You’ve got a much worse fate: dealing with all the shit you stirred up.’

Erick paused for a second. ‘… Was… Was that a joke?’

‘It was an attempt at humor, yes.’ Kromolok said, ‘Obviously, we are both too stressed out to appreciate the attempt. By the way, Sitnakov wishes to enter into your service, too. Rozeta chewed him out most thoroughly, showing him the error of all of his particular ways.’

‘… Was that an attempt at another joke?’

‘Sadly… No.’ Kromolok said, ‘Also, officially, you’re not welcome in Stratagold’s outer cities. Unofficially, feel free to connect to Yggdrasil down there at any time you wish. Also, the Mind Mages wish to officially speak with you about ensuring that they are not seen in a bad light, because they never want to go through another persecution by a high-ranking political power ever again. In a different way, the Angels and Demons want to talk, because they want you to stay out of their business, and—’

“Okay. Okay…” Erick felt like he should be getting a headache, and yet he felt perfectly fine, because of course he did. The Script and Stats magic were all very good about ensuring physical wellbeing. And he still didn’t have a physical brain at the moment. “I’m going to… To go to the Yggdrasil at Candlepoint, and sort out a whole bunch of shit, and welcome the wrought and you to a station there in, like, a day—”

“How about in the next four hours? We would like to be nearby yourself, in order to ensure that you won’t be assassinated in the next little while.”

“… I’ll see you in the next four hours, and we can work out all the rest at that time.” Erick asked, “Do you need a [Gate] back to Stratagold?”

“I’d prefer to see the inside of your Gate Space; where you say you can see Benevolence stretch out before you, illuminating all problems.” Kromolok said, “I have been chasing a world without the threat of a Sundering with all of my power, and for all of my life, so I would dearly like to see what you see when you look upon the future of Veird. If you are not willing to trust me right now, then I would at least like a copy of the blue box.”

Erick thought for a moment, then asked, “You must have seen it through my own eyes— Ah. Well. That’s just not the same then, is it.”

“No. It is not.”

“Rozeta hasn’t already shown you the blue box?”

“No.” Kromolok stressed, “This, right here. This event. This is not a problem that threatens to kill all of Veird. Therefore my powers as Inquisitor are limited. And despite what Uchena might have told you, though we aren’t technically a part of the Mind Mages, we are Mind Mage adjacent; we hold to almost all of their tenets, as well as a few more besides.”

Erick handed over the blue box. “I’ll show you the [Gate Space] when it’s not quite so vulnerable.”

Time seemed to slow for Kromolok as he accepted that large blue box. He blinked a few times as he read its wording. He smiled a little. He chuckled, and breathed. It was exactly as he had already seen through Erick’s eyes, but now, he had a copy.

It was everything he could have ever hoped for.

With a soft voice, Kromolok said, “Thank you, Erick. Thank you.” He sighed like all his problems were actually, truly gone, and he had not fully accepted that reality until that moment. Then he chuckled a little, smiling again, as he said, “I’ll take that offer of a [Gate] to Yggdrasil’s cave now.”

Erick nodded a little, still trying to gauge everything emotion he had seen pour off of Kromolok, as he said, “It was good seeing you, and not being enemies.” Perhaps a bit too fast, he moved on, opening a lightning portal in the air next to Kromolok. “Do you need another portal to get back in five hours? Or ten? Maybe 24? Take your time?”

“Elemental Benevolence is your Element, Erick. I cannot overstate the importance of that fact.” Kromolok said, “As long as you are alive, I doubt anyone could influence your [Gate Space] unless you wanted them to. But I take your wariness. I’ll also take another [Gate] from Yggdrasil’s cavern to wherever you are in the next four hours, please. I expect to have some people with me, too.”

“... Sure. See you then.” Erick nodded.

Kromolok nodded too, then he stepped through the [Gate].

Erick closed the portal.

And then Erick just sort of stood there for a while, letting his thoughts drift in the haze of the aftermath of the battle, while his lightning sparked here and there upon the solid sand underfoot. Those sparks had been leaving small black marks, but now, they left tiny, tiny red and tan cacti. And Erick felt good.

Though this talk might not have looked the part, it had been a battle to determine the entire fate of Erick’s personal future, the future of Ar’Cosmos and the dragons, the future of Veird, and to ensure that Melemizargo didn’t throw too many wrenches into the whole process. The battle was over. The battle was won.

Erick counted his lucky stars that the people of Veird still had access to [Teleport]. The average person might not ever know what they had almost lost…

But they would certainly know what they had gained! With suddenly renewed vigor, Erick opened a lightning portal into his [Gate Space], stepped through, and closed it off behind him. It was time to work.

It was time to build.

- - - -

… But before the building could begin, first things came first.

Probably some more talking, actually.

And also checking up on the Benevolence.

Erick gazed out across the sky of his [Gate Space], and focused upon twisting iridescence upon that expanse. Within seconds, lightning appeared, like great serpents writhing across reality. But instead of tangling, and showing themselves as fulcrums upon which all of Veird would move, they settled down. The larger threats were no longer there. All that showed was a scattered net of barely-visible problems, like twisting black threads far in the distance.

Erick knew what he was seeing.

Fairy Moon had killed the Red Dot Mage, and that problem was no more. It had vanished from the sky. Goldie had eliminated the problem of Patriarch Xangu, and that problem had also vanished. The third tangle, however, was still there, but that fractal mess had spread out and dimmed a great deal, becoming just another part of the background sky. A larger part, for sure, but not nearly as much of a present danger as it had been.

Even the problem of the Converter Angel was almost as dim as the other problems, far in the future; the hundred year wall of change coming when Yggdrasil finally matured and became his own person. All of that danger was barely even visible, far beyond clouds of uncertainty.

… And that was fine.

This was good.

The first order of business was done!

Erick grinned a little as he dismissed his sunform and plopped down on the rim of his stone fountain. The sounds of trickling water and flickering flames melded with the susurrus of the easy breeze that touched upon his skin like springtime. A little ways away, Yggdrasil hung in the sky, his rainbow crown and canopy of flaming green leaves rustling in the wind, their light rippling with the movement.

Erick cleared his mind of everything.

And then, gradually, he considered all of what had just happened.

Starting off his new world order with two high-profile assassinations might not have been the most morally prudent way to start a new world order. And yet, the sky was clear of problems. Benevolence would stand for a while longer. At least hundreds of thousands of people would not die due to the actions of Xangu, or the Red Dot Mage. Objectively, Erick had made the right call.

One could not fault that murdering one’s problems tended to make those problems go away.

It was the same as when he had exterminated Terror Peaks, and all the Hunters of the Crystal Forest, and all the Hunters and serial killers of Songli. (And all the monsters he had killed, too, of course.) As least he hadn’t gone on any murder rampages himself. He didn’t actually kill all those people on his own; he had simply enabled them to be found and killed in the first place by the civilizations they had wronged.

Erick felt bad about what he had done, but also, he did not feel bad about ordering the deaths of those two future problems. Terror Peaks was finally gone. Now that that culture was fully eradicated, maybe Songli wouldn’t have to face the same problem in another 50 years; Erick had broken that cycle as much as he could. And! Messalina could finally get some closure for the murder of her Village. Perhaps Erick could actually get some positive diplomacy out of the Life Binder.

Maybe, if she hadn’t already solved Rats’ malformed soul problem, then Erick could solve that problem for him! He had invented a [Reincarnation] machine, after all. It wasn’t the same as [Resurrection], for Erick’s machine degraded broken bits of the soul and replaced them whole cloth, but he was surely to get pulled into the [Resurrection] debate for having made the Renewal Tank. His name would be spoken of beside Messalina’s name, for sure.

Erick did not like Messalina, for she had chosen to pursue the Red Dot mage by throwing parasites out everywhere she could, all in order to catch every Hunter she could find. She had even worked with Caradough and he had used those parasites to directly harm Spur. Messalina was maybe 35% responsible for the tragedy of the Farms.

But he could get over that, too, if Messalina proved to be a valuable ally. That all depended on how she responded to the news that Erick had solved her Red Dot Mage problem. She couldn’t get her revenge, which seemed to be her primary reason for acting as she had. If she turned out to be too much of a problem then Erick would just have to kill her, too.

And then probably kill her several more times to be sure.

An unpleasant thought, but it was what it was.

… He would probably have to kill her.

Erick moved on.

Now that the trials of that final meeting with Fairy Moon, and Melemizargo, and Rozeta had passed, Erick realized that he was actually rather satisfied that Fairy Moon had murdered the Red Dot Mage so quickly. He was satisfied that Goldie had managed her assignment as well, even with the [Blessing of Empathy] in her soul if that Blessing was, indeed, still there. It probably was. Rozeta would have said something if it wasn’t, or if Melemizargo was trying to pull an actual trick.

The Dark Dragon’s goal of regaining a universe of magic was better served by Goldie retaining her [Blessing of Empathy], and not trying to trick anyone, so… Erick felt that Goldie still had her Blessing. Whatever the case with the Blessing, Erick was still eager to see how she fared in her assignment. Looking out at the clear sky, she clearly succeeded, but what did that mean? She had killed Xangu, yes, but what about all the other parts of her assignment?

Would Erick finally gain the knowledge of who was behind the soul spears and the Extreme Light materials? And had he really gained the Shade of Assassination as a… a what? A soldier? A guardian?

Did he want that? Absolutely not. And yet, Erick had already —and would continue to— accept that poisoned chalice of a gift. In the same way that he felt his own goals currently aligned with Melemizargo’s, Erick felt that Goldie’s ‘assignment to work with Erick’ was the manifestation of that alignment.

… Was Erick comfortable with, apparently, falling right in line with Melemizargo’s goals?

Again: absolutely not.

But at least there hadn’t been a battle. At least Rozeta and Melemizargo and Fairy Moon seemed to have come to some sort of understanding. Most people seemed to be on the right page; accepting that Erick had made the anti-Sundering Element, and that he could continue to act as he wanted to act, free of most influences. And eventually, Erick would open the path to the stars, and Yggdrasil would open up all the rest.

Yggdrasil was young, but he was growing.

Erick breathed deep, listened to his own little world for a moment longer, and then he asked, “Yggdrasil? Are you doing okay?”

Yggdrasil’s childish voice carried on the wind, “I’m okay. Are you okay? That was a lot of talking with big people.”

Erick smiled at Yggdrasil’s words, and at the improvement of those words. He was barely 7 months old, and he was speaking in mostly-full sentences. “It was a lot of heavy talking, but I think the largest of the large talks are over.” He glanced out at the sky, and focused on one thin black thread, far in the distance. “I don’t like how the Converter Angel is still around… And apparently smart enough to not try for a confrontation. So that’s concerning. At the same time, though, I don’t want to be enemies with the Angels, or the Demons. I’ll probably have to have another heavy talk with those two forces and with Kirginatharp, the Headmaster—” A thought occurred. “Do you know about Kirginatharp? Have you seen him yet?”

Erick didn’t think he had ever directly said anything about Kirginatharp to Yggdrasil, but it was entirely possible that the old dragon had visited Yggdrasil without Erick’s knowledge, though that seemed out of character for Kirginatharp. Erick had certainly said some… less than great things about Kirginatharp, though, and Yggdrasil had overheard those words, for sure. And that might be bad. Erick didn’t want Yggdrasil to have a bad impression of Kirginatharp, though there were certainly a lot of reasons to have a bad impression of the dragon.

This could be fixed, though.

Now that Rozeta had personally vetted her son, and… possibly defused whatever sort of bomb might have happened otherwise, Erick wanted to have a talk with him.

He needed to know why Kirginatharp taught magic the way he did. Why all the math? When communication was more important. Why all the rad dust for enchanting? Instead of runic enchanting. Why not teach about runes? Why not teach proper metalwork? Why not teach gridwork? Gridwork was a very simple way to make magic that Tenebrae had taught Erick, and Jane, and Teressa, which had finally allowed Jane and Teressa to start making some decent tier 2, 3, and 4 magics. Gridwork, at least, should be taught in every basic magic classroom! And yet there was so much more that Erick had only ever experienced outside of his two months of lessons at Oceanside Academy.

And why not aura control!

And the truth of Elemental Bodies! That they were aura control workarounds!

And what about Idyrvamikor? And the Dragon Curse? What the FUCK was up with that shitshow?

And what about enchanting! The enchanting methods taught at Oceanside were fucking terrible!

And what about accretion! And how magic used to work!

And the truth of how the Script was different from real magic! All the things that the Script does for a person, as compared to what base magic is like! And how people made 10 mana per day, but the Script recycled mana for everyone to use as though they were true mages! And how Wizardry was just ‘having a lot of your own mana, and working it properly’—

Well.

Now that Erick considered it, perhaps Kirginatharp taught magic like he did in order to weed out all the bad apples before properly teaching all the good ones. Still, though… Erick was still going to ask the guy these questions, just to see how he answered.

Yggdrasil answered, “I’ve heard you talk of Kirginatharp. I don’t know him.”

“What do you remember me saying?”

“You don’t like him.”

“… Ah. Well. It’s a lot more complicated than that.” Erick began, “My issues with Kirginatharp started when Tenebrae showed us this way to do magic, called gridwork. You were still too young to talk, or to really know what was going on back then, but that little revelation was but one of many contributing factors to my disillusionment of Oceanside, and its Headmaster…”

The wind blew, and Ophiel chirped as he played gentle games with himself. The fire above the fountain warmed the air. The stone of the platform was solid under Erick’s feet, while the water burbled over the lip of the fountain, to then flow through a channel in the platform, to trail out into the open breeze, to Yggdrasil.

And Erick told a long story.

Yggdrasil listened, and asked questions.

Eventually, the story ended. Erick felt he had painted Kirginatharp in a rather decent light, while still explaining obvious problems.

Erick finished with, “As far as I know, Kirginatharp has done a lot of good for the world, and the people living in it, but there are a lot of problems with his stewardship. The Book Binders, who use [Duplicate] to publish approved books by the millions, which is both a good and bad thing. His Curse which controls the dragons; also good and bad. With regard to his teaching methods, I’m sure he’s operating under a lot of restrictions from the wrought, because even if he is the Second to Rozeta, he’s still just one dragon, and it is the wrought who truly control the spread of magical knowledge… Which is not a bad thing.” Erick said, “I’m pretty sure Kirginatharp tries to help as many as he can, but… magic is dangerous. That much is very true. And yet, magic is the solution to… So much. Not the solution to everything, but magic is certainly the solution to all material problems.”

“What can’t magic solve?” Yggdrasil asked, as though such a question baffled even him.

Erick smiled, saying, “Magic can solve everything, but there are a lot of moral issues with using magic to solve interpersonal problems. So for those, talking is usually the best way to work through any issue with other people.”

“Why did you Bless people, though?”

“Because the other option was death, and I believe that enabling a person to see what they did wrong is a better solution than killing them, and ending all possibility for a better future.”

“Why did you…”

Yggdrasil asked questions about everything. From what he had seen in Ar’Cosmos, to what he saw elsewhere in the world, to what he had heard Erick speak about in passing, to everything he could think of.

Erick relaxed as he answered. He knew that he would need to spend a lot more time with Yggdrasil than he had. Which was great, actually, because now, Erick would have that sort of time.

One hour passed in calm answering, and then a second hour flitted away without Erick minding at all. Eventually, though, the questions slowed, and then stopped.

Erick asked, “Are you tired, Yggdrasil?”

“I’m awake...” Yggdrasil said, “But I am tired.”

Erick stood up. Ophiel had settled down here and there across the space, upon the stone and in Yggdrasil’s branches, but when Erick moved Ophiel flapped and sang in violins from ten different bodies. Some of them took to the air again. One of those little guys hopped back on to Erick’s shoulder.

Erick said, “Then it’s time to start working again. I’m going to be a lot closer to you for a long while now, Yggdrasil, like back when I was at the cavern near Stratagold. I was thinking of making another house in your branches at Candlepoint and we could see each other every day. Would you like that?”

“Yes! I want another house. You can live with me.”

Erick smiled wide. “That’s what I’m going to do, then.”

He gave one last look out across the lightning sky and tried to gauge the growth he had seen and felt in the last two hours. The place had started off as roughly a half a kilometer across, but as Erick had sat there, talking and listening, the place had grown a little bit. It was, perhaps, a meter wider on all sides, ballooning out from ‘half a kilometer wide’ to ‘maybe 502 meters across’. Hard to tell, exactly, since the outer edges of the [Gate Space] were rather nebulous, since they were made of iridescent lightning and then a hazy nothing far, far beyond where Erick could see. The place was growing, for sure. Actual growth would come with time, but even this much was enough to reach all across the world, and that was pretty awesome.

He had already sent Goldie to the Underworld far on the other side of the world, and Fairy Moon to Archipelago Nergal. Could he reach anywhere on Veird, already?—

Erick paused.

“Huh.”

… Probably not, actually. Erick would certainly test the theory bubbling up in his mind, but he was pretty sure that he could only reach to where the Benevolence showed a problem, or within some innate distance from Yggdrasil. Looking out across the half-kilometer wide space, and based upon the ‘100x reach’ inside [Gate]’s blue box...

“Within 50 kilometers of Yggdrasil? Or… Larger?” He actually had no idea. It was time to experiment. Confirm some things before he started making more plans. Erick said, “I’ll be back soon, Yggdrasil.”

“See you soon, Father!”

Erick picked a target and opened a lightning portal into the Crystal Forest. His goal had been the shear wall of stone that surrounded the desert. Specifically, a spot near the northern wall, far, far north of Spur, just south of the Wyrmridge Mountains.

He stuck his head out of the hole in reality… And then he stepped through. Ophiel followed.

Something had gone wrong, and it was time to find out what. Surrounded in his sunform and with all ten Ophiel flying all around him, and high in the sky, Erick saw nothing but dunes all around. A northern wind blew hard, scattering the edge of his sunform into silent sparks.

Sand, sand, and more sand. No mountains in the distance at all.

Erick lightstepped upward, leaving behind a trail of bright white lightning, before he settled back into position a good forty kilometers up. The first thing he noticed was that he had left a lightning trail behind. The lightning was new. It was a problem, too. It seemed like a rather large weakness to openly display the direction one lightstepped… But that wasn’t the main problem right now.

There were dunes in every direction. As far as Erick’s many senses could see.

“Okay. So.” Erick asked himself, “Where am I?”

Ophiels zipped around, playing with their own new ‘lightning form’. It took them a grand total of ten seconds to figure out how to lightstep without leaving behind lightning. Erick smiled at that, and then he got to practicing, too. Soon, he was zipping around just like he used to, leaving behind no vulnerable tells of where he was aiming to move.

And then he got to exploring. He decided to lightstep 50 kilometers south, since that might have been the increments he was dealing with.

Nothing.

He moved another 50 kilometers.

Still nothing.

So he had Ophiel spread out in every direction, hopping through the light with 50 kilometer hops—

Half a minute later, Ophiel started responding with sights from multiple directions, and Erick realized where he was. He instantly lightstepped 450 kilometers south to where Ophiel had spotted a known landmark, and he stopped. All of Ophiel rapidly caught up.

To the south, the desert ended in a large wall, easily thirty meters tall and half as thick. It was not the wall of Ar’Kendrithyst. It was more like an earthworks construction rather than an impossible barrier, though both sides of the walls were rather flat; no monsters would be crawling up and over that line in the desert. Beyond that wall lay a poorly-maintained land of green grasses, small trees, and scattered shrubs. Someone had [Grow]n the desert to green and then left it to fallow; to flourish or die on its own merits. This land was rather far from civilization, but it was rather near a source of water.

A lake.

And far, far in the distance, was a green and rainbow mountain, poking up above the blue horizon like a mirage. Yggdrasil. Had to be. This was Candlepoint’s lake. To the southwest, about 30 kilometers away, lay that city. All the rest of this walled-in land was just to prevent crystal mimics from getting near the lake. Erick turned around and gazed at the empty sands, to the north, and realized that he had probably had his meeting with Rozeta, Fairy Moon, and Melemizargo, roughly 500 kilometers from Yggdrasil’s Candlepoint body.

[Gate]’s blue box read, exactly, ‘The outside distance your nodes are capable of reaching is 100x larger than your gate space would suggest.’ Erick had suspected that this meant he was at 50 kilometers of reach, but no. He was at 500 kilometers of reach. Maybe his ‘half a kilometer wide’ node space was actually a full kilometer wide? Maybe!

“Well that’s all… Somewhat in line with what I expected.” Erick reoriented toward the east, and a little bit toward the north. “That means Spur is over there.” He turned back. “Okay! Good. I know where I am now. Time to see if we’ve got a 500 kilometer limit, or something smaller.’

Erick opened a portal to the grass traveler lands.

He stepped through.

A river wound through the lands directly below, while grasses grew on all sides. This was not grass traveler land. This was south of grass traveler land.

Erick lightstepped south, aiming for a 500 kilometer jaunt, expecting to find Ygg—

Erick stopped. He had found Yggdrasil exactly.

Yggdrasil’s rainbow crown and green mountain of a canopy spread down below. With a quick step, Erick shifted positions to stand inside Yggdrasil’s greenery. And yup! He was at Holorulo’s Yggdrasil. The lake down below had seemed large back when Erick had first planted Yggdrasil, at being nearly 3 kilometers across, and connected to the wide and deep Wanzhi River via a large lock. Now, though, Yggdrasil’s green canopy had overshadowed the banks of the lake, and his roots had drilled through the entire embankment which separated the lake from the river.

Erick asked Yggdrasil, “Is that where the fish notifications came from?”

Yggdrasil said, “They were biting people so I stopped them biting.”

“Have the people tried to repair the embankment?”

“Most don’t get close to me anymore.” Yggdrasil said, “The Wandering Soul people still get close. I keep the box filled! Some others tried to steal but I solved that.”

A few diplomatic problems? Thefts? Eh. Nothing to fret over. Erick hadn’t gotten any Kill Notifications for people, so… it was fine? It was fine.

Erick asked, “Do you want the embankment repaired? It would keep out the scary fish and let people come here more easily.”

“… I don’t know?” Yggdrasil asked, “Do I?”

He was fishing for the correct answer, and he seemed reluctant for some reason. Erick had a guess at that reason, since Yggdrasil’s roots went far and deep into the Wanzhi River and he probably wanted to keep his roots out there, but the embankment needed to be repaired.

Later, Yggdrasil would have to make these correct decisions himself, but for now, Erick guided him, saying, “Yes. Let’s repair the embankment. You can still stick your roots out into the river, though, like you are, but the people who will come here will want a lake free of dangers. You’re going to need to protect many people, Yggdrasil, and the lessons on how to protect people have already begun. It’ll be a nuanced and difficult subject, and I don’t get it right all the time myself, but that's fine. All you can do is try your best.”

“Okay! Where do I start fixing?”

Erick began, “I’ll show you how to start with some [Stoneshape], and then you can continue, okay? It goes like this…”

Erick stretched his senses through Yggdrasil, took a moment to adjust himself to the heightened senses, and then with the power of a World Tree, began moving stone and dirt through the waters, like he was playing with sand on a beach. Through his actual eyes, though, he watched as the world transformed in front of him.

Erick started the repair, but he let Yggdrasil take over, and with a bit of direction the separation between the Wanzhi River was restored.

“Good job, Yggdrasil.”

“I like my roots in the river.”

Erick smiled wide and patted the big guy's white bark, saying, “I’ll be right back; I’m headed down to Stratagold, next. See you there!”

“See you there!”

Erick stepped through the lightning and arrived at Yggdrasil’s Stratagold cavern. The water was clear, the sky was stone. Everything was dotted with massive glowing crystals that were so large, and yet so far away, that they looked like stars. Their light was a lot stronger than starlight, though. The entire cavern was as bright as the Surface at midday.

Erick landed on Yggdrasil’s branch, patting the big guy, as he said, “Hello again, Yggdrasil.”

“Hello again, Father!”

A second later, all of Ophiel flitted through the portal Erick had left open, and then he closed that portal behind them. With a quick flap of Ophiel’s sunform, Erick checked out the beach that led to the embassy. That once sandy locale was now half brickwork and buildings. The architecture was rudimentary, being rather blocky and completely unadorned, and so the buildings were probably placeholders. Where the tunnel to the embassy lay, though, there was a staging ground of brickwork and utility, where people were setting up.

Instinctively, at being seen, Erick almost pulled Ophiel back before they could truly notice the little guy, but that was impossible. So Erick just left Ophiel hanging out on the waters away from the beach. He didn’t want to deal with Sitnakov and Tasar and Riivo and King Alfonin and Kromolok… And others. He wanted to open a portal to Candlepoint, to escape the coming talk...

But that would be the wrong move, for multiple reasons. His stuff might be down there on that beach-turned-boardwalk, captured by the wrought after Erick had been fairy-napped. Or maybe his stuff was inside his [Fairy Stronghold] here, at this Yggdrasil. Whatever the outcome of the coming diplomacy, Erick needed his stuff, or maybe just his knife, in order to carve some Gates…

Erick steeled himself and…

Went into his [Fairy Stronghold] instead. So he chickened out! So what. It was probably a good idea to have gone into the [Fairy Stronghold] anyway, since Tasar still had access and if they had wanted to fuck Erick over, or something, they could have destroyed his house. And he needed to check on that!

And… The [Fairy Stronghold] was exactly as he had left it.

Nice wooden walls with a nice wooden floor. A few stories of rooms and large open spaces in the center. Kitchen, bathrooms, etc. Balconies that opened to the outside. A bedroom for him, and a personal library with most of his collected books from the journey. His adamantium knife and various metals and otherwise were all exactly where he had left them. The wrought had not destroyed anything.

This boded well.

Erick was glad he had come in here first.

The only real difference from the last time Erick was here, was that the room in which Tasar had been practicing her Spatial Magic was fully cleared. All her little projects and various theories and mathematics that she had been piecing together in order to understand [Gate] were gone. No bowls of water, that she would blip back and forth and turn from ice to liquid and back. No hourglasses, randomly resetting their levels of sand. None of that.

Looking back on her experiments, and knowing what he now knew, all those experiments failed to grasp the truth of [Gate]. The current understanding of the Dimensional Ban, and even current language, failed to even allow oneself to understand the actual problem of [Gate]. Though, Erick supposed, taking Spatial transformations and applying those ideas to reality and Reality transformations, was on somewhat the right track. Perhaps the problem was that Veird’s various literature and plays and such did not ever deal with the idea of ‘traveling to another dimension’… Which was another problem to bring up with Kirginatharp.

Or perhaps the people of Veird didn’t like to think about the Sundering (or the fae?) too much, which was yet another perfectly reasonable explanation for the lack of dimensional thinking in popular media. Though, on the other side of that argument, dimensional thinking actually worked and was easy to make happen here with mana. Erick didn’t understand the exact reason why [Gate] was so misunderstood, but whatever.

Anyway.

Tasar had left a note behind after she had cleaned up. That note sat rather conspicuously on a table to the side of her experimental space. It was a short note, reading simply, ‘If ever this note should reach you, I pray that when you come out of Ar’Cosmos that you are the same person who went in. ~Tasar, Geode Guardian’

Erick cast his mana sense into the past, to view exactly how long it had been since Tasar had left this message. He was good enough to have Remade [Witness], and since Erick had been fairy-napped about 13 or 14 days ago, then he should be able to see some… thing…

“— Ah! There she is.”

Erick caught a glimpse of everything getting cleared out of the space, and then fast-forwarded a bit to find Tasar setting down the letter. It was blurry, but he could make her out. At a guess, Tasar had been here and cleaned up maybe two days after Erick had been taken. She hadn’t been inside the house since then, or, if she had, then she had erased her presence. Erick hadn’t permitted other people to enter the house, so she was the only one who knew the way, but even still, it was odd to not see anyone else try to barge into this land since then.

“… Probably just erased themselves from the manasphere, if they did invade.” Erick glanced at his own history in the manasphere and saw nothing. He felt the pink/green/white gemstone hanging around his neck. “I doubt this little thing is unique, at all.”

Erick looked around again.

It boded well that no one had torn down his house with outside Fae Magic, and that no one had torn down Yggdrasil, though. Erick cast his gaze back out to the wrought upon the beach who were all very aware that Ophiel hovered out above the waters. It was rather hard to miss the little guy, Erick supposed. He hung there in the sky over the clear waters of the lake, like an eldritch jellyfish with tendrils of silent lightning flickering out of all parts of his tiny sunform. He wasn’t very good at holding his [Pristine Benevolence] in at all, but that was fine, for now.

Erick put Tasar’s note in his pocket, gathered up all his necessary enchanting stuff and a few necessary books into a go-bag, left it there, and then stepped out onto the balcony, facing the beach in the far, far distance. Yggdrasil’s green leaves and branches held far overhead, looking like a green ocean and lightning because of the distance, but those leaves were each meters across, and the branches were hundreds of meters thick. The big guy seemed to have grown a bit since last Erick had seen him, too.

Erick said to Yggdrasil, “If the next ten minutes are calm, then that bodes well for the next few hours. If all we do in the next few hours is talk, and talk, and talk, then that bodes well for the next day. If we get a day of calm order, then that bodes well for the next week. By that time, either we’ll be at war, or we won’t. What happens is pretty much all up to them.”

Yggdrasil’s weather-balloon-sized [Scry] eye appeared in the air outside of the balcony while Erick spoke. It rapidly shrunk down by the time he finished, and then Yggdrasil took his open spot on Erick’s left shoulder. Ophiel fluttered upon Erick’s right shoulder.

Yggdrasil said, “If war comes then you come to me. I will protect you.”

Erick smiled a little at the iridescent white eye, then he looked out across the waters, saying, “We can protect each other, as family. Have you spoken with your sister, Jane, much? Or with Poi?”

“They asked what I saw inside Ar’Cosmos, but I didn’t know what to tell them, so I said nothing. You said never talk of Wizards.”

Erick nodded. “I did say that. Thank you for keeping my secret, Yggdrasil.”

He probably could have said a lot more, to clarify everything for Yggdrasil, and to make Yggdrasil feel safer because that is what parents tried to do for their children, but they had already spoken for a long time and this next conversation was likely going to confuse the heck out of him. And also, Erick had made Yggdrasil with the express purpose of protection, so the normal way to raise a child didn’t really count here. Either way, Yggdrasil would likely never need to keep quiet about Wizards anymore, since Erick was going to come out in a big way, but that would confuse the big guy and Erick did not want to do that. He could already see it now; ‘But you said not to speak of Wizards!’ And here Erick was, headed out to meet the wrought and to likely field a ton of questions about Wizardry…

Erick was hesitating. He realized this.

… So he forced himself to lightstep off of the balcony.

Here we go.

In a flash of light, Erick suddenly stood atop the water, outside of the beach, outside of the wrought staging area. About twenty wrought, including many that Erick knew, stood well over forty meters away, near the tunnel or at the back of the staging platform, near boxes and floating [Force Platform]s that looked like they were waiting to be transported to the Surface, or something like that. All that luggage boded well for future relations, though that could just be a feint. Erick didn’t feel they were a feint, though.

Four wrought stood only twenty meters away. High Inquisitor Kromolok of the Church of Rozeta. King Alfonin of Stratagold. Second Prince Sitnakov of Stratagold. And Geode Guardian Tasar. One white aluminum incani, an orcol father and son made of black adamantium, and a human woman of adamantium and green copper. They all had smaller spells active, and could likely activate more as needed. But they didn’t seem ready for war. They just stood there. Waiting.

Erick went first, “Thanks for trying to save me from Fairy Moon. I remember seeing Tasar’s Spatial Domain spread out, trying to fight the [Gate], while Sitnakov managed to hold it open in the first place with a well-timed punch and then a rip. Unfortunately, I was a bit brash in the estimation of my own abilities, and thus, Fairy Moon succeeded in her fairy-napping. I would blame myself, fully, but Fairy Moon was the one that actually did the deed.”

All of them flinched in barely-perceptible ways, except for Kromolok. The High Inquisitor was completely calm.

King Alfonin asked, “And yet you have chosen to ally with your mind rapist?”

Harsh words, but not untrue.

“This world and its people are not nearly as good or as evil as their methods would suggest.” Erick said, “Most are just trying to do their best with the tools they have available. Does this mean I forgive Fairy Moon? No. I do not. I doubt I will ever forgive her for doing that to me, or for doing that to anyone else, but I have accepted that it has happened, and now I am moving on, both for my own sanity, and for the sake of building a better world.”

No one else spoke. King Alfonin obviously wanted Erick to speak more.

So Erick continued, “My initial hope in allying with Ar’Cosmos is that I would be able to help the dragons remove their Curse and come out into the world like normal people. Now, though… That might change, with [Renew] enabling Ar’Cosmos to expand across the entire world, allowing the dragons an entire second world to themselves. I suspect that I will still help people to rid themselves of their mangled half-Curse, which will allow them to come over here. I suspect that House Benevolence will end up becoming something of a halfway point between Veird and Ar’Cosmos. This is fine with me, for I hope to found a record of diplomacy-first, and violence only when absolutely necessary.

“As for my initial plans, which are widely known to include a Gate Network and the retaking of the Crystal Forest from the crystal mimics, I plan on continuing that.” Erick said, “But that’s up to your people, and your reactions to all that has happened here today.”

The wrought listened.

Sitnakov had mixed emotions. Tasar had mixed emotions, too, but she was clearly hopeful and deeply relieved; Erick still sounded like himself, so maybe he was still himself. Kromolok was not surprised at Erick’s words at all, and he was likely talking to Alfonin through some unseen [Telepathy], confirming as much, or giving other kinds of advice.

King Alfonin listened, stared a little, then spoke as the king he was, “It is our hope that the dragon exodus actually happens, and that the soldiers we send over to Ar’Cosmos remain unaffected by fairy ensorcellment. If your words are true, then we look forward to a working relationship and we expect you to intercede on our behalf inside Ar’Cosmos…” For a moment, he looked ready to continue speaking in his kingly manner, but then he sighed, and spoke like a normal person, “This is going to end badly, Erick. It will take time to fall apart, but we fully expect it to fall apart.”

Erick instantly said, “Then I’ll have to tell Fairy Moon to kill all of the dragons who are doing wrong, or else I will kill them myself. Or! I will have to Bless the offenders into Benevolence. I’m probably going to have to do that anyway just to prove I can; to show off that a Wizard truly can make the world a better place one way or the other.”

They all flinched when Erick said the ‘W’ word, including Kromolok.

Kromolok instantly said, “Please never say that word again. We can pretend that you’re not, and if the pretending is good enough then we’ll only get a few dissidents disagreeing. We can deal with a few people spouting dangerous truths, and I do not mean killing, or mind control. Discreditation. Anti-propaganda.”

Even as Kromolok spoke those words, he realized Erick was going to disagree.

Kromolok doubled down. “Please let us not choose this path, Erick. We can...” He stopped trying, “Shit.”

Erick nodded, then said, “I’m not pretending anymore. I’m never lying again. I am terrible at it, and lies only lead to delayed problems and hurt feelings, which I will likely be dealing with for the rest of my life. That’s only half the problem, though. That’s not even mentioning all the assassinations I expect to protect myself against, and all the enemies out there I have suddenly gained, now that I am a known Wizard. If I didn’t need to lie about being a Wizard just so that I wasn’t murdered by practically all the powers of this world, then maybe all of this could have gone a lot smoother. Much more organized and happy. But that didn’t happen, and so we are here. Maybe with my own actions, other Wizards will be able to come to me, to be able to live openly, which is something I plan to allow, and which I demand you allow, too.”

King Alfonin glared.

Kromolok frowned. He knew Erick was just arguing for something he didn’t truly believe.

Erick added, “But Wizards are still dangerous; I don’t disagree there. Perhaps, though, instead of killing them, we could come to some other sort of arrangement. I’d like to gather Wizards and check to see if they’re good people or not before you go making them enemies. But, in the worst cases... Maybe a [Blessing of Empathy] instead of murder? Or neutering? I don’t know. I’d like to talk about all that and more, though. I’d also like to talk about the organized concealment of magical knowledge that your kind had perpetrated for a very, very long time.”

King Alfonin instantly countered with, “If you cannot keep certain secrets of magic hidden from the rest of the world, then you and we are going to have problems. We had thought you were with us on this requirement but now you talk of ‘organized concealment like it is a bad thing’? Bah!”

Erick almost scoffed—

But Kromolok stepped forward, saying, “Since it seems all parties are amenable to continued diplomacy, I suggest that we take this conversation private at this time.” He glanced to the people beside the crates and boxes. “Table and chairs, please.”

In that moment, Erick realized that everything was probably going to be okay.

He still didn’t remove his sunform, though.

Erick waited until a table got sorted out and then he sat down alongside the wrought. And then Kromolok proved that he could grab Erick anytime he wanted by opening up the talks with telepathic communication, to ensure that all words said between the five of them were confidential.

The conversation was tense, and remained tense for the next two hours, but that tension gradually and firmly transformed from one of wariness at true danger, to one of necessary diplomacy and the hammering out of details. Erick never turned off his [Pristine Benevolence] or his [Lodestar], and nor did he let his ten Ophiel get too far out of sight, and neither did Tasar or Sitnakov speak…

But both Tasar and Sitnakov seemed to relax a great deal throughout the conversation. Both of them seemed on edge and ready to fight, for that was what their jobs demanded, though neither of them actually wanted to fight. Silent Sitnakov seemed especially contrite.

In the end, it was a good telepathic talk.

Mostly, Erick presented his arguments for open magic for all, for a post-scarcity world and effective-immortality for all, using the magic he had learned in Ar’Cosmos to make everything better for everyone. And then King Alfonin and Kromolok beat Erick back down to nothing through concerted efforts of historical evidence that Erick’s wants would lead to a great deal of tragedy. The Reincarnation Problem was just another example of the Resurrection Problem, and while it was better that Erick was directly telling people that the person who came out of the tanks was not the person who went in, if this magic were to spread, then the powerful people of the world would gain total and complete control over everything, and the peasantry would be crushed into slavery-but-by-another-name.

Erick wasn’t convinced by Alfonin and Kromolok’s words against [Reincarnation], mostly because neither of them actually had their heart set against [Reincarnation]. They both would have loved to have a world of immortals, but neither of them saw this miracle as truly possible. It would get corrupted in some way if Erick tried, and so he shouldn’t try. Erick left the Reincarnation Dilemma alone for another day.

Erick agreed to keep [Gate] a secret, and was told to not even tell them. He had expected Tasar to ask about that magic she had been chasing most of her life, but she retained her silence. She seemed like she wanted to figure it out herself. Erick got the unsaid opinion that if she ever did get close, that she might ask him to help her with that final step. It was possible that Tasar didn’t even know that much about herself, though, so Erick wasn’t going to say it, or even offer his services. She would have to ask, first.

Erick also agreed to keep [Duplicate] a secret. If he copied anything he was only to do it for specific needs, and in specific ways. Mostly, he was only to copy things out of sight of others, and to tell people that he got his materials from Stratagold’s reserves, and that all the silver, or gold, or whatever, were granted to him by the Heavies for his specific Gate construction needs. He was strictly forbidden from using his materials for actual material gain. Anything copied needed to be for Gate Network production, only.

Much of the argument was actually about runic defenses and the construction of a town, and basic security issues. Erick had planned on making a runic [Renew] web which allowed everyone to contribute to the defenses of his Gates, and the town. Stratagold was not happy with this idea. They argued for Gate defenses only, and to allow them to control those defenses. This was absolutely not acceptable, but Erick would allow them to participate in the defenses of whatever central infrastructure he created, and to mostly-control their own sides of the Gates down here in the Underworld.

‘It’s still my [Gate],’ Erick sent, ‘It’s also my Elemental Benevolence, so I don’t think you could crawl through the inner workings and somehow hurt the infrastructure I already built, but I don’t want to allow for such a possibility, either. In the future, though, I plan on allowing people into that [Gate Space] if only to view the Benevolence as I have, and to see the upcoming problems and opportunities as I see them. As for right now, though, no one is allowed to fully control the Gates I make. If it makes you feel better, though, know that the future looks clear of most major problems.’

King Alfonin zeroed in, saying, ‘When you say ‘looks clear’. What do you mean by that? Exactly.’

The man was very concerned with apocalypse-level events, as Erick had expected the king of Stratagold to be, and so, Erick explained how he viewed the Benevolence.

That took another hour, with examples given of what he had managed to glimpse here and there in the hundred-year wall happening when Yggdrasil finally matured. Erick didn’t give any exact examples, and remained silent on the one example he could have given of Bright Smile, for he had to straddle a line between multiple nation-level forces, now that he was both allied to Ar’Cosmos, and Stratagold.

He did tell them about the problem of the Converter Angel, though.

To which King Alfonin looked to Sitnakov.

And Sitnakov finally broke his silence, sending ‘If it would please, Archmage Flatt, I have been asked to… repent for certain actions undertaken which might have inconvenienced you. In light of your requests made to that fae, and also that Shade, at your previous meeting, I ask that you allow me into your entourage to combat this Converter Angel, and any other threat which you might deem necessary for the protection of the realm. The Converter Angel has been down here on Veird before, but they have also retreated several times before. We’ve never been in a position to truly bring any force against the Surface destabilization that is the Quiet War, until now. We don’t expect to be able to catch the angel, but… If you would allow me, I ask to be able to assist with that… And also with ensuring that Goldie doesn’t become a problem…’ He added, ‘And all the other assorted problems of a similar nature which you will no doubt encounter.’

‘Granted.’ Erick said, ‘I expect this agreement to work out well between us, Sitnakov, or else I will be forced to do things I do not want to do. Also, don’t antagonize Melemizargo too much, okay? I’m trying to ride a line there, too.’

Sitnakov’s eyes went a bit wide. ‘Uh. Yes. I agree to this.’

King Alfonin relaxed a little at the conclusion of that interaction. He had expected Sitnakov’s inclusion into Erick’s personal circle much more difficult than Erick had made it.

Erick said to the king, ‘I don’t want this working relationship to be difficult. Please don’t you be difficult, either.’

‘… Of course, Archmage Flatt,’ King Alfonin said, annoyed at being read so easily.

Kromolok managed not to smile at how well this was going, though that was a bare thing.

Tasar broke her silence, saying, ‘I would ask for some major [Gate]s between a few Geodes and the Surface. Or perhaps just to here, and then they can take a [Gate] to the Surface from here.’

‘Sure,’ Erick said, easily agreeing to that request as well. ‘I’ll have to charge a gold per person and per ton of product— Ah. That reminds me. I need to talk to the Wayfinder’s Guild, too. Prices will need to be standardized, or something, as I’m not looking to put too many people out of business. Perhaps I’ll just do large gates per nation, or something like that, and likely hire everyone I put out of business, or something. Whichever the case, I’d look forward to talking to you about pricing and Gate Network locations at some other time, Tasar. But none of that can happen right now. In normal situations, [Gate] can only reach about 500 kilometers near Yggdrasil, so the Network will start off small. It will grow with time, and probably a lot faster than I expect.’

Tasar breathed easy, her face going a little softer, her entire self seeming a little happier. Erick had accepted her offer, she was happy for that. She said, ‘I’m delighted for your acceptance, and to go slow. This will change everything so the slower we go with it, the more stable I hope it to be.’

King Alfonin seemed pleased with that turn of events, too.

The conversation moved on to logistics and Tasar participated this time. Sitnakov mostly just sat there, but he did participate when the topic of monster killing came up. Sitnakov seemed to want to be Erick’s go-to man for monster problems, which was probably due to both his battle-hungry nature, and his desire to repent. And probably a bit of ‘not wanting to be around the Wizard overmuch’, which was fine.

Whatever Rozeta had said to him must have been some talking.

They spoke for a while longer about business, movement of goods, movements of people, security. They did not talk about pleasant things. They did not talk about easy times ahead. They spoke a little about what had happened at the gathering of powers, up there on the sands of the Crystal Forest, but as Erick was allied with Ar’Cosmos, Stratagold kept most of their thoughts on that talk to themselves. Which was fine.

He was not going to make himself vulnerable to these people, either. Not right yet. Erick never dropped any of his defenses, throughout the whole discussion. Eventually, when he was no longer vulnerable, he would drop his sunform. Eventually, he would relax. That day would probably be tomorrow, or maybe next week, but it wouldn’t be today.

For today, Erick finished talking with the wrought, told Sitnakov that he would pick him up in ten hours, and then he went straight back to his [Fairy Stronghold].

Once again behind a modicum of defenses that probably wouldn’t stop anyone from doing anything if they truly wanted, Erick copied his bed, destroyed the original and [Cleanse]d away the remains, and then he collapsed into the soft mattress.

- - - -

Ten minutes later Erick turned over, still too wired to sleep, or relax. So he shifted into his Other Form and accreted for a while. As mana turned to solid lightning and filled his veins with power, falling into his body like static rain to gather inside his core, Erick felt better, like he was getting a full body massage. His core turned a bit brighter, his soul felt a lot lighter.

This was good.

His meeting with the wrought had gone much better than he had ever expected it to go.

Erick got up, grabbed his adamantium carving knife, and went outside the [Fairy Stronghold]. He looked up at all of Yggdrasil’s branches, and asked, “Hey, Yggdrasil. Want to try making some enchanted items out of wood today?”

Yggdrasil readily said, “Yes! I want to help make things!”

And so, that was what they did.

Just some practice stuff for now. Making Gates would come later.

Half an hour and a lot of whittling later, Yggdrasil had wanted to contribute a lot more to the cause than just some twigs, but that was all Erick had needed for now. With those tiny twigs, Erick had managed to carve two eternal stonewood rings, each with a crystallized mana diamond set in the wood.

Both rings gave +14 to All Stats, which was a far cry from the +32 of his previous ones. Mana light and diamond and with a layer of [Exalted Rain] silver locking that light into the ring, allowed for rather fantastic levels of Stat buffing, but diamond rings didn’t work inside Ar’Cosmos. These little beauties would likely work both in Ar’Cosmos, and here on Veird, and they already worked in both his forms, too, (he checked to be sure, though) which was great.

Erick would have done more carving and tried for higher Stats, as well as picked out a few things from the Script for his Other Form and tried to make some new spells based on what he had learned, but it was time to move on. He had gotten a telepathic call. He had put off that call, and yet, he was still glad to receive it.

‘Hello, Poi.’ Erick smiled as he leaned back in his chair, in his [Fairy Stronghold]. ‘Glad you called.’

‘Are you?’ Poi asked, a little annoyed. ‘Because you could have called first, you know.’

‘Yeah… Well.’ Erick let his false happiness drop. ‘I’m worried. About you, and Jane, and Teressa and Kiri… About what everyone in Spur is going to say, or do. It’s… Not a fun feeling, Poi.’

‘Be that as it may.’ Poi sent, ‘The truth of what happened between you and the wrought and everyone else hasn’t gotten very far. Not yet. No one here knows anything about your Wizardry, or [Gate], or anything, but we just get a call from Nirzir about strange happenings at Holorulo’s Yggdrasil, so everyone knows that something has happened. I’ve been telling them that I cannot break Mind Mage confidentially, but that information wall is only going to last another few hours, at best.’

Pure adrenaline seemed to shoot through Erick’s body as Poi spoke, launching him to his feet and breathing hard. When he was done, Erick sent, ‘Okay. Okay.’ He breathed. This was really happening. Right now. ‘Okay.’ Erick calmed as much as he could, then he sent, ‘I’ll be home in ten minutes. Can you get them ready for a talk?’

‘Of course. It will be done.’ Poi sent, ‘Silverite and Killzone will need to be informed too— but all of that can happen later… And I’m very glad that you have returned safely.’ With a softer voice, Poi sent, ‘We have therapy programs for mind controlled people, if you wish to participate.’

Erick wiped away an unruly tear as he chuckled, and sent, ‘Maybe I’ll take you up on that therapy offer… I’m glad you’re still with me, Poi. You probably know how much it means, but I have to say it anyway: I’m glad you’re still here. That you’ve chosen to stay. Despite everything. I know you didn’t sign up to be a Wizard’s guard, but… Your presence means a lot.’

‘I’ve grown with the assignment, Erick, and I have long decided to stick around till the end, however far that might be. It’s not been that bad and... I’m glad you’re still here, too. And congratulations on [Gate]! See you soon.’

‘Thanks, Poi. See you soon.’

- - - -

In a flash of lightning and light, Erick stepped into his home, in Spur.

The three story, two tower mansion was mostly as he had left it. Beyond the foyer, a grand staircase wound up to the second floor. Other staircases went up to the third floor. With his mana sense, Erick scoped out the whole house in under a second. His room was the same. The library seemed to hold more books than before. The third floor had been changed in order to accommodate an operations room in the empty magic room, and a [Scry]-chair room on the opposite side of the hallway, inside of the dense air. The whole house was still filled with his own massive cast of [Prismatic Ward], still emplaced back during Last Shadow’s Feast, back when Erick had been burning [Death’s Approach] and had ten times base mana and endless regeneration. Erick’s own mage tower had been left alone. Kiri had fully taken over a few upstairs rooms as her own work rooms, while Jane’s tower was a mess of gridwork diagrams pinned to the walls. Teressa’s room was as orderly as a soldier’s, while Poi’s was marginally the same.

The pantries were stocked. The vegetable and otherwise garden out front seemed well maintained and well used, while the cocoa tree garden out back looked the same, but more on an industrial scale than a personal scale. The chocolate ladies at ‘And Dessert!’ were probably doing well with that business.

And all of Erick’s loved ones were in the kitchen.

Jane stood beside the dining room table, looking worried and unable to sit down due to nerves. Poi had likely told her that he would be home soon. Poi stood near the door, refusing to answer Kiri, as Kiri demanded answers. Sunny, Kiri’s little couatl [Familiar] was curled on Kiri’s neck, flapped her wings and looked around. Other Sunnys, stationed around the house and outside, had already spotted Erick. Sunny had also noticed Ophiel, as Erick’s own [Familiar] began popping into and around the house as Erick arrived. The couatl summon began to shimmer in a radiant alert display of rainbow colors.

Teressa had noticed Erick first, though. Perhaps even before Erick had landed. She stopped idly stirring the stew on the stove, and said, “He’s back.”

Erick dropped his luggage on the floor as he called out, “I’m back!”

Jane rushed out of the kitchen and straight into Erick’s arms. She held him tight, and he held her. She cried a little, and Erick did too. Kiri came out of the kitchen next, with Poi and Teressa following close behind. All of them looked worried, and for different reasons.

Still holding Jane tight, Erick said, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news, and hopefully the good outweighs the bad.”

Kiri and Teressa went stiff, going from excited and hopeful, to wary. Poi remained silent.

Jane pulled away a little. And then she pulled all the way away. She sniffled, stopped crying, and brushed away her tears. She breathed deep, and then looked at her father. In that moment, she seemed able to take on the world. She asked, “What’s wrong?”

Erick opened a small [Gate] next to him. Everyone stared at the wreath of lightning hanging in the air, and then Erick shut the [Gate], saying, “Apparently I can open [Gate]s from anywhere when I want to leave a location. I couldn’t open a [Gate] to get here, though. Maybe I’ll need to plant Yggdrasil in Ar’Kendrithyst, or something, in order to overcome that limitation… Or probably just grow the size of my [Gate Space]. And that’s the extent of the good news. As for the bad news...” Erick simply said, “Apparently, I’m a Wizard, and that’s just the start.”

Teressa fainted. Erick caught her falling form with an Ophiel.

Events proceeded rapidly and rather incoherently from there.

Kiri shouted about, ‘No you’re not! Those fairies fucked with your mind!’

Jane tried to be rational and calm, and demanded answers about everything else. She didn’t care about ‘the Wizard-thing’ right now. To which Kiri yelled about how Jane didn’t understand that ‘the Wizard-thing’ was the big deal, here. Erick interjected about how ‘the Wizard-thing’ wasn’t that big of a deal, because of everything else that had happened today. Explaining what he meant by that took a while, though, and caused Kiri’s emerald green scales to turn pale, and her eyes to go wider with every bit of new news.

Teressa rapidly recovered, but she did not stand up. She sat there on the floor. Listening.

Erick eventually managed to move them all to the kitchen. Poi helped.

As soon as Poi got in Kiri’s cross hairs she demanded to know how long he had known. Which was, of course, a silly request, and Kiri instantly retracted it all. Jane just looked at her father with worry in her eyes, unable to ask much.

With all of them sitting around the table, Erick began to weave a better story, with lightpaintings to illustrate what had happened, starting when he stepped onto the Teleporter Pad at Enduring Forge. He got to the Core and started talking about all that, and about the Grand Wizard’s Tower he had visited, and some of his talks with Rozeta. He spoke of his species change, which caused Jane to freak out a little, but Erick moved on because nothing had really changed.

Kiri remained pale the whole time, and especially when Erick got to the part about becoming a member of Archmage’s Rest, and facing down a wall of level 95+ wrought and Melemizargo, and then facing down the inquiry. When he got to Fairy Moon she was mostly over ‘the Wizard-thing’, and was now worried about everything else.

Teressa was conflicted. She had no words. She just listened. She liked hearing about Benevolence, and how it ‘ended the threat of the Sundering’, but she was still conflicted.

Jane rapidly moved past being worried about threats, to going solid. When Erick spoke about how everyone produced different amounts of mana, she asked what that meant. And so, Erick explained the intricacies of mana, and what it meant to use one’s own mana to make magic, and how the Script lined up your own mana for when you created spells. And what it meant to be a Wizard. He spoke more of Benevolence at that time, too.

He ended up going over things two or three times in some situations.

The parts about Ar’Cosmos were especially confusing.

Announcing that he had created a sidegrade-magic to [Resurrection], in the form of [Reincarnation] sort of just broke everyone except for Poi. Jane started laughing, saying that of course he had made [Reincarnation]. Kiri needed a drink. Teressa had foreseen the need for a drink, though, and plopped down a large beer right in front of Kiri the second she asked. And then Teressa started handing out beer to everyone.

Erick thanked her for the beer, and drank deep.

Three beers later, and with a break for after Erick had spoken of this day’s current events, the tale had lost its edge for most everyone and Kiri asked for a retelling, but better, now that she was ready for the whole thing. She was deep in disbelief and yet she wanted to get it all over with as quick as she could. Erick couldn’t blame her for that.

“Maybe I’ll tell it all again another day, Kiri.” Erick needed to end with tactical level explanation of what the future would look like, though, and began saying, “But now that I am allied with the wrought, and Ar’Cosmos, and apparently I have Goldie working for me and killing people like the Red Dot Dragon and Patriarch Xangu, I’m probably going to need to move to Yggdrasil. Down at Candlepoint. And also create House Benevolence… And other assorted organizations. And the Gate Network, too.”

Kiri’s eyes went wide. And then she giggled, nervous and not nearly drunk enough, as she said, “I want to be a Benevolence Dragon. It’s just [Dragon Body] and [Benevolence Body], right? And a bit of Wizardry—” Her eyes went really wide as she stared into her empty mug. She whispered, “Oh gods. Oh gods. This is real.” She looked up at Erick. “Glad you are back. Please let me accompany you wherever you go. But I need to go lay down and not think of this right now.” She got up and went to Erick.

Suddenly, Erick found himself in a hug.

And then Kiri broke it off and went out of the kitchen, and up to her room.

Erick barely had time to feel utterly freaking fantastic that Kiri had taken that so well, before—

Teressa got up from her chair. She announced, “I am staying too, of course. I will need to adjust myself about… The Wizard thing. I don’t need to be a part of Spur’s Army, anyway. I can move on, too.” She stared, and asked the question that had been stuck in her mind ever since Erick had mentioned a specific word, “Is it possible to [Reincarnation] the long dead?”

He hadn’t actually made that spell, yet, but even when he did he didn’t think [Reincarnation] would be able to work on the long dead. Or maybe it would? Erick had no idea, but he didn’t want to get Teressa’s hopes up. 

“I don’t think so.” Erick said, “I’m sorry.”

“No!” Teressa shouted, unsure why she had even shouted that. “I mean… Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault. I just… You hear stories of Wizards and… and… Not miracle makers… And yet.” She stared at Erick for a little while longer, completely unable to process her emotions. And then she walked out of the kitchen, toward her room.

Poi sighed a little, but he seemed happy. He got up from his chair, saying, “I’m glad to have you back, Erick, and I plan on sticking around to the end, however far away that might be, but I do owe quite a lot to Spur and Silverite and Killzone. I will try to get something set up between Spur and whatever happens at Candlepoint, as well as reroute forces… or something. I don’t know how they will react to this sort of thing, since you never truly know until the news actually breaks. But barring any sort of catastrophic reactions from Silverite or any of the rest… You don’t have to leave the Army if you don’t want, and I, for one, would like to remain in both camps, but even if you choose to leave, a report will help to ensure that Silverite and others understand what has happened, and can prepare for the changing world.”

“You have a lot of foots in many different circles, Poi,” Erick said, smiling a little. “I’d give you a message to take to the Mind Mages, too. I’m pretty sure you know what it’s going to say, but I’d still make it, if you would have it.”

Poi nodded. “Ready.”

Erick put together a ten thousand mana message, containing most every tactical-level thing that he had gone through over the course of the entire Worldly Path. He left out all of the personal stuff, and focused fully on what was actually important; the changing world.

A second, 500 mana message contained all that it would take to understand [Gate], so that someone might one day make their own. Another 500 mana message contained everything to know about the current day’s events, and what that might mean going forward. This last message also contained Erick's hope to interact with the Mind Mages on an institutional level; to ally with them, too, to ensure that he was never mind controlled again, and to hopefully gain the same sort of relationship with the Mind Mages that Kirginatharp had.

It took Poi several minutes to grab, contain, and distribute that message, and he looked strained the whole time. But eventually he relaxed. Eventually, the message got out.

Poi breathed deep, saying, “Ascendant Prime will speak with you about your offer at a later date. Tomorrow? Or the next day?”

Erick had no idea who ‘Ascendant Prime’ was, but this was good. “Tomorrow.”

Poi nodded, and then he bowed deep, speaking with the voice of another, saying, “We thank you for your Benevolence, Erick Flatt, Wizard, Archmage, Fire of the Age, Scion of Light, Father to Yggdrasil, and so much more.” Poi rose, and his sapphire eyes were filled with golden radiance. “We look forward to a working relationship. We will speak tomorrow.”

Erick simply nodded.

The golden fire in Poi’s eyes died and he blinked a bit as he came back to himself. Then he nodded, and walked out of the kitchen.

Jane just watched him go, her own eyes a bit wide at seeing the golden fire inside Poi. And then she turned to Erick, saying, “Goddamn, dad. What happens now? I’d joke about an apocalypse, but you’ve… prevented all of those, forever?”

“Hopefully we have a return to normalcy! Planting things. Growing things. Making buildings and various networking.” Erick smiled wide, saying, “And you can tell me all about what you’ve been up to.”

Jane breathed deep, got up, refilled the beers, and then said, “I want to see your monster form.”

Erick balked. He hadn’t spoken much of that; only enough to say that it allowed him a secondary Status. This was where she wanted to start? Really?

Erick started laughing.

“I’m serious!” Jane said, trying not to smile.

Erick chuckled, switched to his Other Form, then said, “You’re looking at it!”

“… No? Nothing changed.” Jane pointedly frowned at him, saying, “My mana senses might not be as good as most people’s but even I can tell that you got some weird magic going on. I can’t see inside of you at all.”

Erick smiled a little, then took off his fairy necklace. “Better?”

“… That’s a fucking weird monster form, dad.” Jane said, completely serious. “It’s just… You. But with a spherical core? I don’t like it. Also why do they call it ‘accretion’? Cultivation is a much better term.”

“… You don’t like it?” Erick asked, feeling as though he had a case of the giggles approaching. He put the necklace back on, asking, “Miss Spider Queen doesn’t like the human-shaped monster form?”

“People-shaped monsters are weird! You even got that [Perfected Body] thing going on!” Jane said, as she waggled her own [Perfected Body] hand at her father.

Erick just laughed.

Jane chuckled a little.

And while he laughed, tension finally began to leave Erick like pressure from an infected wound that had finally been popped. He had been worried about a lot. About the wrought. The dragons. Melemizargo. The responses of the gods. But perhaps more than that he had been worried about his family. About Jane. Kiri, Poi, and Teressa. Would they be okay in a world where he was a known Wizard? Likely not without a whole lot more defense than this simple house, but those defenses would come with time. Erick still didn’t know about how Kiri and Teressa truly felt, either, but they seemed to have taken this news a lot better than he had thought they would. Poi’s non-reaction had been a welcome relief, too, but he had known about Erick’s Wizardry for a long while now. Jane seemed to take all this the best of everyone.

There was still a lot of healing and reorganization and talking left to go, but this was a great start.

This was good.

Jane wasn’t done asking questions, though. “But seriously, dad. This is all pretty fucking weird.” She stood. “And I want to see the [Gate Space].”

Erick breathed deep. He nodded. Then he gestured to the left and a ring of lightning opened up. Beyond lay a rather small and floating Yggdrasil, a similarly floating stone fountain, and a sky of lightning. Erick stood up from his chair. “Let’s go see the [Gate Space].”

“First, though,” Jane said, as she came in for another hug, her eyes already misting. “I’m very glad you’re still here. I missed you.”

Erick hugged her back, his sight blurring with tears. “I missed you, too.”

Jane chuckled a little. “And apparently you’ve been cheating with your spellwork this whole time.”

“The Script is the real cheater!” Erick laughed. “And I have it on very good authority that I am also ‘good at magic’, according to more than a few people and dragons.”

Jane chuckled.

Eventually, they broke apart. Eventually, they went into the [Gate Space] and Erick started explaining everything again, and he asked about Jane’s recent adventures and she told a long story about the Soul Slime, and the adventures to recover her sword, which she still hadn’t found yet. But for now, they stood there, father and daughter embracing in the kitchen dining room, while a portal to Benevolence sparked the growth of green lichen and tiny glowing mushrooms upon the stone floor.