Ar'Kendrithyst

Chapter 139, 1/2

Chapter 139, 1/2

The South Central Tribulation Mountains formed a barrier much larger than that of the Songli Highlands' western flank. This land of relative peace only claimed about 3000 kilometers of the range. To the north of that claimed space, the mountains continued on for another 2000 kilometers, before the South Central Ridge joined the curving Eastern Ridge. To the south of the Songli Highlands’s staked-out land, the South Central Ridge continued on for another 4500 kilometers.

The South Central Ridge was nearly a thousand kilometers wide in some places, but it was mostly only 500 kilometers wide, on average. Near the Highlands, the Tribulation Mountains were, on average, 700 to 400 kilometers wide.

Some of those mountain peaks soared 20 kilometers into the sky. Some of those valleys plunged just as deep into the surface, where parts of the Underworld were exposed for all to see.

A man could get lost in those mountains.

Not Ezekiel, though. He knew right where he was:

In the middle of a battle of life and death.

He smashed his staff into the head of a charging Mist Stone Glutton, deflecting the multi-ton monster with a [Strike] made of pink fire that burned the beast and sent him scurrying, into the ground, leaving behind wisps of flame on the surface. No time to finish off that beast; another one was coming up from behind, directly at his head.

Without turning, or even acknowledging the new monster, he fired off a magenta [Firelight Beam] from the back of his head, right down the glutton’s throat. Pink fire erupted inside the monster and burst out of breaks in the rocks here and there, briefly filling the air with steam before more fire came forth. The beast roared in pain, and tried to bite down on the thing making it hurt. Instead, it bit down on a pink shield made of thorns and reflections. Stone teeth fractured.

Ezekiel turned his body, just in time to let the raking claws of the monster scratch along his edges instead of where they had been aiming, turning possible major injury into lesser damage to his renewable defenses.

Ah.

But.

The creature was still several tons of stone. And that stone was coming for Ezekiel with the inexorable force of weight with nowhere else to go but through. It was still on Firelight fire; Ezekiel’s beam was still trained on the monster, still damaging it for 4x Willpower per moment. It didn’t seem able to transform back into mist while it was on fire.

Good to know!

He was still going to get crush—

Odin, already in pink-lightform, grabbed Ezekiel and moved him out of the way in a moment of shifting light.

The glutton fell to the ground, phasing into the mountain, leaving behind glowing pink fire.

Ezekiel’s beam was still trained on that spot, which was helpful, because the first monster came back, transforming from mist to stone while it was still in the air on Ezekiel’s left. He trained the beam on that one as it lunged at him. Stone caught firelight. The beast burned.

Ezekiel stepped to the left, out of the monster’s attack vector and without Odin’s help this time. The glutton sailed past, unable to become mist while it was on fire, and unable to escape into the ground because it was a meter above the ground.

With another second to cast, Ezekiel purged the water from the on-fire glutton, which… Had the effect of instantly putting out the flames. But also hurting the monster! He did manage this much! He had not fucked up; he just didn’t think that the mundane water would put out the magical fires.

Yes. That was what he was going with.

Stop it! He’s learning.

And quickly, too.

The [Firelight Beam] was still going; it had five seconds left in its 10 second duration. It was still trained on the beast, who was now not-on-fire and not getting there any time soon. But something had changed after he purged the water.

The [Firelight Beam] carved through the beast’s forehead, then then across the body, splitting the monster in half. Small droplets of burned sand scattered across the battlefield. A notification came. [Firelight Beam] ended on its own.

There had been a few fuckups on his part. Some non-ideal action. But he had taken care of his targets. Mostly. Where was the first one? Not here, not bothering anyone else…

He could have done better. There was just something about being actually in the fight that made it all so much more confusing and him all that much more clumsy.

But as his daughter had said: No way out but through!

He glanced his daughter’s way. Now she was good in a fight. Look at that giant hammer in her hands! Swinging it like it was nothing. And surrounded by monster corpses, too. It had only been twenty seconds since the start of the fight, and only ten minutes since they landed, and already Julia had taken out three gluttons, in this glutton-filled canyon.

Tiffany was surrounded by corpses, too, but hers were completely demolished. If he didn’t know any better, the scene would have made Ezekiel think that Tiffany was breaking rocks in a quarry for fun. She looked so happy.

Paul was easily avoiding the monsters and had even caused two of them to crash into each other, twice. Those gluttons apparently didn’t like getting in each other’s way. They had started tearing into each other right after that. Last Ezekiel saw, Paul’s opponents were rolling down the mountainside—

Whoops!

He lifted an arm and his shield caught the jaws of the other glutton he had been fighting. He brought around his staff for a Firelight [Strike], directly to the side of the beast’s head, experimenting to see if Firelight, or rather, Radiance, was particularly good against these guys. That last glutton went down rather easily, and this one had taken a good twenty seconds to get back in the fight.

The grey-blue stone cracked. The monster went limp. Ezekiel stepped to the side as the glutton fully fell out of the mist like a puppet with its strings cut. It landed with a heavy, burning thud. Had he somehow dazed it? But they were elementals? Could you do that to elementals, if you used the proper Element against them? That wasn’t true for many Elementals, and most people were cautioned against trying to rely on elemental weaknesses...

These were weird monsters. Maybe Radiance was good against mist—

… That made sense.

Oh. Well. It couldn’t be that easy, could it? A little bit of elemental weakness? Like how fire was weak to water, water was weak to ice, and ice was weak to fire… Mist might be weak to Radiance? Best practices on combating elementals was based upon the idea of transforming the base Element which composed the targeted elemental into something else, in order to kill that elemental.

So in that way, ‘burning’ away the mists of a mist stone glutton seemed to be right on track for best practices.

Anyway.

There was a monster, stunned, not frozen with a Stop-effect, at Ezekiel’s feet.

Julia was suddenly there with her giant hammer. That glutton became dead stone after a few heavy attacks.

The fight was over seconds before that, anyway.

The bodies of eight more Mist Stone Gluttons lay scattered across the mountainside.

Ezekiel stood tall, and scanned the land with his eyes and his mana sense, watching the gently curved mountainside for any more threats.

There were lots.

But they kept back, like prowling shadows, twenty meters away, thirty, thirty-five. Most were at the very edge of his own senses. He counted maybe seventy.

Tiffany, giddy, said, “I count a hundred twenty.”

Paul spoke softly. “This is a great area for rigorous combat training. I’m not denying this. But maybe we should pick a different valley. One less populous. While we can.”

The original target of the day had been a valley a bit south from this one. The four of them walked around there for a good half hour and only got three gluttons to give a probing strike. They killed one of those gluttons, but the other two retreated, oddly enough.

This valley, three valleys over from that first one, had some nice mostly-flat areas for easier fighting, and a lot more gluttons. The four of them had barely spent any time at all in one of those flat spaces before the gluttons began to come up for a bite. While the gluttons were weird monsters, this land was also pretty weird.

If Ezekiel would have had ten extra minutes of rest, he would have tried a [Witness] in the area, just to see if all these flat spots actually used to be foundations for houses; if this land used to be a mountainside village. It well and truly could have been. Except for the monsters, and the mists, and how deadly the Tribulation Mountains were, there was a nice river down in the valley, the sun could show whenever the clouds decided to play nice, and [Grow]ing food here would have been easy with the mists providing all the necessary water. This would have been a nice space for a little town.

You know… except for the monsters.

Always monsters. Everywhere.

Ezekiel held his staff in both hands, since he didn’t need to hold his shield, as he stared out into the gloom. “Firelight seems to work exceptionally well,” he said, as he walked to regroup with his party.

“It does. I started using [Radiance Strike], too.” Julia stared out into the mist, holding her hammer like she was ready to strike at anything, as she repositioned herself, too “Seems like a standard Elemental interaction.”

“Standard?” Ezekiel said, “There’s nothing standard about these guys.”

Tiffany punched a gauntlet into the other, eliciting fire from the air. “Plain fire does better.”

“Any sort of heat-based attack would work fine, for the dryer they are, the more damage you can do. That is what you are seeing.” Paul said, warily watching the world around him, as he stepped closer to everyone. “The problem is that they can wipe off the fire and purge the heat by diving into the stone.”

The gluttons circled in the mist, their blue eyes flickering like ghostly fireflies.

Ezekiel had a few thoughts.

He thought back to Kiri, and her [Firelight Defender]; the automated turret-like summon that spawned countless [Firelight Bolt]s at designated enemies. And then he considered something else.

Was Ezekiel a Fire and Light kinda guy? Wind and Mercy, yeah… But firelight?

Or rather, Radiance?

No no. Not Radiance. Firelight; that other term for the same thing. Yes. Erick would have spoken of Radiance, but Ezekiel?

Clan Phoenix was about Fire. Maybe a bit of Light. Ezekiel could be about Firelight, too, or at least some of his spells. He would have had a history of fire and light in his family, anyway, right?

Yeah. Sure.

And besides that, he recalled meeting a Riftcaster, once, who cast Rifts into the air to bolster certain elements and deny opposing elements. That man had a brother who had learned incantations from the Songstresses of the Songli Highlands in order to adjust his [Healing Beacon]-derived healing and harming spell into whichever was needed at that moment.

Ezekiel was getting off track.

Neither Ezekiel nor Erick had ever made a Rift, he decided. There was something of a need for an actual Rift, but Erick had already made the precursor to a Rift a while ago, and that would do, for now.

Firelight Shift, instant, long range, 190 MP

Drastically empower your fire and light aspect magic in a large area. Shadow aspect magic turns solid. Dark and water aspect magic is greatly weakened. Lasts 1 minute.

The difference between a Rift and a Shift was one of degree and intent. Rifts were better, by and large, and Ezekiel should probably make one out of this particular spell.

… Later.

He said, “This should help us.”

He cast, directly above them all.

A dot of intent unfurled like a blazing lotus, expanding and enveloping like a wash of pink plasma. For several meters in every direction, the land was not actually hot, but stone did appear to be on fire, and the air filled with the idea of heat and magenta light.

Mists vanished; pushed away by magic that was anathema to its existence.

A pink panic seemed to take hold in the blue eyes of the monsters in the mist. Gluttons screamed. They ran away; into the mountain, into the air, as fast and as far as they could get. But only the closest ones. The gluttons that were already a hundred meters away flinched under the pink false-fire surrounding the party, for sure, but they remained. They did not approach, but they did not leave, either.

“Clan spells, am I right?” Ezekiel smiled, saying, “Some phoenixes are just as much light as they are fire.”

“Yeah yeah. Wave to the [Witness], why don’t you.” Julia watched the eyes in the mist as she spoke, “What is that spell, anyway?”

Ezekiel handed her the spell. “Firelight.” He frowned. “I told you about this stuff?”

“Did you?” Julia asked, as she glanced at the box. She dismissed it, then focused on the mists beyond the flickering pink ‘fire’. “Is this one of those Rifts you mentioned months ago?”

“Oh. I remember what happened, now. We talked about Rifts and then… we just never talked of them again. But I did tell you about Domains not too long ago, right?”

“… Oh. Yeah. That.” Julia frowned a bit.

Ezekiel knew that Julia likely didn’t want to hear him talk of Domains and Rifts, and certainly not again and in this space, but maybe she would? Since she had learned gridwork from Tenebrae? There was a definite difference in how much his daughter was willing to talk of magic since she learned of gridwork...

Ezekiel plowed ahead, even though he likely shouldn’t have, saying, “[Prime Area] is the basis for both Rifts and Domains. You can make [Prime Area] through any combination of any two Force spells. The ones I used are [Force Bomb] and [Force Wave]. To make [Firelight Shift], I took [Prime Area] and Mana Altered it for Firelight. I have not made a Rift out of this. That was one of the options, and that option is most normally used to produce something which enhances the power of a specific element, and maybe even the growth of those specific types of Elemental Essence creatures. A variation on this idea is a spell which makes a Domain; an area that is under the control of the caster who makes such a spell, and is usually based around an element. The two ideas are similar, but different, in like how all bladed weapons have blades, but not all of them are swords.” He added, “Rifts are unaligned boosting and denial. Domains are controlled boosting and denial.”

Julia’s frown deepened. “… Yeah.”

Pink firelight continued to dance on the ground like waving neon grass.

Seventy meters away, gluttons prowled in the mist.

Ezekiel started, “Do you want me to help you make [Prime Area]? It’s the basis for a lot—”

“I can’t even see the damned monsters except their eyes,” Julia complained. “And only when they want them seen!”

“Yup. There’s five times as many gluttons out there than the eyes you can see.” Tiffany spoke up, “We should decide if we’re moving or staying—”

Paul rapidly spoke, “Fully scare them away, now, or we need to move. They’re preparing to swarm through this spell.”

Ezekiel didn’t even gesture. He just willed the magic to flow, targeting various clumps of gluttons.

With every passing second a new [Firelight Shift] blossomed on the mountainside, driving back the mists with large impressions of hot summer bonfires. Gluttons screamed as they raced to get away from the heat and the light, though this level of spellwork was not truly dangerous to those beasts. The spell wasn’t even hurting them. But it was greatly weakening water magics, which was apparently more than enough to disperse the horde.

With the passing of seconds upon seconds, the mountainside was soon awash in imaginary summer heat.

Mists dispersed. Gluttons raced away.

And the mountainside looked different under the light.

This area had to have been an abandoned mountain village. Ezekiel and his people were likely standing in what had once been a main square. The air smelled of summer bonfires, and it reminded him of roasting marshmallows by the fire, and having Julia burn hers and then toss the still-burning treat at the neighbor’s kid.

Ezekiel smiled at the memory.

Tiffany asked, “So [Prime Area] is just any two Force spells? Because this [Firelight Shift] looks damn effective against elementals. Or at least these elementals.” She gestured at the frightened gluttons, saying, “This is great crowd control.”

“The spell isn’t even hurting them; they’ll attack soon, I’m sure. Rifts are better and still I need to make this one.” Ezekiel said, “But yeah, Tiffany, I’ll help you make [Prime Area], too, if you want.”

Julia frowned at the world, her eyes firmly fixed on the mists that remained. “Did that chase them off?”

Tiffany said, “They’re out there. They’re staying far away, too.”

A wind blew from the northeast, flowing through the valley. The remaining mist kicked up into the sky, vanishing through the mountain passes in the south. There was still an ocean of mist out there, though. Ezekiel had only banished the barest bit.

And then Ezekiel eyed the north. He decided to have some fun.

An Odin fluttered into the northern passage into the valley, where mists flowed through a kilometer’s wide passage like it was a connection between two oceans. Ezekiel threw a few [Firelight Shift]s into the ‘mist-intake’, creating a dissipating blockage in the flow. Air came through, and so did mist, but a lot of it did not. As the wind kicked up, mist vanished into the south, uncovering more of the valley with each constant gust. Gluttons appeared out of the mist like dropped leaves, briefly piling up before they vanished down, into the mountains, or they raced with the mist toward the south, or they gathered near the river, so far down, where the mist never left.

Julia watched her dad throw out orbs of magenta heat.

When it was done, and the village foundation around them was clear, she asked, “What was that for?”

Tiffany put one hand on her hips and gestured across the valley with the other, saying, “For the view! Obviously.”

Ezekiel chuckled. “Yes! For the view.” He renewed several patches of pink fires on the nearby mountainside, and said, “And magic is fun! You know? What do you say? We could take some time and each try to make a Rift—”

A strange gorge appeared on the other side of the valley, nearly three kilometers away, as the mist peeled further out of the valley. The hole into the mountain looked man-made, in the way that it would look if someone had cast a great magic and carved a great furrow straight and deep into the stone; with chipped edges where the attack exited, or maybe entered the space beyond, breaking reality under the violence of the attack, but with defined edges in the center of the slice.

Ah. So.

He should have expected this? He should have expected something when he cleared the mist from the valley. So Ezekiel prepared several contingencies right now, that he hoped he would not have to use, which mainly involved having Odin buff himself, out of sight—

And, yup! There were people over there. Lights, too. They eyed Ezekiel, Julia, Tiffany, and Paul, from the edge of that break in the mountain. They did not look friendly.

Ezekiel waved, anyway.

One of the people, a man in red who held a sword the same color, waved back, with his sword.

Ezekiel said, “In my defense of not spotting them, they were covered by mists.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Julia said. “I can’t see five damn meters in that soup.” She looked to Tiffany. “What’s your excuse?” She turned to Paul, and with more enthusiasm, asked, “What’s your excuse?”

Tiffany waved at the likely-not-friendly people, saying, “Out of range.”

Paul did not wave. “Same, though I am now focusing...”

“So.” Julia sent, ‘I am now accepting bets on if its the lost alchemist’s kidnappers, or not. I think it is them and I am betting 10 gold.’

The red guy on the other side was joined by four others in variously colored [Conjure Armor]. He had stopped waving for thirty seconds, now.

The two parties stared at each other from across the valley.

Paul sent, ‘No one is taking that bet. We are now in deadly territory. Our experiment with me not helping with fights is over, for now.’

‘Agreed.’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘So no takers on my bet? You might make some easy money!’

Paul sent, ‘I’m picking up some heavy thoughts… One of them is thinking about killing a man named Tadashi in their camp.’

Ezekiel floundered for half a second, then scoffed, ‘No way. Too much of a coincidence. Maybe ‘Tadashi’ is the name of their lookout?’

Julia laughed.

Paul elaborated, ‘Nope.’

Julia asked, ‘Are we fighting, or are we—’

The air blipped red a hundred meters away. The red man and a few of his people appeared on the empty foundation of a former home. They all looked human.

“Hello!” the Red Man called, in a cheerful voice.

Ezekiel recognized in the man’s voice an undercurrent of joyful violence; that he was happy he had some new butterflies with fresh wings to pluck. Ezekiel didn’t know how he knew this, but he did, with every fibre of his being.

Ezekiel responded politely, anyway, “Hello? How can I help you? And pardon me for refreshing this spell I just put up.”

The first of the magenta [Firelight Shift]s had started to fall apart. Ezekiel recast one toward the north, Mana Shaping it into the absolute for another 500 mana, going the full distance through the actual pass, stretching his spell absolutely wide, and thin, like a curtain of magenta fire. It would block out all that was opposed, which would be the mist and thus the gluttons, and—

A blue box appeared.

Firelight Curtain, instant, super long range, 690 MP

A shimmering curtain greatly strengthens all passing fire and light magic, while greatly weakening all passing water and shadow magic. Blocks dark magic. Lasts 1 hour.

Ezekiel was surprised at the new spell, but he tried not to betray that surprise. He said to the people around him, “That one should last an hour. So! Hello. Who are you? Are we intruding?” As he also sent to his people, ‘We’re doing this, and Odins will arrive with your shields when this goes south, but I’m going to try to talk them out of it, first.’

‘Yes, sir.’ ‘You got it, Boss.’ ‘Ready.’

For a nice, calm moment, Ezekiel felt great about his people. He was delighted that they chose to follow him halfway across the world, even if they ended up in situations like this.

The Red Man lifted his eyes toward the spell in the distance. “Soon our valley will be fully without mist and our protector gluttons do not like that. Could you cancel that spell?”

“I would rather not.”

The Red Man innocently asked, “Why?”

“Because,” Ezekiel said, “It appears you have a captured Tadashi Diligent Scribe in your hideout back there, and I would like him back.”

The Red Man went stock still. His people froze. Cheer vanished, and calculation came forward. The Red Man nodded, once, then asked, “Tell me: Did you make that spell over there at this very moment?”

“Yes.”

Breezes flowed through the valley, clearing out mists. With the even-better curtain spell standing in the distance, cutting off the flow, even the deep mists were starting to dissipate. The river appeared far below, like a winding blue snake at the bottom of a green world.

The Red man said, “I saw you reading, so— Of course you made it as I was watching. Not a liar! I appreciate that.” He paused. He said, “Okay. Sure. You can have Tadashi. We’re not going to die to a Scion, and especially not one so accomplished in the arcane.” He declared, “Pack it up, boys! We’re out of here in half an hour.” He asked Ezekiel, “Will you give us this much time?”

“… Sure,” Ezekiel said, knowing that he was being buttered up, yet unsure why the Red Man thought that his buttering would work.

The Red Man resumed wearing his easy smile from before, as he teased, “Let us go, and Tadashi gets to live.”

And then he blipped away, followed instantly by his people, before Ezekiel could say another word. The Red Man reappeared across the valley, and then rushed down the inward path, into the crack in the mountain. In moments, every visible person had vacated the entrance.

Ezekiel sent to his people, ‘He’s lying out of his ass about everything, right? Should we have jumped him right there?’

Paul blurted, ‘He didn’t lie. If it was up to him, he would leave. But he’s not in charge, and the guy in charge—’

A speck of a spell flowed across the canyon, traveling kilometers in moments, headed straight at Ezekiel.

Something was happening, and there would be fighting, apparently.

This was fine.

Ezekiel resolved himself to the situation. He was already running [Hunter’s Instincts], anyway.

With a flick of mana sense, he understood the spell flying their way. It was packed with magic and it would have exploded the second it touched anything at all; Reflection was not an option. But it was elemental-based, so the solution was easy enough.

[Prismatic Breaker].

A speck of rainbow impacted the approaching spell. They annihilated each other, with zero explosions, or fires, or waves of shadow, or anything else. Both spells simply vanished, like they had never been. [Prismatic Breaker] was a good spell. Probably too good for the situation, but whatever. Ezekiel wasn’t about to let some strange spell hit them.

Instead, he called out, “That wasn’t very nice!”

His voice took a second to reach the other side of the valley. The response came quick enough.

The Red Man’s voice boomed, “I know! Which is why I just killed my boss! Good luck getting Tadashi out alive, Scion!”

Ezekiel prepared to annihilate another attack while he listened to the Red Man speak. But...

Nothing.

Thirty seconds passed.

“So.” Julia asked, “We going in?”

‘Not yet.’ Paul sent, ‘There are sound blockers beyond that crack in the mountain. You can’t hear it, but I can. They’re fighting. The red guy and a few others are trouncing the rest… Hard to tell.’ He held a hand against his temple. Lines of intent flowed out of his head and into the manasphere. ‘I can’t tell much. There’s a fight. That’s all I know—’ Paul stopped. He sent, ‘It’s over. The last mind just died.’

Ezekiel instantly sent four Odins into the crack in the mountain, feeling odd about not doing so earlier. Would it have been his place to stop this disagreement between the bandits? If they hurt Tadashi, that would have been on him—

Beyond the gorge and several active [Ward]s that layered the tunnel-like canyon, was a land of small houses, nestled under tall cliffs. Between them all was a wide open space at the bottom. Sunlight poured into the hideout at an angle, striking a garden with several fruiting trees, all of which were on fire. The entire place was on fire. Red fire, blue fire, gold fire. Harmful magic glowed in every part of the former bandit hideout, sometimes on stone or grove, but also on all the bodies laying around.

Odin began putting the flames out with [Fire Breaker]; deleting the fire from existence.

Within moments Odin had scouted the whole hideout with several different Sights. Everyone was dead, except for one person; an absolutely emaciated man with pale pink skin and tiny nubs for horns. He was in a hut near the bottom of the stacked houses, slumped against a wall, ass to the ground. He looked barely able to move, as if he was drugged, or poisoned, or something. As soon as Odin went to touch him, to [Teleport Other] him directly to Julia—

Odin vanished. Popped. Not even [Dispel]ed; just pure negation. He was alive, though!

Ezekiel came back to himself, saying, “Coast is clear. We’re going in. No traps found. I found Tadashi.”

With a lightstep, the four of them stepped right into the hideout. A third scan with [True Sight] and the mana sense of all his nearby Odin reconfirmed what he had seen before. The hideout was empty, except for the man in the hut over there. Ezekiel rushed that way—

Tiffany rushed ahead of Ezekiel, glaring at him like he was putting himself in too much danger—

‘Which you are.’ Paul sent, ‘Antirhine is deadly. Let us do our jobs, please.’

… Ezekiel followed Tiffany. In seconds, the two of them stood in the room with Tadashi. Tiffany had to crouch down a little, but she was in there, with her eyes fixed on the alchemist. She sighed, and shook her head.

The man looked worse in person. They had him in a loincloth, and nothing else. He didn’t even have a bed; likely, because everyone around here used conjured beds, and this man could not. Another quick scan with various Sight spells returned a whole mess of oddness. To [True Sight], the man was exactly as he appeared to be; this much was not that odd. [Blood Sight] and [Soul Sight] returned nothing, though; Ezekiel could not see the man’s life or his soul. Mana sense gave him a better idea of what was going on, but an even greater oddity occurred. Ezekiel could not see inside of the man, at all.

Stepping a few seconds back in time revealed nothing; the mana where Tadashi had been was just static to the manasphere.

Mana still flowed into him like it normally did, but there was no way to see that mana when it was inside of Tadashi, or when it was within half a meter of the man, either. And when the mana left him, it left without a single impression of the man. Mana always filled with random noise after passing through a person or important object; this is what a person saw when they used Meditation and they viewed the manasphere, seeing false eyes and false monsters and visions. This truth was apparently not true when mana traveled through those who were afflicted with Antirhine.

If it wasn’t for the obvious truth of his living nature, Ezekiel would have thought the man was dead. But even dead objects, like rocks and water, filled the manasphere with some small impressions.

Solid antirhine reflected all mana and stripped all magic from mana, but the Elixir seemed to work in a more diffuse manner. Less lead for more effect.

Tadashi raised his tired eyes toward Tiffany. He spoke in Inferni. “Weird death vision. I didn’t ever pray to Aloethag, did I?”

Tiffany tried to be nice as she smiled and responded in Inferni, “She only answers prayers of Rage, and you don’t look very angry, Tadashi.”

Tadashi laughed, but momentary joy turned to what Ezekiel now recognized as existence-deep sorrow. Tears began to roll down the man’s face. He slumped to the ground, pressing his nose to the floor.

Ezekiel couldn’t not go to him, so he went—

Tiffany whipped a hand out and prevented the contact, speaking in Ecks, “Not within a meter, sir.”

“It’ll be okay, Tadashi,” Ezekiel said, in Ecks, unable to keep the lie out of his voice.

Tadashi’s sobs turned quieter.

“We will get you home,” Ezekiel said, and this much was true. “I simply haven’t figured out that process, yet.”

Tadashi chuckled, darkly, directly against the stone floor of his room. He spoke in Ecks, saying, “I haven’t either! This antirhine aura is extraordinarily destabilizing. I could make it for a while through the mists, though; the gluttons don’t like me. But the other monsters...ha.”

“How far does it…” Julia stepped closer, reaching a hand out. Her dark blue [Personal Ward] and her gauntlet began to unravel well before she touched the crying man, but she did get within half a meter. She retreated, shaking her hand out. She reformed the gauntlet with an expression of her [Mutable Aegis]. “That’s going to be tough.”

Paul suggested, “Enough [Force Platform]s and a center of dirt. Keep him in the center.”

“I thought about it, and it would work, but such a working would be a huge target, and too slow,” Ezekiel said.

“It would.” Paul said, “But you could defend that much space.”

“Maybe. But. The other option is:” He looked to his daughter. “Julia? You have a Primal Frost Owl? She’s really big?”

“Oh yeah.” Julia said, “I can carry Tadashi; no problem.” She asked him, “He’ll be far enough away from my wings that I can still use internal magics, but external magics will not work. Need some mundane straps, though. [Fabricate] together some of the bandit leathers out there?”

Ezekiel nodded.

Julia asked Tadashi, “Do you want a ride on my back, or in my talons? How much Health do you have—” She kept most of her joy out of her voice, but not all of it, as she asked, “How much damage do you think you can sustain on a wild ride through the Tribulation skies? I’ve never gone up against a Thunder Bird, but I’m willing to try!”

Tadashi’s face was still pressed against the stone floor. But at Julia’s words, he rolled a little, and eyed her. “Are you some... adventurer?”

Ezekiel said, “That is my daughter and she was, but she is currently in line to the throne of Clan Phoenix. I would ask you to appreciate being rescued enough to overlook certain possible issues.”

“I don’t have problems with adventure... ers?” He rolled over, fully eyeing Julia, and then Ezekiel. “Your… Daughter? This is a very weird death vision.”

“She is my true born daughter, and you are not dying, but you are certainly weakened. Are you hungry? We could get you something to eat, before we leave? I see fruit trees out there and they’re not on fire anymore.”

“I’m just gonna carry you in my talons. Can you survive a [Super Quick Flight]?”

Tadashi grumbled, “In the thin chance that this is not a hallucination, my answer is that I probably cannot survive a [Super Quick—”

A crumbling, breaking sound echoed outside, in the bandit’s hideout. Tiffany raised her head, bumping the ceiling. As Julia raced outside, Ezekiel was already looking, through Odin.

He watched as some burning blocks of something fell from the gap in the overhead cliffs, and the various [Ward]s that had stretched across the entrance gorge, suddenly broke. What was that all about?

Odd.

Ezekiel had an Odin fly into the smoking pile of whatever, and turn on his [Cleanse Aura].

[Cleanse] didn’t get rid of it. Odder yet! It wasn’t poison? Or anything? Maybe it was magic?

Ezekiel tried a [Grand Dispel] for a thousand of his own mana, even though it didn’t look like a magic. Nothing happened.

And then the scent reached Ezekiel. Flowers, growth, rain, and green. It was a good smell. Odd smell, sure, but really nice. Like some high-class incense that—

A mist stone glutton stepped up from the ground and tackled the scent bomb like a cat going after catnip, spreading the burning, smelling herbs like a bath bomb going off in a pool. The glutton continued to tackle the burning herbs, spreading them fast, and far.

And then a second and third glutton appeared out of the stone and batted the burning herbs everywhere they could, before a fourth one appeared and started rolling in the mess.

In the very next second, four more gluttons poured out of the walls of the bandit hideout.

The herbs had been burning for less than ten seconds.

“Oh. Shit,” Paul said, taking the words out from Ezekiel’s mouth, though he had not even seen the problem yet.

Ezekiel teased, “You read my mind.”

Ezekiel had an Odin cast himself into a full-strength [Prismatic Ward] into the stone hut, into the ground below and around Tadashi, but he avoided the man himself with a three-meter wide scoop taken out of the large-sized dense air. With a flicker of mana sense, he saw that gluttons were already racing underneath the stone below, but those gluttons deflected off of the density Ezekiel had erected in this space.

For his next trick, a sunform Odin grabbed much of the burning grasses with a thousand flicks of a thousand light tendrils. He flew upward, carrying the burning package toward the hole made by the cliffs above, just in time for that same Odin to catch even more bundles of flaming herbs that were on their way down.

The gluttons below tried to follow the burning scent up, turning to mist, but there was no mist to ride in here so they raced along the stone walls of the hideout, up, up, racing across roofs and walls, and then clinging to the cliffs above.

And then Ezekiel had to rethink about the fact that there was no mist in the hideout, as a thick fog rolled down the tunnel leading to the valley, carrying a wave of gluttons on its forefront. The bandits must have destroyed the [Firelight Curtain].

This area was rapidly becoming much more dangerous than it needed to be.

The Odin carrying the burning herbs crested the cliffs, and entered into the full sun. People stood on those cliffs, wielding even more bundles of herbs ready to fall into the space below. The Red Man smiled as he saw the bird-shaped Odin, carrying his flaming gifts back to him.

Odin threw the package directly at him with the full force of a sunform-empowered slap, and burning herbs went everywhere, again. But that Odin vanished. Ezekiel didn’t even see how it happened.

With the Odin inside the hideout, he saw all of those burning herbs fall back down into the soupy air, full of gluttons.

A different Odin tried to catch the falling package, but he failed as soon as he got near the burning herbs at all. He winked out of existence.

The grinding noise of the monsters turned worse. It became a constant avalanche.

Julia cast a [Stoneshape] closing off the entrance to their small hut, saying, “It’s flaming antirhine!”

Yes. He already knew that. But—

They needed another way out, and fast, but not through the hideout. Ezekiel did not trust any of his magic in the face of Antirhine. From what he was seeing, through the Odin outside which were far away from the smoke, the new brand of smoke was having some strange effects on the gluttons, too.

They did not float through the mist in the air, nor did they rise from the ground around the burning lead and herb debris. But they did swarm in from outside, like a feeding frenzy of sharks moving in for the kill. Some did come right out of the ground near the burning herbs, and instead of themselves breaking to the loss of magic, they broke the stone they stepped out of, leaving great divots in the bandit’s hideout. And then they piled onto each other, rushing for the burning lead, scrambling and breaking whatever they could to get nearer to the herbs.

They raced across the roof off the hut, their scrambling claws scraping against the edge of the [Prismatic Ward], chipping the stone in their passing. In every direction, they scraped against that dense air.

Okay. So. Let’s get out of here, right now.

He had a spell for this, though it would be tricky, what with all the monsters already inside all the stone all around them.

Stone Travel, instant, medium range, 50 MP + Variable

A large area of stone stabilizes around you, then quickly moves at your discretion across or through other stone. Lasts 1 hour.

Using it normally would not help Tadashi, but he could create a tunnel.

Maybe.

Ezekiel turned to the right, to the wall that the building shared with the mountain, where gluttons crashed against the [Prismatic Ward], and where they would have crashed through, if not for that spell.

Tadashi started to giggle like a broken man. Maybe he was. He said, “Thanks for the rescue! But I’ve been dead ever since they Elixir’d me! Sorry you didn’t get your points! How much was I worth, anyway?”

“Five points,” Ezekiel said, “And we’re getting you out.”

Tadashi laughed. “Five points! I’ll have to work forever to make that up to them!”

Ezekiel smiled, saying, “I promised my retainers points, and they’re going to get them! Don’t go crazy on me yet, Tadashi.”

“They’ll swarm for hours.” Tadashi almost reached for the dense air around him, but he stopped. He started to laugh, his eyes going wide. “I could kill us all by touching your Solid Ward.”

“Just yourself,” Ezekiel said, “We can get out of this with a [Teleport]. Don’t fuck yourself over, okay?”

Tadashi crashed to the ground, again, his face against the stone while gluttons crashed against every single wall of the hut. The roof was starting to break. That would be bad. Antirhine would get in.

Tiffany said, “Waiting it out isn’t a viable option. We have to move through that mountain wall—”

A corner of the building broke off as a glutton raced across that stone, exposing the dense air inside to the lead air outside. Dense air began to become normal air.

Juila plugged up the hole with a rapid [Stoneshape], taking stone from the floor of the hut and exposing the gluttons racing below. As soon as her magic touched the lead air, controlled stone became solid stone. It stuck in the hole, anyway.

Ezekiel turned toward the mountain.

He pierced the wall with [Stoneshape], flowed a sunform Odin into the space he had just cast, then had that Odin cast [Stone Travel] in the center of a dozen flowing gluttons. He had measured the distance correctly. The platform took hold, expanding a bubble out of the stone around it which ended right at the back edge of the house, opening a hole into the glutton-filled space beyond.

Odin was made of light, so he was not bothered by the gluttons. He still whined in flutes, though. He did not like being crashed through. And he was being crashed through.

A veritable ocean of gluttons, likely attracted from every single nearby valley, was trying to get into the hideout. This small part right here was just the smallest bit of that ocean.

The noise was incredible. Ear splitting. Ezekiel could barely think, and yet he did.

Odin rode the [Stone Travel] directly out, and then he went up at a 30 degree angle, up and out, to the north west. The platform’s travel created a perfectly smooth tunnel in the stone, doing here what it had done way back when Ezekiel helped his people to escape a Hunter ambush, while they were out hunting wyrms. [Stone Travel] was such a useful spell.

With any luck, there wouldn’t be any horrible monsters in these surface mountains? You know, except the gluttons, of which there were tens of thousands.

With another cast, Ezekiel threw a thousand mana [Hermetic Shredder] into the space, into the crashing glutton horde, twisting the spell forward like sprayed spiderwebs, absolutely coating the walls and ceiling of the tunnel with the spell. With his modifiers, a thousand mana became 19,000 strings of molecular wire, each of which would deal 19,000 damage before breaking. The spell reached far forward, but the tunnel would be kilometers long; he would need to do this a few times.

The effect of the spell was rather spectacular, though.

Gluttons turned to stone cubes as they raced through the cutting space.

No time to admire his spellwork.

The house crumbled around them. Julia patched holes as best she could. Tadashi stared into the dark tunnel and at the crumbling house as though seeing his death lurch closer with every passing second.

Tiffany just waited for Ezekiel.

Ezekiel caught their attention, yelling to overcome the avalanche of noise, “Here’s how it’s going: Julia? You have a carrying form, Yeah?”

“On it!” Julia turned to shadows, except for her clothes. And then her shadow form expanded. She returned to the physical world as a unicorn, all sparkling white and with a spiraling horn made of rainbows. She crowded the small room even more than Tiffany did. Julia asked Tadashi in a hoarse voice, “I hope you know how to ride.”

“Don’t get on yet, but after we’re in the tunnel.” Ezekiel said, “It’s too cramped in here and you’ll break the [Ward].”

Tadashi seemed to regain a lot of himself in that moment. He said, “Yes. I can do this.” He reached for her, but stopped and pulled his hand back before he neared the Solid Ward all around him. “I am not as strong as I used to be.”

Tiffany said, “I can help keep him on there.”

“Good. I need you on threat-finding, too. And you, too, Paul.”

Paul nodded.

Ezekiel turned to the new hole in the mountain. The Shredder had done a great job. The gluttons did not enter the space, and those that did, died fast. Now that there was nothing there but dead stone, Ezekiel had another Odin cast another [Prismatic Ward] into the edges of the tunnel, but he kept the center clear. He dismissed the [Hermetic Shredder]. A [Stoneshape] shoved the dead Mist Stone gluttons back into the mountain, clearing the way forward.

Ezekiel pointed to the hole in the mountain, saying, “Odin just popped out the other side. It’s not safe, but it’s safe enough. I’ll [Ward] the tunnels as we go. Julia, keep Tadashi in the center of the space. When we get to the other side, we will have a new plan, I am sure. Let’s go.”

They went.

Behind them, the house collapsed, as too many gluttons broke the walls in their frenzy to get to the smoke.

Tiffany helped Tadashi onto Julia’s back. She was a large unicorn; almost fit for an orcol to ride. The alchemist looked almost like a toddler on her back. Julia’s white fur turned black in large patches around wherever he touched.

And then they started running. Julia with Tadashi on her back, in the center, while Tiffany was at Julia’s side, and Ezekiel and Paul were in the back. The path carved by the [Stone Travel] was large-size and flat on the bottom, while the roof was arched tall. They did not have to run in a single file, but they did have to run; there was no telling how long such a tunnel would last, especially with gluttons seeming to pour into the previous bandit hideout from absolutely everywhere.

The lead smoke broke that first [Prismatic Ward], completely, before the smoke started to flow into the tunnel. Ezekiel nipped that potential problem in the bud with a quick [Stoneshape], collapsing the tunnel behind them.

With a small breather, Ezekiel attempted another [Stone Travel], right underneath the five of them.

It failed. The magic just didn’t happen with Tadashi there, in the center, even if he was a good two meters off of the actual stone platform.

The second cast of [Stone Travel] was done through another Odin, floating far ahead of the party, moving forward before everyone else, just to keep the ceiling intact; the first tunnel had already collapsed in its first thirty seconds of existence.

Ezekiel did not panic, but he wanted to.

Tadashi panicked, but no one blamed him.

Moving forward was a quick process but still done with methodical precision since gluttons were still absolutely everywhere.

The first step was a [Hermetic Shredder] that went up for 500 mana, which was more than enough to coat the ceiling and the walls for a large space forward, while leaving a path in the center clear of danger. Gluttons slammed into the shredders, thus enabling the second step, which was the casting of [Prismatic Ward] formed in a similar manner. And then they moved forward, their feet finding purchase on the fresh grey-blue gravel that layered the tunnel’s bottom, the sunform Odin on the [Stone Travel] platform lighting the way.

The tenth time this process repeated, they were finally in a space without so many gluttons. They slowed down. Ezekiel relaxed.

And then the mountain cracked a little bit above them, sending a minor rush of dirt and stone down onto the path ahead, even though the second [Stone Travel] was reopening the tunnel right in front of them. It seemed that stone, just shoved to the side, did not make for good walls, even though it was countless tons and tons of stone and it was impacted deep into the mountain all around them and—

Ezekiel dropped that useless train of thought.

They picked up the pace, racing forward, feet and hooves crunching on gravel as they flew through the darkness, the path illuminated by Julia’s bright horn and several bird-like sunform Odin. Odins moved fast to support the ceiling when it started to break here and there, but they did not stay still for long.

The party exited the tunnel into the midday sun, below a cliff, right as the tunnel began to fully collapse, showering them with dirt and debris. A sunform Odin parried a boulder, knocking it away, as the mountain settled into a new position behind them, while in the front…

The myriad peaks of the Tribulation mountains dominated the horizon, like jade-green islands jutting up from seas of white blue mist. The bright sun shone down from above, bringing a small warmth to the otherwise chilly air.