Ar'Kendrithyst

Chapter 153, 1/2

Chapter 153, 1/2

This was Erick’s first true interaction with the Mind Mages, so he had no idea what that would look like. What he did not expect, was for barely any interaction at all.

A package arrived at the front door of the house and Poi picked it up. Erick had already seen that it was the scrolls for the clan mountain spells, but when the package came into the house, it was both the scrolls, and another, smaller case; another cold box, with another four vials. A quick check with mana sense into the past revealed a blip of [Teleport Other] magics (Erick guessed) delivering the cold box into Poi’s hand, alongside the vials.

Poi brought the vials to Erick, and said, “Here we are.”

“That’s it?” Erick asked, “No representative?”

Poi smiled. “I’m the representative for this.”

“… Ah. I see.”

From the comfort of the [Prismatic Ward]ed part of his house, Poi told Erick where to put the maps, and when to move the maps. Erick searched for DNA first, but then, upon finding the actual monsters, and seeing what they looked like and were, he was able to search for the monsters, instead.

And that was the extent of his involvement.

The Mind Mages didn’t talk to him except through Poi, or through code names. Erick did find out that Blue 81 and White 13 were out hunting tonight; Two of the Mind Mages who had helped him back when he was hunting Terror Peaks, when Poi needed a break. They were doing fine. Or at least they said as much. Erick watched as Mind Mages went to work down below, but he had no idea which one was Blue 81, or which one was White 13. Orange 108, the other helper on a few of those nights, was busy somewhere else. Maybe. Erick wasn’t too sure on that. It was entirely possible for Orange 108 to be somewhere down there, killing monsters alongside the rest of them, and him not talking to Erick.

Without much direction but needing to be involved anyway, Erick watched wherever he wanted to watch. Finding the monsters was much more difficult than killing them. The singular time Erick thought about helping, Poi asked him not to. The Mind Mages had been doing this particular work, hidden from the eyes of the world, for a long, long time. They were good at it, too.

For Mind Mages were very, very good at killing mental monsters.

- - - -

In the deep, clear night, the moons shone their crescent light across the Highlands and the stars sparkled in the void. One of the stars was not like the others. It was closer to Veird, for one. For another, it was magic.

Cascading light shimmered into the windy air, illuminating a map that was too far up for the people on the ground to see as anything but yet another star. It was one map of a dozen, scattered across the lands.

For down below, in the cold, desolate cities that had been rebuilt and yet remained unoccupied, and also in the warm cities, where people lived and slept and existed, monsters hid. They ate who they could, keeping themselves protected with dangerous magics, and deplorable means.

The maps found them all.

Blue dots scattered across fields of white light, showing the way to those that needed killing, and places where people needed help.

The Mind Mages acting on the intel of the maps looked normal. A baker, who had finished setting up for tomorrow’s baking. A fishmonger, resting after having cleaned up at the end of the day. A father, who had put his kids to sleep and then kissed his wife on the cheek, and who now walked on the street, flanked by his fellow Mind Mages. Countless others, coming off of work for the day, or waking up for their true job, or begging off of a family gathering and quietly slipping away…

If you didn’t know who they were, if you didn’t know, for a fact, that the tendrils of thought around their heads never fully went away, you would never suspect that they kept the world running, dealing with uncomfortable truths that others never noticed, and which the monsters made sure that no one ever noticed.

All across the land, the Mind Mages moved from their usual, comfortable lives, into the shadows.

- - - -

A mother came out of a fugue to see that there was a monster under her bed; a ball of flesh that whispered and toyed with her memories. She killed the monster in a fit of rage that was quite unlike how she had been for the past week, and then she went crying to her children who she had locked in the other room. Her kids were scared, and then, they weren’t; it was an unnatural transition, but it would pass soon enough. The kids spoke of how they had told her about the monster under her bed, but she had ignored their words and then locked them up when they tried to kill the monster themselves. Now, hugging her babies and out from under the spell of the puppet mind, she believed them. Now, she apologized for the tenth time in a minute. She barely heard the knock at the front door, but she did, eventually, hear it.

The mother and her kids went to the door.

A Mind Mage stood on their doorstep. The man, who was a baker in his day job, calmly explained how he was here to help her understand what had happened.

Perhaps uncharacteristically, the mother let the man into her home. A minute later, the man had killed and cleaned up a second puppet mind, growing under the grandmother’s bed. The woman atop the bed was ancient and bed bound. She thought that she was talking to her dead husband about the old days; not to a monster.

And then the Mind Mage went away.

Not all of the monster hunting ended happily.

Many of the mother’s neighbors had it much worse.

Three blocks over, an entire family had been replaced by the monsters under their beds. The puppet minds had become puppet masters, and those human-looking monsters had been carefully slipping eggs into homes, wherever they went, all the while acting like the people they had transformed into, subtly converting neighbors who had no idea what was happening until it was too late.

The final count for this monster infestation was 36.

If the village with the infection had been larger, or if a Mind Mage had actually lived there, or if the hundreds of Mind Mages lost in the recent war had not been lost…

Maybe this tragedy would have never happened.

The puppet master infection was tracked to four different main hubs. Two in Eralis. Two in Alaralti.

The final count of people saved was 5391. The final count of people lost was 1084.

In another part of the Highlands, in a small village of five houses, a man complained about a smell inside his house. He cleaned all the time, but even [Cleanse] didn’t seem to clean up the smell. If he had the Sight to see, he would know that [Cleanse] would never work on this smell, for the source of the smell was still there. The monsters were still alive.

They were everywhere.

Putrescent Slugs.

Green. Slimy. Pestiferous.

In the cracks of the man’s house, in the woodwork and in the kitchen, and all over the bed where he slept, green slugs nested in slimy films. They had eaten the man’s mother and father, his sister and his two brothers. They had eaten the neighbors one door down. They had eaten the cows and the chickens. The living neighbors were next, but even they didn’t know that they were under attack.

Inside the single man’s house, the slugs had eaten everything they possibly could, except for the man at the center of the infection, for he was an unknowing host. Slugs crawled over his skin, and eggs dropped from the wounds of his fingers, and yet he could not see the problem.

A woman stepped down onto the land, outside of the infected man’s house, her hooded coat fluttering in her own breeze. She filled the air with anti-antimemetic power, revealing the problem, uncovering buried memories.

The infected man rightfully panicked when he saw what had happened to him.

Putrescent slugs were almost worse than puppet minds. Even if the Mind Mages had told him not to get involved, Erick still imagined how he could solve the problem. He couldn’t simply [Withering] the house to kill the slugs; the slugs had no rads inside of them. Individually, each one was barely larger than a thumb.

The infected man decided fire was a good solution. He started blasting while he was still in the center of the house. He wasn’t fine, but he would be.

The Mind Mage got the infected man out and then sedated him; he would keep for a while. Then the Mind Mage went to the neighbors, half of which were also infected while the rest were already dead. Uninfecting the small village would take a week. Healing the mental trauma would take decades, but no one in the village would ever be the same. Most wanted to move.

The infected man was not the only one to burn down his house that night.

In another part of the Highlands, spiders lived on the backs of fully-cognizant hosts, half buried into flesh, their fangs latched at the base of the neck, their legs wrapped around the spine. The spiders were the size of dinner plates, and they had two modes to them. They inflicted pain upon their victims when their victims attempted to harm the spiders. The spiders inflicted joy when the people did what the spiders wanted.

The spiders wanted to experience sensation, which Poi did not explain in too much depth. That was fine. Erick saw enough of the aftermath of a spinal spider infection to understand the depth of the problem.

The spiders wanted their hosts to drink curdled milk, or raw eggs, or shards of bone. They wanted their hosts to make bread with rocks and sand. They wanted ‘art’, so they had their hosts bleed on the walls, and watch the red run down. They wanted colors and smells and tastes and touches. They wanted, and so they got what they wanted through their hosts.

After that takedown, after the removal of the spiders, some of the long-term affected went rabid because all of their pleasure was gone, and all that was left was pain. Others cried in relief. Others sat there, dull to the world.

Erick, and the Mind Mages, moved on.

As sunlight rose in the east, Mind Mages walked into libraries all across Songli. They pinpointed books with chitinous covers, with pages made of devouring thoughts. Erick was advised to check himself for odd, wandering thoughts, for watching through a [Familiar] was still dangerous, but not overly so. The Mind Mages could protect themselves, though.

The books fought against their destruction with scintillating images meant to charm and incapacitate, and Blood Magic that pulled at the interiors of the Mind Mages, but the images were no use against a trained Mind Mage, and the Blood Magic was easily healed through.

Book slippers were the most innocuous of the various threats Erick helped purge that day, but even so, there were many places where bodies had been hidden behind shelves full of chittering, scrabbling books that had too many tiny legs, and too much blood on their pages.

- - - -

Erick got out of his chair. The night was over. The monsters had been slain. Good had triumphed because Erick decided to help out. How many people had perished in these last months because he had forgotten to help? Too many. He did not blame himself, for the deaths were on the monsters themselves. But he felt like he could have done more. After a heavy think, Erick decided that Terror Peaks was ultimately to blame. And the Shades for making the monsters in the first place.

But Erick could have helped out sooner.

And now he knew that.

Erick said to Poi, “We’re going to have to do this everywhere we go.”

Poi said, “This isn’t your fault. The problem arises from the Underworld, and from travelers unknowingly spreading contamination. It’s a problem that has no real solution. All we have is vigilance.”

“… That’s true, too.”

Erick took a moment to let the events of the night roll away.

And then he noticed something smelled good. He sniffed the air. Breakfast!

Poi gave a small grin.

And Erick headed toward the kitchen, saying, “Smells great, Teressa!”

“Two minutes left!” Teressa called back.

Erick entered the kitchen where Teressa stood in front of the oven, looking at the cinnamon rolls inside. She asked, “Are you done, then?”

“I think so!” Erick said.

“Yes,” Poi affirmed. “The Highlands have just now become the most safe, most populous nation on the planet. Hunters, face stealers, warmongers and terrorists, pirates, larger monster threats thanks to Jane, and now, the worst mental threats. All gone. Multiple plagues; [Cleanse]ed and cleared.”

Poi’s voice was more joyful than Erick had ever heard the man; He was obviously happy in a brand new way. Erick felt his heart soar, to see that, and to hear Poi’s words spoken with such conviction. It was true. This land was safe from many monsters, now.

Erick hadn’t set out to do that, but he certainly had!

Teressa smirked, saying, “I’ve heard that Treehome is doing rather well, too. You’ve done a lot, Boss.”

“Still more to go.” Erick had an idea, and then he worked through it, and decided, “You two have helped me a lot, you know. How’d you like 50 points, each? I have a lot extra here.”

Teressa’s eyes went wide. “50 points!”

“No.” Poi repeated to Teressa, “No. Those aren’t yours.”

Teressa frowned at Poi, then said, “Okay. Well. I’ll take 25. And I decided on Constitution.”

Poi huffed at Teressa. “What! Why?”

“Maybe you raised the right Stats, but I went for a warrior build.” Teressa shrugged. “And I kinda like magic now, and I could use some Willpower. Not Intelligence, though. I’m not doing that.” She looked to Erick, saying, “I discovered my aura, by the way.”

Erick froze, and then he laughed out loud. “I haven’t done anything with that in two weeks!” Excitedly, he asked, “Show me! Show me!”

“I only figured it out a few hours ago, and then promptly Remade [Force Bolt]. But...” Teressa held her hands up in front of her, with palms facing each other and about two meters apart. With a faint smile, she said, “Let’s subvert the Script Second.”

A bolt of grey Force coalesced in her right hand and smacked into her left, followed instantly by another manually cast [Force Bolt]. Teressa’s faint smile expanded into a real one, showing off her lower fangs and her joy of the moment. And then she cast three [Force Bolt]s in quick succession, proving her capability.

Erick clapped his hands. “Good job, Teressa! Very good job!”

Teressa practically beamed as she shook out the hand that caught the Bolts. “I probably had it easier than you, since I don’t use a [Personal Ward].”

“Nonsense! You worked hard on it, right? Just like you did with mana sense.” Erick looked from Teressa to Poi, and said, “You both work very hard. You deserve something extra from what we’ve done here, and for what you’ve done for me. I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you, Poi, and your coordination. We would have been blindsided multiple times if it wasn’t for you, Teressa, and your Sighting and sensing of outsized threats.”

Poi looked unconvinced.

Teressa laughed. “I had to find some way to make myself useful.”

Erick frowned a little at Teressa’s self-depreciation. He said, “You’ve been great.”

She shrugged. “If we go to the Core, I need to be better than ‘great’. I’d have to have enough power and ability to rival Killzone, and I am not there yet, at all.”

Erick glanced between his people, saying, “I don’t expect it to be that bad?”

Poi had been looking at Teressa, but he switched to Erick. “It will be that bad.”

“When we find some level 90 monsters down there, we need to be able to fight and kill them. Every single one of us, individually.” Teressa said, “Think ‘Daydropper Queen’ for every single monster with the possibility that we might come across multiples.”

Poi shook his head. “Fight them? No. That is not how it’s going to happen. We’re doing delay tactics and running as fast as we can. We will need Killzone-level of power to be able to do just that much. But we won’t get there with points, Teressa.”

Erick frowned. “I was expecting to kill monsters.”

Poi frowned a little, too.

Erick said, “You know Ava Jadescale, that snake shifter in Candlepoint? She said that the wrought Geodes keep people from going that deep because then there’d be level 90 people walking around all over the place, meaning that the monsters are not that hard to kill.”

Poi said, “Any trip to the Core will cost lives unless the group is small, able to hide from everything, and exceedingly mobile. [Teleport] doesn’t work at that depth. [Teleport] is unreliable anywhere past the surface.” He added, “I never said it before, for it is not my place, but I say it now: Ava was delusional when she said that. Teressa has some of the danger level correct—”

“Course I do!” Teressa said.

“—But you also have it wrong. Our capabilities do not allow us to actually fight anything at the level necessary for us to be ready for the Core, and 25 points isn’t going to change that.” Poi said, “And you don’t need the 25 points, either! You’ve got nearly 250 extra from Erick’s rings; same as me.”

Teressa looked chastised at that. She looked at her hands, and the rings on her fingers. “Ah.”

“Oh! You guys deserve more than that!” Erick said.

Poi said, “I’ll take the Constitution.”

Teressa frowned at everything, and nothing at all.

Erick said, “Teressa. You want 25 points, you can have them. You deserve good things for the good work you’ve done. You want a [Blink] up on the path to being a mage? I will make that happen.”

“No.” Teressa said, “Poi is right about… a lot. I just…” Her voice trailed off.

Poi filled the silence, “We need a lot more preparation before a trip to the Core. Erick could probably do it on his own, but the rest of us also need Elemental Bodies. Getting to the Core isn’t even an option if you don’t have multiples of those. As well as redundancies in all of our spells, and items, and everything else. Food might not be an issue, but we should plan like it will be an issue.”

Moments passed in silent thought.

“I guess I hadn’t given it too much thought until now, but you might be right.” Erick said, “Anyway… Okay. Maybe a trip to Oceanside? They have elemental dungeons there with lots of slimes. That was already on the itinerary, but it could be moved up. I need actual downtime to work on my own aura control, too.” If he was at Oceanside, he’d certainly have to talk to the Headmaster, which might not turn out well, but… It would have to be done. Erick said, “We could each get new Elemental Bodies. You two could certainly use [Lightwalk] and I can help you get [Greater Lightwalk], for sure. Maybe I’ll get [Water Body], or [Stone Body]. Anyway. The cinnamon rolls are done.”

“Ah!!” Teressa practically jumped. She spun around to the oven and pulled out the cinnamon rolls. “Ohh~ Perfect.” She stared at the browned baked goods for a moment longer, her thoughts trailing away.

“If you don’t want the points, Teressa, that’s fine. But you still want Constitution, right?” Erick asked. “You too, Poi?”

“Oh yeah.” Teressa nodded, as she set down the rolls and slathered frosting all over them. “For sure.”

“Yes, sir,” Poi said. “That is one thing that we can do right now, that we cannot get anywhere else.”

“Then, here you go. Both of you.” Erick held out his hand, and a ring appeared upon his palm. Ophiel had made the ring while they had been talking. The ring was large enough for Teressa’s pinky, but small enough to still fit on Poi’s thumb. Erick sat down at the dining table, placing the ring in the center. “Constitution. I don’t feel comfortable letting too much of this jewelry out, though, so your rings are going to stay normal All-Stat rings.”

Teressa and Poi stared at the ring for a long moment.

Teressa said, “I wouldn’t want you to give us this ring permanently, either.”

Poi added, “I agree with this decision.”

Both of the intended recipients went silent, neither of them going for the ring.

Both of them were still apprehensive.

Erick broke the silence, “Bring over those rolls.”

Teressa eyed the tray of rolls in her hands, and then mumbled, “Oh. Right.”

Teressa set the cinnamon rolls on the table, along with three plates.

Teressa and Poi sat at the table. Teressa looked to Poi. Poi looked to Teressa.

Erick imagined what Jane would have said, if she were here. She had already headed off for Star Song before sunrise, so it was just the three of them in the house, at the moment. Erick was both sad and glad for that, for he wanted to ask Jane her thoughts on allocating points, but also didn’t want to have an argument about giving points to Teressa or Poi. Just by guessing… Erick supposed that Jane would have said that people were trying to kill him, not his guards, therefore he needed as much defense as he could get, and he shouldn’t be giving away any of the points he had gotten.

At least Teressa and Poi had decided to get Constitution, though.

Eventually, Teressa asked Poi, “Are you gonna go?”

“You can go first,” he said.

She furrowed her brows. “Okay. Now I’m not sure.”

“… Now I’m not sure, either,” Poi admitted.

“Oh really?” Erick snarked, “I couldn’t tell.”

Teressa scoffed, “It’s a big deal!”

Erick asked, “It’s not that bad, is it?”

Poi rhetorically asked, “You have a question mark on your ‘human’ Status, and you don’t think Constitution is a big deal?”

Erick thought for a second, and said, “No. It’s not that important. What happened to me will not happen to you. You’re only getting one New Stat. You should be fine. Everyone else who got one New Stat is fine.”

Teressa nodded, and said, “That’s true,” as she picked up the ring.

Poi watched, eyes a little wide, as Teressa took off her old ring on her right hand, and slipped the Constitution ring onto her pinky. Erick watched as sunshine yellow spread through the grey of Teressa’s soul, like sunlight flickering behind storm clouds. The moment passed, with clouds turning a bit whiter, a bit brighter, and then settled. Grey returned, but it was a different sort of grey.

Teressa slipped the ring off of her finger, then set it down in front of Poi. She breathed. She said, “You know what? That feels… odd. More solid. Whatever happens, I’m glad the decision is done.” She put on her old ring, and then her eyes crossed, briefly.

Erick winced. Yup. Stat Dissonance. Erick expected that. He said, “That should go away soon enough.”

Teressa blinked a few more times. She breathed, then said, “Oh. Yeah. It’s going away. Okay. There. It’s gone.” She glanced at the air and smiled wide. “Ha! I started off at 21! Didn’t know that was possible. This means 21% less damage taken from all sources, right?”

“Health damage only; but yes.”

Teressa giggled. “Then yeah! 21% less damage taken from all sources, for me! I don’t use a [Personal Ward]. Okay. This is awesome.”

Poi quickly took his ring off and slipped the Constitution ring onto the thumb of that hand. He had much the same soul experience as Teressa, except the sapphire blue clouds inside of him briefly turned golden, and then settled back down to the same sapphire blue his soul had always been. When he changed back to his own ring, his dissonance lasted a bit longer, but he, too, was fine, in the end.

Poi stuck a fork into his cinnamon roll, saying, “Constitution has benefits beyond the Health damage reduction. It helps with—”

“No no!” Teressa asked, “What was your starter number?”

“Unimportant.”

“Bah!” Teressa added, “I already bumped it up to 25. A quarter less damage from everything! That’s amazing.”

Poi ignored her and continued, “Constitution helps against damage, for one, but it also makes everything a bit more comfortable. It’s easier to be out in the blazing sun, or to swim into deep waters. It even allows you to not be bothered by sand in your shoes, or other small annoyances.”

“Oh. That’s why you went for Constitution?” Erick went, “I guess it does do all that, but I never noticed.”

“[Personal Ward]s also do this.” Teressa said, “So it’s not surprising you didn’t notice.”

Poi said, “My [Personal Ward] isn’t always against damage, though, so this is good for me.”

Teressa teased him, “You wanna prepare against a delve to the Core, you gotta make up some new spells, too. Can’t be using your [Personal Ward] for flight.”

“… Maybe.” Poi said, “Whatever the case, Constitution will make being out in the wilderness not so draining.”

“I can’t wait to get back out in the open spaces!” Teressa said, “Camping under the stars—”

“Under the ground,” Poi interrupted.

“We’re not going straight for the Core. We’ll be above ground most of the time!” Teressa asked, “Right?”

“Right!” Erick said, “I have Privacy spells.”

And then the good natured bickering started.

Poi countered how anyone with a mana sense could see [Sealed Privacy Ward], even if they couldn’t see inside. Teressa countered how ridiculously hard it was to find someone out in the wild, and then she added how Erick didn’t count for the purposes of the argument. Erick laughed.

They spoke of different places to visit.

After having two more cinnamon rolls, because he wanted more nice things in his life, breakfast was over. Poi went to bed, because he had spent the entire night awake with Erick. Teressa stayed up, since she had been able to sleep. Erick didn’t need to sleep, though. Staying awake for 48 hours was easy.

On the way to the clan mountain scrolls, Jane called, asking about the night. She didn’t get a chance to talk to him before she was requested for action, though she was getting a break now.

Erick was happy for the distraction. He readily gave her a breakdown of last night, skipping over most of the major details, but talking about what he had seen and how to counter a few mental monsters. Those mental monsters no longer existed inside the Songli Highlands, though.

He also spoke of the dragon attack, and the aftermath of his interactions with the Dragon Stalkers, which was another thing Jane had not been there for. That was another 20 minute conversation.

As for what Jane was doing, she and some other Enforcers of Eralis were getting ready to assault some tangled hydras that had followed/chased some boats into the harbor. The hydras had briefly gotten past the Void Wall, but then the Singers were alerted to the danger, and they sang some special songs, pushing the tangled hydras back into the ocean beyond the Void Wall. The monsters were now camping outside the undersea Void Wall, poking around, looking for breaks in the defensive magic.

‘It’s the second tangled hydra in as many weeks as I’ve been doing this. They’re more of a problem than I thought they were.’

‘You’re good with your prismatic octopus form, right?’ And then, because Erick decided he could handle an argument, he said, ‘I spent 60 points, but I have a hundred and fifty points left, unspent. I want to give you some so you can be safer from mental contamination, and so that you can get a rivergrieve, and be even more safe in the water. I killed a juvenile rivergrieve not a few days ago, but I can get you an adult. They’re out there, somewhere.’

Thankfully, there was no argument.

Jane sent, ‘Nah. Thanks, though. Star Song is trying to tempt me with more points than what you bargained for, so I’ll get them on my own. You don’t have to worry about me.’

‘But I always will.’

After a long moment, Jane sent, ‘I worry about you too.’

Erick smiled, as he sent, ‘Physically, or emotionally? I don’t think you have to worry too much on either account, just like how I know my fears about you are unfounded. You could face anything.’

He must have put too much pain into his thoughts, or maybe the lie was simply too apparent. Jane had heard something in his words, and the conversation shifted in an uncomfortable direction.

‘… Dad. I’m scared all the time. I’m scared for you, and I’m scared for me, and I’m scared about the monsters that live under beds and in the dark.’ Jane said, ‘But I’m also doing a lot of good out there, and that helps me know that fear is just fear, and my anger is stronger. Back on Earth, there wasn’t a lot I could reasonably be angry with. All the problems were problems that you were equipped to solve. It’s a lot easier… Life is a lot easier here, on Veird, for me.But by that same measure, this life is harder for you. And I see what this life does to you, and I fear that you’re burying your feelings, and that’s not something I can power through with anger. You’re ignoring the stress you’ve put yourself under. You’re not ignoring the truths around you anymore, but even that is hurting you. Deeply.’ She added, ‘What I truly fear is that some mistake is going to get made, and there’s nothing I can do if you make a mistake, just like there’s nothing you can do if I make a mistake. I can handle my small, melee problems. But you…But you almost died to a dragon, and now some dragon is out to get you.’

Erick wiped a tear from his eyes, and was thankful that he was having this conversation through a telepathic call. ‘I’ll be fine. The dragon won’t be fine, if I find him and his answers are unsatisfactory.’

‘That sounds like something I would do; not you.’ Jane asked, ‘Are you okay, dad?’

‘Of course not. This whole world is fucked with monsters.’ Erick said, ‘But I’ve got plans. Would you like to hear them?’

‘I would like to hear them.’

And then Erick explained some of his dragon hunting plans.

Jane was on the fence about his ideas, but they would probably work. No way to really know.

Erick moved the conversation to lighter topics, like other places to visit.

They talked for a while, but then Jane had to go. The plans against the tangled hydra had been finished.

Jane ended with, ‘There’s been a lot more planning against this tangled hydra kill than the last one because this damned monster is staying in the ocean. My prismatic octopus isn’t suited for deep water kills, so I might be hunting for a rivergrieve later.’

Erick smiled.

Jane continued, ‘So if you see a rivergrieve, let me know. But don’t kill it! It’s mine.’

Erick laughed, sending, ‘I’ll keep an eye out.’

‘Okay. Good. I love you. Gotta go.’

‘I love you, too.’

As their connection faded to nothing, Erick sat in his chair for a moment, just existing. And then that moment ended. Erick glanced to the clan mountain scrolls sitting on the table beside him. He reached over and grabbed them.

It was time for magic.

- - - -

Sitting in his temporary library, with scrolls unfurled across the whole table, and Privacy spells around him, Erick read of the deepest secrets of clan mountain creation. They weren’t written in code, but they were written in standard magical notation and surrounded with arcane knowledge, which ended up almost the same as code.

The words themselves were basically Ancient Script, but slotted into diagrams along with a heaping amount of math and structure. It was the same spellwork that upper graduates of Oceanside used, but with a flair that was distinctly non-arcaneum, non-Oceanside. Erick hadn’t gotten very far with any of that sort of magic, and this stuff looked like the equivalent of post-graduate work.

Erick’s inability to be able to easily read this sort of writing, along with his lack of aura control, were likely his biggest failings as an archmage, and as an enchanter, too.

As Erick began to understand what he was reading, a supreme sense of vindication washed over him, for his earlier guess that the clan mountains were made of a [Stonetreeshape] spell was mostly correct. He was simply off by an order of magnitude, and missing a crucial piece of the puzzle that he had not known was a piece that needed to be included. The other complication was that there were two spells. The first spell was named [Eternal Stonetree]. The second spell was [Eternal Stonetreeshape].

On a separate piece of paper, Erick picked apart the spellwork in front of him, eventually arriving at the base formula for both spells. The first spell was necessary to nail exactly correct, but the second spell was the only way to make the first one work in practice.

--

(t1)[Watershape] + (t1)[Grow] = (t2)[Treeshape]

(t2)[Treeshape] + (t1)[Stoneshape] = (t3)[Living Petrified Treeshape]

(t1)[Lightshape] +(t1)[Shadowshape] = (t2)[Mysticalshape]

(t3)[Living Petrified Treeshape] + (t2)[Mysticalshape] = (t4) [Eternal Stonetree]

–

Despite the Shaping spells used throughout all parts of the first spell, [Eternal Stonetree] lost the ‘Shape’ part of itself, meaning that if this spell was anything like Erick’s own [Tree of Light], [Eternal Stonetree] simply grew the tree, without allowing Erick to Shape that growth at all.

Shaping was very much necessary in order to turn trees into mountains, though; to collapse eternal stonewood into solid hallways and such. And so, there was the second spell, to reintroduce ‘Shape’ back into the magic.

--

(t4) [Eternal Stonetree] + Mana Shaping + Mana Altering for Pure Illusion (also known as ‘Mystical’) = (t5) [Eternal Stonetreeshape]

–

Erick was very excited now, with a wild grin on his face and a rising heartbeat in his chest.

There were, as Erick had expected, a few specific tricks to making this magic. Among the scrolls were copious notes on how to specifically introduce [Lightshape] and [Shadowshape] to each other so that you would get [Mysticalshape], and not [Illusionshape]. Here, again, Erick’s experience with [Treeshape] came in handy to understand why this degree of perfection was necessary.

[Treeshape] and [Woodshape] were both produced through the same combination of spellwork; [Watershape] and [Grow].

Both spells had widely different uses.

[Treeshape] was for the directed growth of a tree, and you could do a lot with that premise. You could even direct a tree into growing a wooden salad bowl, for instance. The problems with that, were that you ended up with a lot of byproduct in that creation, namely, the existence of the entire rest of the tree that you just shaped out of the ground. Whatever salad bowl made by [Treeshape] would likely be rather rustic, too.

[Woodshape], though, was perfect for the carving and shaping of dead wood. With [Woodshape], it was very easy to make the perfect salad bowl. Smooth surfaces, perfect shape, good bowls.

A [Treeshape] bowl would likely have bark on it.

[Woodshape] was purchasable in the Script for 1 point; anyone could get it.

[Treeshape] had to be made by the mage who wanted it.

There was a difference in those spells. A fundamental difference.

There was a difference in [Illusionshape] versus [Mysticalshape], too. Erick didn’t have [Illusionshape], and it wasn’t available for purchase, either. Neither was [Mysticalshape]. He couldn’t just look up the blue boxes for those spells by searching the Script, either, to get an idea of what the difference was, but that was unimportant. The scrolls from Devouring Nightmare told him enough about the two of the better outcomes between combining [Lightshape] and [Shadowshape].

Illusions were a massive school of magic that Erick had never touched, partially because the vast majority of that school was rather weak, and partially because he would rather have the real spells, rather than their fake versions.

Erick mostly knew the broad strokes, though. Illusions could create false realities, and [Illusionshape] was most commonly used on basic Force spells. With Illusion Magic, a mage could have a single well made tier 2 spell that did almost everything for them, and they could try every single day to make that perfect tier 2 spell, until they got it right.

The typical example of the usefulness of illusions went like this: A mage is running across a field from a monster. The monster will catch the mage, for the mage cannot easily flee, but the monster is easily tricked. (Which is mostly true for every single monster out there, and one of the only reasons Illusion Magic was useful at all.) In this scenario: What spell is best to escape the monster? Or what spell can kill the monster, or what spell can trip the monster, or delay the monster, or— etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum.

For Illusion Magic, there is only one spell. It’s [Force Wall] + [Lightshape] + [Shadowshape]. This makes [Illusionary Spell]. That, along with some creativity, can make almost any low-level effect.

The fleeing mage can hide behind a tree that they create. They can send a duplicate of themselves running in the other direction. They can wrap illusion around themselves, making them appear as their own shadow. Another cast might string wires across a suddenly appearing grove of trees, with fake spiders and bad smells filling the air; which won’t stop the monster, but it will give the mage more time to flee properly while the monster is hanging back, fighting the ‘summoned’ monster. Because, yes, illusion magic can summon creatures, too. Shitty creatures, but even a shitty creature is still a body on the field.

In a variation of the first example, the mage could make an illusionary walkway into the air, into a hidden space that the monster cannot reach, while, with their next cast, they send off a duplicate to run away, allowing the monster to chase that duplicate down.

[Illusionshape] could be used in practically any basic tier spell to make something that was usable in all instances. But, there was a drawback. Any damage inflicted with Illusion Magic was quartered. Any defense provided was weak as paper. Any utility had to be treated with the delicacy of [Conjure Item], lest an errant touch shatter the illusion into motes of mana.

Versatility had its drawbacks.

Apparently, according to the scrolls in front of Erick, if you used [Mysticalshape] instead of [Illusionshape], that ‘quartering’ was instead a ‘halving’.

That was no reason for it to be in the clan mountain spellwork, though.

The reason for [Mysticalshape] came from its other intrinsic factor of being ‘unreal’, and thus it allowed the sudden growth and sudden creation of the [Eternal Stone Forest] without pumping millions of mana into making a real [Stone Forest], or waiting years for Stone to ‘grow’ to appropriate mountain sizes.

Erick had to sit back after reading that.

And then he went back to reading.

[Mysticalshape] apparently allowed the final result of the clan mountain spell to be ‘fuzzy’, for it needed to be fuzzy, for [Living Petrified Treeshape] simply made giant, immobile trees, that were not truly immobile at all. This fuzziness allowed appropriate Shaping spells to be used to great effect, transforming arbor-sized trees into minor mountains.

And another thing!

For all their material strength, Eternal stonetrees were super light. You could build very high with them.

And another thing!

If one used normal stonetrees, as one could with [Living Petrified Treeshape], then anyone could come along to a clan mountain with a [Stonetreeshape] spell, which practically any decent mage could make, and the clan mountains wouldn’t be as secure from outside tampering as they were.

The inclusion of Illusion in clan mountains prevented this. Adding in Illusion was a wonderful solution to the problems of easily crafted Shaping spells. You couldn’t [Stonetreeshape] eternal stonetrees; you had to use [Eternal Stonetreeshape].

And to get there, it required you to add Shaping back into the tier 4 spell! Tier 5 was yet another hurdle that potential bad actors had to surmount if they wanted to break a clan mountain. Erick didn’t know the numbers, exactly, but he was pretty sure that 98% of people never made it past tier 3.

Erick wasn’t done reading the scrolls, though. He was finding secrets with every new readthrough.

The other major oddity in the spellwork was the necessity of [Living Petrified Treeshape]. Not [Stonetreeshape]. Not [Petrified Treeshape]. [Living Petrified Treeshape]. The living was important, for the normal [Petrified Treeshape] spell created normal-sized, dead wood, and dead wouldn't grow, and couldn’t be illusion’d into growing larger, therefore dead wood was a dead end to this spellwork.

Erick read over the scrolls a few times, picking up a few small bits of extra information about the spellwork here and there. None of the scrolls were in order, exactly, and each one referenced a different scroll in a mostly random way. Erick suspected that this discombobulation in the presentation was necessary in order to keep the clan mountain secret as secret as possible. If you only had one of the ten necessary scrolls, you had a hint as to the overarching spellwork, but you did not have the full story. If you didn’t have all 10 scrolls, and time to read them, and time to understand them, and the background necessary to understand them, then messing up a tier 4 spell was a hundred days lockout from another attempt. Messing up on the second spell, which was arguably more important, was a thousand day lockout.

… Erick wondered what a better version of this spell would look like. [Mysticalshape] seemed necessary, so he would keep that in there, for sure. Illusion magic was rather funky, though. Apparently, using Illusion to bring a base material more in line with what you wanted was a permanent-ish usage of that magic.

Permanent trees. Permanent illusions, that were therefore not illusions at all.

Erick had to digest that for a moment before he continued.

Apparently, when these Illusion trees were killed in the process of their final Shaping into a mountain, very little material was lost, because eternal stonetrees were very real. Usually, Illusion was very good at being not-real. Usually, crafting anything into Illusion was a good way to lose that material forever.

There was an example in the text to explain what was happening.

A woman wants a dress for a party. She crafts one of her old dresses with illusions of the new fashion trend sweeping the Court, completely ignoring that the new trends are about gold, and her dress is little more than cotton. The illusion lasts for a while, but the woman’s tattered original dress falls apart, leaving her half-naked in the middle of her dance upon the stage.

A second woman at that very same party also used Illusion on her dress, too, but her dress was a 40 year old gold dress she had in the back of her closet. After all, fashion comes and goes, so the woman has kept every dress she has ever owned. Therefore, her illusions are simple adjustments. A few more folds here, the changing of an embroidered fish into an embroidered cloud.

When her spell fails, she still has clouds upon her dress.

When Erick read that, he stepped back.

Illusion seemed really interesting. Not a way he wanted to go with his spellwork, for sure, but it was still interesting.

He couldn’t help but notice that this clan mountain spellwork contained a lot of lessons on Elemental Illusion, and that he had gotten it right after being attacked by a dragon that was all about illusions, who was his next target. He knew he needed to seek out the dragons, anyway, and he had been planning on seeking out the Mirage Dragon, for sure. But...

Was this serendipity?

It was probably the Worldly Path.

… Did Illusion have something to do with [Gate]?

… It probably did.

Seemed like an easy way to ‘make two areas similar in nature’… Or something.

Illusion also seemed all about either making Reality out of nothing, or shifting Reality onto reality, and making something. And wasn’t that an odd thought.

Odd, because mana was possibility, and worded another way, the best illusions were about possibility stretched into reality as far as it could stretch, and having that possibility sometimes become real in the process.

Heck! [Polymorph] was all about the illusion of a person becoming real, which was yet another lesson on ‘illusion’ he had recently been re-exposed to, and which was another thing that pointed him toward the dragons.

“Huh.”

Erick sat back in his chair and had a nice, long think.

He read the scrolls again, and he read about how the eternal stonewood of the clan mountains still remained slightly magical, even when it was cut down and processed into a mountain. It was even ‘enchantable’, in a certain sort of way, allowing it to project falsities into the world beyond. This was why the clan mountains of the Alluvial District of Eralis were shrouded in illusions when they were viewed from a far distance.

‘Enchantable’ because what was really happening was that the eternal stonetrees were still alive, even though they looked like mountains and had been made into homes. As ‘living’ trees, they were producing their own illusion effects to make themselves appear to be unassuming mountains.

Erick repeated, “Huh.”

The nobles around here lived in tree houses, eh?

He kept reading, and kept realizing new and novel uses for eternal stonewood.

Tenebrae had certainly come through here and made his flying castle out of something close to, if not exactly, this eternal stonewood. Perhaps that small tree in the center of his castle was a still-living [Eternal Stonetree]. There was a problem with that theory, though; to a mana sense, Tenebrae’s castle didn’t seem like it was anything but stone, and the tree in the center of it all was very much a ‘normal’ magical tree.

The answer to that, though, was that Tenebrae had taken this spellwork and made his own version.

Or perhaps illusions were much more powerful than Erick suspected.

… Illusions were probably extremely powerful in a few specific ways. Not in all ways, for sure, but in a few? Like with these eternal stonetrees? Erick could certainly see that.

He was already imagining using Illusion Magic to subvert the inability for Particle Magic to deal with individual atoms. For instance, instead of having his [Grow Diamond] work off of random carbon hitting the growing diamond just right, and sticking in place, and producing a lot of unknown byproducts that need to be [Cleanse]ed away, he could throw some illusion into the working and he could conjure diamonds straight from the air. No need for complicated, chancy atomic processes! No need to wait for growth!

… If he was reading these scrolls right, anyway.

For the third time, with revelation piling upon revelation, Erick whispered, “Huh.”

Eventually, he had lunch. After that, he played around with some magical ideas, including one where illusions were pretty much ‘Wizardry, but not’ in that illusions could do a bunch of stuff outside of the normal spheres of magic, and if that ‘outside stuff’ was close enough to reality in the end, then the illusions transitioned Subjective Reality into real reality.

That particular thought was a Big Moment for him and he had to come back to it more than a few times because it was just so… magical.

It probably wasn’t Wizardry, though. It was just magic that was truly magical.

He re-read the scrolls, because he kinda had to after the series of revelations that he had been having. And then he had a small nap, because that seemed absolutely necessary, too. Of course, he set Ophiel up with defensive protocols and informed Teressa of what he was doing before he tucked in for a couple hours of shuteye. He slept a nap of the dead.

When he woke up, he made dinner, and then after dinner, it was time to make some magic.