Ar'Kendrithyst

Chapter 198, 1/2

Chapter 198, 1/2

The sun set, the sun rose, and Erick had meetings when he could.

Talk to this person over here, look over this paperwork there, approve or deny these various actions happening in these and those general vicinities. Etcetera, etcetera. Shadelings were active in the morning and the evening, though, and much of the city ran on those time tables, so Erick’s initial plan of ‘working on the city in the morning, and then working on his own stuff in the evening’, rapidly became ‘working on the city in the morning and the evening’, with very little time to pursue his non-city related goals. Like the pursuit of magic.

Erick had, after a talk with Poi, imagined that he would have a great deal of free time, and that most of the city would be run through Mephistopheles, Justine, Ava, Valok, Slip, and Zaraanka. And that was exactly how everyone else expected it to work out, too.

And it did, somewhat.

During the three hours in the middle of the day when the shadelings were usually asleep and everyone else was on break, or having lunch, Erick was able to work on his ideas of a [Cascade Imaging]. That particular magic was nowhere near being ready for creation, though, for Erick needed a lot more experimenting with [Identify] in order to understand how to best use that sort of spell, and time was not something he had in abundance, at all.

There were meetings with O’Lark, who was a delight, but he took up time.

Mephistopheles presented Erick with paperwork for the Guilds, of which the Mage Guild was the only one willing to actually come to Candlepoint, and then only if they got their own space outside of Candlepoint itself. That paperwork took time.

The Wayfarer’s Guild was currently stonewalling Erick, but it still took him five hours of careful, calm talk with various representatives in other cities of the Crystal Forest for him to understand that. Those people mostly ran from him the second they saw Ophiel approach, which was (somewhat) understandable, but even the people willing to sit at their tables, shaking in their seats as they spoke with him, were only willing to hand him paperwork and ask him to fill it out. Now if that paperwork ever got read? Erick had no idea.

Erick would have gone to Spur’s Wayfarer’s offices and talked to a (formerly) friendly face, but after ten minutes of trying to talk to someone there, Silverite had asked him to not show himself in any way, and he respected that request. (Kiri was still casting [Control Weather] over there, though, also as requested. It was a bit of hypocrisy, but it was also a degree of separation between him and his apprentice. That apparently counted for a lot.)

He still tried tracking down Apogee, the previous guildmaster of the Wayfarer’s Guild of Spur, and a planar himself, but Apogee was very good about never being anywhere Erick looked. Erick still left Apogee a note at his farm by Spur’s lake. Maybe he would get a response? Probably not for a long time, though, if at all.

And then there were even more talks of the building of House Benevolence, as asked for by Erick, and dreamed up by O’Lark. Those needed a few revisions. No, Erick was not going to have his House be a giant, kilometer-tall tower; a monument to power with room for thousands of guests and three times as many servants. No, it would not be a cozy castle, either, or a collection of castles. Jane kinda liked the idea of several castles, each connected by [Gate]s, and so did O’Lark, but Erick nixed that idea as overly complicated, and he didn’t want people to think that he could trap them somewhere they could not leave. If there were [Gate]s in his eventual House, then they would be kept to a minimum.

In talking with O’Lark about a House, Erick fell back on the idea of a clan mountain, but something smaller. Maybe a hundred meters tall and twice that wide, with several buildings separated by the various alliances Erick had gained so far. A place for the dragons, a place for the wrought, a place for himself in the middle, perhaps. A large area for gatherings and maybe a food court to support those gatherings. Erick also spoke of the Rotunda, which was like stadium seating at an arena, but going up and down with no regard for the actual arena floor, and where dragons of all kinds spoke to each other from across the way. Erick wasn’t going to have any full-size dragon areas, though, but he would very much want to make everything comfortable for orcols to walk around in, at least. O’Lark had some great ideas after that, but he also had questions, and so Erick started making some lightsculptures of various designs.

O’Lark was instantly thrilled that Erick could conjure such great models, and so quickly, too. This changed the dynamic of their meetings, and they became longer, and more detailed.

For O’Lark asked after the architecture of Earth.

One conversation turned to two, and then to three, with Erick having to end the third one prematurely, because someone from Treehome had just delivered some paperwork at his temporary offices, and they were waiting to have a word. The deliverer was Bayth, Archmage Syllea’s lifelong friend. O’Lark managed to extract a promise of more talk of Earth’s architecture, which Erick was glad to give him.

The conversation with Bayth went fast, for she was just there to deliver a message. Treehome and Syllea were in a ‘wait and see’ situation. As soon as Erick got proper offices up and running, they would want to talk to him in a more dignified manner, with diplomats and receptions.

Time passed, and workloads increased.

And then seemingly suddenly, Poi informed Erick that the wrought lands had finally been completed to O’Lark’s and King Alfonin’s specifications, except for the addition of three more Gates. Erick happily granted that request, and soon, there were four Gates, lined up in a row from east to west, spaced out about a hundred meters from each other, directly south of the wrought lands.

Those Gates formed an Abyssal, ethereal wall at their backsides, with 8 meter wide square holes in that wall. Each Gate led to a corresponding space in Yggdrasil’s cavern on the other side of the world, and a few thousand kilometers below the Surface. That space down below had been transformed, as well, from a mere coast, to a whole little ‘town’ made of white stone and transfer stations. The tunnel which led to the embassy had been widened to a hundred meter arch, with the road paved white and allowances made at the embassy courtyard for people to come in with wide loads on floating stone barges. Transferring massive loads was easy in the Underworld, for when stone barges got large enough, they naturally floated. Actually transferring those barges to the Surface would have been a logistical nightmare, if not for the fact that [Gravity Ward] was an easy solution to the return of ‘proper’ gravity.

There was even talk of opening another tunnel into Yggdrasil’s cavern, to more easily transfer goods. Erick was asked not to venture into that land, though, because people were still scared of him.

He was welcome in Gate Town, though, which is what they were calling the direct other side of the Gates at the Gate District, but no one actually lived in that Gate ‘Town’, because it was a place meant for work and security. Not actual living. The whole thing reminded Erick of an airport terminal, but with the destination being one of four holes in the world which connected to the Surface on the other side of Veird.

After the Gates were laid, and King Alfonin declared it good, there was a small social gathering at the Wrought District of the Gate District to commemorate the completion. Erick was invited, and he attended.

It was a decent gathering, but mostly because Tasar and Riivo had shown up alongside King Alfonin and they wanted to talk magic instead of paperwork and propriety. For the first time in days, Erick was finally able to spend some time relaxing, talking of magic with people who knew more on the subject than himself. But, seeing as how this was a political party, there was a bit of politics happening too; mostly in the form of which runic defenses they were going to put up in both Gate Town and the Wrought District, now that they were physically complete. Erick enjoyed that conversation too, though, for he was planning on doing some of the same defenses that they were, and he wanted to know how they were going about doing it on their lands.

Riivo said, “Anti-[Stoneshape] magics, mostly. While some of our assets have similar spellwork to your [Aura of Unmoving Stone], we found that requiring that level of magical skill over a large array of differing soldiery is asking too much. It is a rare type of person who can cast a kilometers-wide suppression aura.”

“But what if you just use [Renew] alongside the runic inscriptions for your own [Aura of Unmoving Stone]?” Erick said, “That’s what I plan on doing. Maybe a two or three layer process, where I put the [Aura of Unmoving Stone] on a centralized anchor that is hidden behind illusions, while I set up a [Renew] icon in the walls of a house. This way, the occupants can just use the [Renew] framework and they don’t have to interact with the emplaced magic at all.”

Sitnakov interrupted the conversation as he handed Erick a beer, smiling as said, “Your daughter gives a mean double left hook.”

“Oh yeah?” Erick grinned, taking the beer and thanking Sitnakov, then saying, “I saw your fight today. You both went too easy on each other.” He glanced over to his daughter, saying, “You didn’t even use your big tarantula form.”

Jane shrugged. “There’s time enough for all that eventually.”

“Couldn’t get too worked up.” Sitnakov said, “Never know who might be dropping in for visits.”

Tasar brought the conversation back to magic. “Yes. You never know, which is why I think this idea of a runic renew tablet is a bad idea. Someone could just steal it and use it for whatever nefarious means they desire.”

Erick did not sigh, or call out Tasar’s paranoia, for she was probably right. “You’re probably right. But [Renew] is coming out eventually. Someone is going to put that into an item— Actually. Let’s have this larger talk about security through obscurity. I’ve been meaning to discuss the subject with you, for I don’t believe that—” Ophiel pinged him with a problem. Erick glanced away, saying, “One second… Okay.” He came back. “It appears that I have to go back to work. Nothing big; no actual worries. I would love to have this conversation at another time, though.”

Sitnakov frowned. “But the party just started! Gods, you’re as bad as my father.”

Alfonin laughed loudly.

Sitnakov morphed his clothes from party attire to guard attire, while Poi and Teressa got up from the table set aside for them and some other guards. Jane and Kiri were between the banquet and their seats, and both of them looked at the food on their plates and had a moment of ‘ah, dammit. I wanted to relax and eat’.

“I’ll try to make it quick,” Erick said, as he rose from his own seat. “Jane. Kiri. You two can stay if you wish. It’s just some paperwork delivered by Mage Bank’s representatives. With any luck, we should have a bank in town soon.”

Alfonin smiled, saying, “You could have had Geode Bank already.”

“I’ll be expecting paperwork for them too, and soon,” Erick said, and then he left the party.

Three representatives waited for him at his temporary offices. It was Mage Bank, or rather, the Mage Guild, and they wanted a plot of land in the Gate District. The speakers for the guild were polite, professional, and completely terrified. They spoke in short sentences and repeated information to ensure that everyone understood what was happening. They also spoke how not a single one of them was high up on the chain of command, but that the Headmaster was getting angry at them for delaying their response this long, and would Erick please excuse the delay in response.

Erick excused the delay, of course, trying to be as accommodating as he could.

After an hour of talking of small and large items of importance, the three representatives finally began to thaw a little. And since the party was still going on at the Wrought District, Erick invited them to join.

“No. No thank you. Archmage.” The lead representative, a human man by the name of Tonide, said, “Your hospitality is appreciated, but we have covered everything we wished to cover, and we simply must be returning to our offices on Oceanside. But just so we’re on the same Platform… You agree to a plot of land for us. You agree to possibly help us with [Gate] connections to our Underworld offices, with payments for that service to be decided upon by larger forces than we three underlings. You agree to all the normal operation protocols of Mage Guild, and Mage Guild affiliates. You agree to provide sanctuary from common exterior and interior forces that a guard would normally protect against, as stated under Common International Incorporation Protocols and Purposes, which include, but are not limited to…”

Erick nodded along, listening to the man repeat what he had already said several times before. When it was over, Erick said, “As long as the Mage Guild and Exchange you set up in my lands is as commonplace as what I have seen from your organization in all other parts of the world, I see no problems arising from any sort of normal arrangement. I agree.”

The three representatives did not relax, but they did deflate in relief.

Erick offered, “And since you’re in a hurry, would you like a [Gate] home?” It wouldn’t take but thirty seconds to get an Ophiel close enough to cast a [Gate] near Oceanside.

“We are not going directly to Oceanside, but we appreciate the offer, and your hospitality. We should have a preliminary office up in a week.”

Erick frowned a little, almost speaking about how a week was unreasonable.

But Tonide instantly started sweating again, adding, “Or three days.” Softer, “Or three days.”

“Three days is acceptable.”

The Mage Guild people went wherever it was they were going, and Erick went back to the party. He didn’t get to have that talk about security through obscurity, though, or any real talk of any magic at all, for everyone else was busy, too, and they only stayed long enough to say farewell to Erick before they returned to Stratagold.

Time passed quickly, filled up with the minutiae of life and organization.

It was great, but Erick had absolutely no free time.

No magic research into a wide scale [Scry Deny], even if all that would take was a normal Denial tuned to [Scry], as he had done for his Privacy magics. The only reason Erick did not do that was because he was missing something crucial: how to exempt Ophiel and Yggdrasil from the effect. There was no experimentation with [Identify], or any other possible boosting magic that could apply to [Cascade Imaging], either. But also, there were no explosions anywhere. No murders. No unexpected intrusions into the surrounding lands. Meetings and paperwork took up all his time.

It was, all in all, rather boring to all onlookers, but Erick was in love with boring.

When asked, he would even say that he was having the time of his life. Fixing problems. Shifting priorities as needed to fix more problems. Helping people to help themselves. Laying the foundation for something great.

Laying the foundations for the Mage Guild District, and the Church District in Candlepoint, and Gate Road and even the foundation for his House, which would probably be in the center of Gate Road, and overlapping to both the north and south sides, so he could stand at the top of a tower and look down the row of Gates leading off east and west. Or maybe just west.

It was great! It was wonderful.

It wouldn’t last.

Either some sort of war would happen, and require him to respond with violence, or, best case, he would get through this current scramble for organization and finally hire some other people to do this organization for him. And then he would be adrift again! Or, in better terms: free to work on magic and more fun social problems.

… Or maybe not? He honestly did love this hands-on approach to building a kingdom.

But some free time would be nice. Eventually, perhaps.

As soon as he actually built his House, maybe? And people saw that he was truly open for business? Erick was fine with that, too. Whatever the case, the House was still in the planning stages, for O’Lark’s designs suffered from Erick’s talk of Earth sensibilities, like he was taking too many ideas and trying to work them all into the design.

O’Lark was rather more vehemently unhappy with his own work, having smashed a few models when Erick showed the slightest displeasure at them. Somewhere around day five, Erick was absolutely sure that O’Lark was making his designs purposefully bad, just so he could extend his talks with Erick, to learn all he could about architecture from Earth.

And, after Erick had a think about all that, he felt this was okay. Delays were fine, when the results would need to stand against a massive test of time. And so, Erick continued to talk with O’Lark.

They spoke of the movement of people, of planes, and trains, and automobiles, but also sidewalks and subway stations. Erick postulated how Gates could solve most of those transportation problems, but also how he still wanted people to walk around as much as they could.

Mostly, though, they spoke of important buildings from Earth. The United Nations building, with its large assembly hall which mirrored that of the inquiry boardroom back at Stratagold’s embassy. Erick brought up Frank Lloyd Wright and his unique architecture, which was surprisingly the only architect that Erick could remember in any good detail. Since he couldn’t give any more architects, he stuck to buildings, like the Chrysler Building with its arches and artistic lighting and metalwork, and the Taj Mahal, with its four surrounding towers and unique domes, all done in white, while the inside was filled with extensive mosaics. The Hagia Sophia with its bubble-dome exterior and ancient looks, and the Sydney Opera House, which was a successful experiment in large forms that more resembled nested open clam shells, than anything normal. Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, with the onion dome tower caps, and the ancient city of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, with its extensive bas-reliefs of different deities for each possible human action.

Erick gave examples of Brutalism, which he didn’t like; too solid and imposing. Art Deco, which was sharp lines and geometric styles, and Art Nouveau, which was for curves and nature-like stuff. Gothic and Federal, which were the usual styles of churches and governmental buildings, respectively.

The more they spoke, the more Erick liked the kooky Architect and his very enthusiastic ways. Erick didn’t rush those conversations, for he found that the more he spoke of what he wanted, the more he realized he was putting off the House creation, too.

He did, however, conjure a bunch of eternal stonewood and plopped it down in the general location where his House would go (and also where the Interfaith Church would go over at Candlepoint). Erick had even Shaped it a few times into some full-size mockups to have better conversations with O’Lark, but each time those conversations ended the same way.

O’Lark gazed up at the exterior of a boxy-type House, made of several towers and a nice central dome. Erick was almost happy with it. O’Lark’s casual observation began rapidly degrading into that of a man coming to realize that he was looking at shit.

“No No No!” O’Lark shouted, as he waved his hands. “No no no! This will not do. Tear it down and we’ll try again tomorrow.” He turned his attention to several of the small grey models he had brought with him, and with a casual swipe, sent the small stone structures to the ground, breaking them with the fall. “Break it all and try again tomorrow! I will have something fit for the ages tomorrow! Mark my words, Wizard: I will have this done RIGHT! AND! BEAUTIFUL!!”

Erick gave a casual swish of his own hands, the over 200 meter cubic building lost all cohesion, turning back into a piled-up mound of stone-like wood. He said, “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

“TOMORROW! AGAIN! Tomorrow!” O’Lark went over and stomped on a broken model. “Needs more windows! … And maybe fountains— YES! Fountains!”

“I do like mosaic glass and water features.” Erick added, “Still haven’t decided on my heraldry, though. Maybe just a lightning ring of [Renew]? Not sure.”

O’Lark didn’t care about Erick's smaller comments. He just ranted about windows and water. His assistants, though, took notes.

And Kiri was still stuck upon watching the mound of stonewood settle back into a minor mountain. With a whisper, she said, “I’ve seen you tear it down three times now. Watching that much stuff move at your command still gets me, every time.”

Sitnakov laughed. “Eternal stonewood isn’t that bad to break out of.”

“I’m going to put an anti-Shaping magic inside that building once it’s made. Probably repeat that same anti-Shaping magic in a lot of places, too.” Erick said to O’Lark, “I’ve got other meetings. See you later.”

O’Lark wasn’t listening, though. He was still back to making tiny models out of stone, whispering about how this one would be better than all the rest! Just you wait!

His assistants, though, took notice of Erick and bowed. Erick took his leave.

Without explosions of any kind, there came and went day 7. It had been an Earth-standard week since Erick had reappeared at Candlepoint, and the city emptied of everyone who was scared of Wizardly declaration. It hadn’t been a Veird-standard week; that was 10 days.

And yet, before Erick knew it, ten days had passed.

And then, there went day eleven and twelve.

Far from his expected outcome of having to fight a war, he was instead learning how cities worked, and trying to build up Candlepoint and the Gate District to something resembling purposeful and cohesive whole. He had also met with some worldly powers, but almost all those meetings had been of the paperwork and messenger variety. No actual powers would come to Candlepoint, or the Gate District, except for the wrought from Stratagold. Everyone else was waiting and seeing. No one was moving or doing.

The minotaurs had turned especially insular in these past 12 days, with many of them moving into collective housing that was all near each other. They didn’t seem especially scared of the outside world, as they took a forward role in many of the neighborhoods next to theirs. They helped shadelings and otherwise with [Cleanse]ing or construction. Mostly though, they gave food assistance, for the minotaurs always cooked for ten or more people at a time, and they always had extra. It was odd, however, to see every single scattered group of minotaurs condense back into —and Erick hesitated to call it what it looked like, but he did anyway— a single herd.

Erick wasn’t sure how he felt about that instinct presenting itself among those Shade transformed people, but he suspected it was alright. If he were in their shoes, he would probably wish to live among his own kind, too. And besides, they seemed to be perfectly fine with their new forms, now that they had lived in those bodies for the last eight months. They were almost like shorter, bronzed orcols in that they healed through general Healing Magic, and without any lingering problems, like scars or wrongly-healed bones.

Still taller than every other non-orcol race, though.

None of them sought Melemizargo out for Reincarnation service, and Erick was absolutely sure that Valok had spilled the beans about Erick’s offer of that same magic, but none of the minotaurs asked him for that service, either. No one asked Erick for that service.

[Reincarnation] seemed to work quite well, though.

A handful of days after the dobers’ [Reincarnation]s, they seemed to be doing great, playing and hunting along the waters of the lake like a proper pack. In that time they had moved far to the east and south, and had encountered the northern part of Candlepoint. They didn’t retreat from that land of people, as Erick halfway suspected they would. Instead, they stuck around, got noticed by the farmers, and were reported to the guard. Slip went to investigate.

All the while, Erick told no one anything about the dobers; he let it play out as it would.

Two days and a lot of treats later, Slip had some happy dogs riding on his boat with him, barking at the fish under the waves, traveling down the coast to Candlepoint’s center, where they hopped off the boat and followed Slip to the guardhouse.

The Guard gained some new very smart watchdogs, though there wasn’t much for them to watch out for. They ended up getting a lot of treats, which seemed to suit them fine. They were healing, and doing well.

All of Candlepoint was healing, and it all looked to be healing well.

Even Princess Weilux, from the Wasteland Kingdoms, was trying to recreate what she had lost during Erick’s announcement of Wizardry. But she filed no paperwork at Erick’s temporary offices to seek his help, even after Erick had had Ophiel deliver some paperwork to her guards. Luckily, Weilux’s interests in securing power in Candlepoint went through Zaraanka.

Within a day of meeting with Weilux, Zaraanka was also trying to rebuild her empire as best she could.

But Zaraanka didn’t bring up anything for Erick to fix, either, at any of the few meetings she forced herself to go to. She didn’t even speak of her reconnection with Weilux. Zaraanka had a deep fear of Erick, and even talk of Mage Bank finally coming to Candlepoint didn’t assuage that fear, or cause more than a temporary lifting of spirits.

But when she was out of Erick’s direct sight, she was working a lot harder than most others. She saw to her fisheries, to bring them back into line, to cast [Husbandry] magics into the waters, and to haul in ever larger catches. She ensured that her ‘adventurer’s huts’ out in the desert were bringing in rads, and that her people had direction and goals. Zaraanka was recovering all that she could recover.

She even managed to reopen three different buildings on Market Street which had been shut down due to evacuation. A general store, a bar, and a fabric store; all three created through reorganizations of trading from the Wasteland Kingdoms, and through Valok’s adjustments of the Farms, and of the spidery.

Erick smiled as he heard her speak of those things in a meeting. “I’m glad to see the spidery is back up and being cared for. I was wondering if I would need to do some culling.” Erick gladly said, “But you’ve got it all under control. Thank you, Valok. Thank you, Zaraanka, for your hard work.”

Valok grunted and nodded. It was his usual response to not needing to actually speak.

Zaraanka’s cheeks flushed pink at Erick’s honest praise, which was a change. Usually she went utterly still when Erick spoke directly to her, but she knew darn well how much good she had done lately, both for the city and for herself, and this time she was glad that Erick had noticed her good works.

Zaraanka muttered, “I aim to please, Apparent King.”

Ah.

He still didn’t like that form of address.

Erick’s face was a stone mask, though, his grin plastered on and able to fool most people into thinking he was feeling what he was showing. He had gotten good about that in the past week, because the first time Justine had called him ‘Apparent King’ he had been visibly displeased, and that had not been good for the atmosphere of that meeting (even if Poi and Teressa were both smiling like madmen behind Erick at the time.) Erick had no idea which person finally spilled the guts about that particular form of address that Teressa had been pushing. It had to have been Jane, but it was highly possible that Teressa had put her up to it.

He could live with being called that. It was fine.

All in all, building a city was stressful, but it was not the sort of stress that Erick had been worried about. So far there were no assassins. No massive problems that he couldn’t solve with a small declaration to the right person, or with a bit of extra time spent talking. Nothing intractable. And while there was bureaucracy to go through regarding the rest of the world, everything Erick said in Candlepoint became law, and that was kinda nice.

Mage Bank was getting built in the Gate District, and those people were warming up to Erick. Tonide seemed to have gained a promotion to become that bank manager, which he was still very nervous about, but he was getting better about that, too. He was only repeating words twice in the course of a conversation, in order to make sure he was understanding Erick’s desires, and Erick was understanding his desires in turn.

Erick did not get much of a chance to talk with Songli, though. While Yggdrasil had been refilling the [Delirium Charm] box for the wandering soul kids, that box also served as a way to get a specific message to Erick, which he had read a while ago and decided to honor; “Please do not come here right now, Wizard Flatt. We are still discussing our response to your declarations. Proof of your own stability and sanity would go a long way to making those discussions fall in prosperous directions.”

It was what it was; whatever.

Nirzir was doing okay, though, according to Poi, though Erick got the distinct impression that she was staying away from Erick, too. Which was fine. Erick was going to honor the wrought request to not open another land to Gates for at least a month, and he hadn’t even gotten halfway through that timeline. Which was probably for the best. His days were too full to do much more than everything he was already doing.

Erick did do some investigating in those lands across the world, though.

The water spiders under Holorulo’s Yggdrasil turned out to be… something like people. They were very smart spiders who were not monsters. Erick was pretty sure they were all polymages who let themselves go a long time ago, or maybe they were tenth generation spider-born people, or something like that. They spoke Ecks, and they liked that Erick was a Wizard a great deal, and they were chased out from everywhere else, so could they please stay there?

Erick left them be. Yggdrasil appreciated that he could keep his small spiders. They were actually three-meter wide spiders, so not very small at all, but everything was small to Yggdrasil, Erick supposed.

All in all, the first 15 days since declaring his Wizardry were chaotic. Messy. Back and forth and complicated, and yet so very boring at times. Most people moved as fast as they could to get out of Erick’s way or to do his bidding as fast as possible, which was uncomfortable, but it was fine. Some people eventually learned to speak their minds, though, like Mephistopheles, and Justine, and Ava. Their contributions were invaluable.

Valok and Zaraanka spoke their minds to Mephistopheles and Justine and Ava, and so they got their say as well, while Slip was nonchalant about everything. The Guard Captain had no reason to be worried, or overly active about anything, after all. Candlepoint was doing fine.

And yet, Erick was absolutely sure that if he wasn’t doing his best to stay on top of absolutely everything, something would have exploded somewhere. Someone would have attacked, or seen a vulnerability and exploited it, or done something else to fuck over something, or someone. But, luckily, Erick was a man who could be at least 10 places at once, and he was still getting at least 8 hours to himself a day, of which 6 were for sleep. A full 6 hours a night, just for sleeping! A miracle unto itself, for sure.

Erick could keep this up for months.

Poi, Teressa, Kiri, and even Jane a few times, began switching off guard duty after the first five days. Sitnakov was there all the time, though. The big guy could easily keep up with Erick’s hours, and it was kinda nice to have people be both terrified, and relieved, to know that one of Stratagold’s own was right there at the Wizard’s side. Sitnakov was almost as scary as Erick was to some people.

… Erick did not like being scary to others, but it was what it was.

Though it was a lot of work, it was good. It was busy. Mainly, it was bloodless and constructive. What more could anyone ask for? Erick was good with this. He was working way more than everyone else, and he was doing way more than everyone else, and because of that, Poi had asked him to slow down twice. Erick wanted to, but he had no delegation right now. Those resumes from Kirginatharp and the others were going to show up any day now, though, so maybe he could get some delegation soon.

Erick certainly wasn’t going to ask for anyone else to hurry up, though. All this work was good for him, for the more stable he made his base, the better it would be when the bombs started dropping.

For there was no way that it would stay this calm.

Sooner or later, something would change…

- - - -

Sitnakov was not happy.

As he lay in bed in his temporary home at the top of the barracks of the ‘Wrought District’, as Erick had been calling it, he finally came to accept that this assignment was boring. Boring was, objectively, a good thing. For the fate of the entire world, boring and Wizards went together like platinum and magic; a combination that made everyone happy.

Except for him, as he had expected to thwart at least one assassination attempt by now, or maybe even fight off a small incursion of belligerent incani or humans, or even a Shade or two. He was absolutely sure that Goldie was around here somewhere, but he had not managed to catch sight of her at all, and neither had anyone else. Now fighting a Shade might be interesting. Sitnakov had killed hundreds of their kind over the many years, but actually causing Melemizargo’s Clergy to band together was a recipe for a bad time.

And yet now, that Clergy was a fraction of what it had been before.

It was probably a good time to find and kill them all, but Sitnakov’s father and none of the other kings or queens of the Geodes wished to actually push that agenda. Perhaps a ‘live and let live’ could actually work? Sitnakov doubted it, but he could do as he was asked; he could fall in line with politically prudent decisions.

He needed to do something different, though, and so, he decided to call up his mother. Usually, this was an impossible thing while on assignment, but mom liked to be informed of her children, directly, when she could, and the Gate was right there, making direct communication a non-issue. So Sitnakov opened up his mind to the Crossroads.

Getting through the usual channels was easy enough, and soon, mom was on the other end of the line.

Queen Strelkova, mom, eventually answered with a voice full of good cheer, ‘Hello, Sitnakov! I was just thinking about you.’

Sitnakov got right down to it, sending, ‘He’s so damned boring, mom.’ He rapidly added, ‘This is good; I understand this. But he’s in meetings all day and night. He’s as bad as dad, or brother.’

Mom chuckled, showing rare, yet truly honest emotions that one could only show in a [Telepathy]. ‘You’ve gotten to fight that daughter of his, haven’t you?’

‘Yes. Jane is a fun fight. About twice as strong as Erick’s orcol guard, Teressa, but only because I’ve fought hundreds of prognosticators before and Teressa has slotted herself into an early-warning role. Less capable of actual violence.’ Sitnakov sent, ‘Though Teressa is probably among the top ten percent of prognosticators. She’ll become a powerhouse when she gets twenty more years under her Status.’

‘Odd. I imagined that you would have tried to be more in tune with Jane, but I sense that you’re more in tune with this Teressa.’ Mom asked, ‘Why is that?’

‘… Well. Jane will likely be around in five hundred years. Teressa… I’m not so sure.’ Sitnakov sent, ‘I don’t want to fuck up that relationship with Jane by coming on too hard.’

‘Erick has created [Reincarnation], though, has he not? Mana sense will likely stick around through that process, but [Polymorph] will not. Teressa’s return to power will likely be measured in hours, as opposed to months, or even longer, if [Polymorph] is no longer widely available, if Erick’s plan to transform the Crystal Forest actually works. Just something to think about.’ She asked, ‘Has he done much on that Crystal Forest front, yet?’

‘No plans for the Crystal Forest right now. He’s not even building up an army, or anything resembling one.’

‘That is a relief to hear. You know, I also heard about this business about these rebels from those Sovereign Cities. I was also delighted to hear that he has simply told them to go away.’

‘They didn’t manage to convince him to help them, but they were close. Erick was very close to getting an army, for the low price of supporting a war that he could win in the space of an afternoon.’

‘Ah. That is a bit more worrying, then.’

Sitnakov sent, ‘He’ll have an army of his own yet, though. Still have no idea what’s going on with Ar’Cosmos, either, but there’s surely some soldiery waiting to pop out of that shitty land as soon as… Well. I’m not sure what they’re waiting for. Haven’t seen Erick contact Fairy Moon or any of them, either, but he might be doing that at his home, out of my sight.’

With a concerned tone, mom asked, ‘But does he wantan army?’

‘Not at all. I’ve asked him as much and he saw right through me, telling me that I didn’t need to worry about that right now. He said he doesn’t actually want a standing army, and that the guard is enough.’

Relieved, mom sent, ‘Ah. I still don’t know how to deal with everything I hear about that man, but on the whole, I think these are all good things. It’s good to hear from you, too.’ She chuckled. ‘And you can be bored for a while, darling. It’s much better than the alternative.’

‘I expected to kill at least one Shade or dragon by now. At the least.’

‘Probably best if you decide not to do that, if it should come to that. This is a growing enterprise, and we mustn’t despoil the field which grows the crops.’

‘I hear ya.’ Sitnakov said, ‘For all the boringness, Erick is growing on me. He seems to be doing everything he can to better the lives of these people who’ve crowned him and that’s respectable. He needs some delegation, though. Do you have any people willing to actually work for him? Paper shapers, mainly.’

‘I’ve got paperwork ready to hand over as soon as he gets a permanent House, and I know Riivo has the same. Do you think he could take that paperwork now?’

‘Probably a lot of people think the same. He should have his House up in a few days, as soon as he can settle on a design. O’Lark has been dragging out his good designs to make Erick tell him more about Earth, but that routine seems to be circling to a close.’

‘In that case I’ll send the paperwork for some paper shapers along with the next shipment of supplies to Ar’Kendrithyst, which is going about… As expected…’ Her voice trailed off as she neared a difficult topic.

Sitnakov didn’t want to talk about ‘Killzone’, either, but sooner or later mom was going to bring up the subject, and there would be no avoiding it. Sitnakov dreaded that day. She dreaded that day, too. It was good, then, that that day was not today.

Mom moved the conversation to a much nicer topic, ‘Read any good books lately?’

‘I have!’ Sitnakov said, ‘Teressa introduced me to a whole line of books from an independent seller in Spur. Apparently Erick wants to improve upon the printing press well enough to be able to keep up with Oceanside’s [Duplicate], which seems like a lost cause, but it is what it is. Those books are about…’

They spoke for a few hours, until the sun rose, and a message came through that Erick was coming back to the Gate District soon. Sitnakov wished his mom goodbye, and then he went to work.

- - - -

“I’VE GOT IT NOW, WIZARD!” O’Lark shouted into the cold morning air.

Erick had just stepped through a portal from his front yard on Yggdrasil’s bough, to the flat land of the Gate District. The sky was barely pink, still in the process of chasing away the soft blue twilight. Cold winds blew from the north as it always did.

O’Lark stood like a beacon of wiry green hope, radiant in emotion but not in light, with the mountain of white eternal stonewood resting beyond. Three rather large models made of grey stone hovered on platforms beside the copper wrought, while O’Lark’s two assistants stood resolute beside the old man.

“Do you SEE?!” O’Lark asked, “Do you see the splendor I have created?! One of these! One of these will surely be the best possible shape of your House! You will welcome the world in these lands which I have drawn for you, and through that welcoming, light the way to a better future!”

The man’s enthusiasm acted almost as a booster for the coffee Erick had already had. Sitnakov stepped out of the air to the side, simply nodding as he walked forward to take his place beside Poi and Teressa. Jane and Kiri were sleeping in right now, but they’d probably show around noon.

“Good morning, O’Lark,” Erick said, “Now let me see what you’ve done…”

Erick turned most of his attentions to the mockups, peering inside to see the interiors and the designs of them all...

And he was impressed.

O’Lark grinned wide as he saw Erick take in the magnificence of his creations. “I knew you would approve!” He slapped his own chest with both his hands, demanding, “Please! Please! Tell me which one is good!”

Erick grinned, saying, “I’m getting there.”

Erick gazed upon O’Lark’s work, and knew he was finally seeing some of the wiry copper man’s best work. He must have been working on these models since long before he ever met Erick, though there were clearly some additions here and there that fell in line with their various conversations these past dozen days.

Perhaps he should wake Jane and Kiri, and get their opinions? Or perhaps not. Both of them had already said that they did not want to choose what the House looked like. And yet, in private, Jane had said that she was partial to Art Deco’s hard lines, and making a solid statement. Erick recalled Kiri’s similarly private words that she loved the idea of a simple castle, but writ large. Also in private, but only because Erick practically had to demand her answer, Teressa had spoken of how much she liked the contrast of modern edges and nature, like how they had seen back at Arbor O’kabil’s hotel and central district. Poi only took a little bit of prodding to get his suggestions out into the open; he liked Oceanside’s cylindrical towers with their balconies everywhere.

None of them wanted to actually influence Erick’s decision, though.

Whatever Erick finally decided upon, he was sure that any of these options before him would serve him well.

All of the mockups had all the basics in common. They all had multiple floors, multiple wings, and interior spaces dedicated to obvious functions. A grand central meeting room, a throne room somewhere nearby, offices for Erick to gift or assign to others so they could fill them with their own work spaces, and many extra rooms for guests. Kitchens, ballrooms, and banquet halls. Hookups for an eventual sewer system, and contained waterworks for fountains and the like.

Certain things had been omitted on purpose. Erick’s own magic workshop would remain on Yggdrasil, and he would live offsite. There were rooms for a castellan, and for other permanent employees of the House, but like most people, Erick would be living elsewhere. He did have rooms for himself in all three mockups, but they were decoys. He’d probably put guests there, or something.

But the exteriors of the models, and how they were all put together, were all very different.

The first model centered around a grand central cylindrical-cone-shaped tower, in a land of smaller towers that all shared walls, like some sort of very tall bubble land, and which rapidly decreased in height and size the further one got from the center. Each tower widened out at the bottom, forming a stable base, while the roofs were all domed. Four smokestack-like towers held to the edges of that space, marking the absolute boundary of Erick’s House. It looked like a vision of Oceanside, but different. More mashed together, like a bunch of jello molds sitting right beside each other. There were even balconies here and there. Poi instantly approved, though he did not say as much. Teressa was similarly silently happy with it, though Erick could tell she was much more enamored with choice number 2.

The second mockup was an off-center rectangular-ish main tower of thirty or so floors, rising up from a naturalistic mountain. Several smaller towers of similar design to the large one rose here and there from the mountain, with skyways connecting those towers to each other. Most of the main, public structures were inside that mountain, with the towers themselves reserved for office work, while garden-like spaces on the ‘roof’, far below the skyways, were open for walking, or reading under trees, or whatever. The whole thing was a mash of naturalistic land and solid, manufactured lines, with the roofs of each tower beveled inward, forming glass walls that formed open-air restaurants for the people who worked in those towers (or whatever sort of thing Erick decided should go there; O’Lark explained, while Erick kept looking over everything).

The third option was a spire of white crystal reminiscent of a crystal mimic, or rather, a crystal agave, with a sunburst jumble of crystal at top, serving as the throne room. But instead of having a cascade of leaves around a central point, like an agave, the main spire had vertically-aligned ‘towers’ of crystal stuck to the sides of it, spaced all around the central spire in a pattern that spiraled down and extended outward to the main structure below. That main structure was essentially a dome of crystal spikes, set into a 500x1000 meter wide base of an Art Deco-Nouveau metal holder, like someone had taken the partial geode and wrapped it in sometimes-curving, and sometimes-straight metal. Under that roof lay all the workings of a very, very large House, while the House itself looked more like a gem set into a metal base, than a functional building. It was a work of art.

It was also mostly eternal stonewood, but all the crystalline parts were made of glass. O’Lark had included a lot of glass in all three of his mockups, but this third one had an entire roof of glass.

And Erick loved it.

The third option was fantastic...

But. No. Too easy to destroy, with the base of that tower being way too thin for its own good. Sure, eternal stonewood could handle that, and Erick could actually go thinner if he wanted, but… Well. He could replace all the glass with permanent Force, held intact and in shape through Undertow effects—

No.

… And yet, Erick liked the smaller ‘towers’ joined to the main spire—

But they were too separate from everything else. The main complex down below was like ten malls put together with a lot of flow between those malls, so that was good, but the main tower was even more separated from everything else. Erick didn’t want to have a throne room so high above everyone, either; that seemed to send the wrong message.

Erick turned back to the other two…

And he came back to the third.

O’Lark stared at Erick, saying, “I see you like the third one but something is wrong. What is wrong?”

“Initially, I liked everything about it. The style, the size, the organization down below, but the more I look at it… I can’t abide all that glass.” Erick turned to the first model, the one with the cylindrical towers. “I like this one a whole lot, actually, but it’s plain.” He looked to the second one. “And I like the square towers’ exterior spaces… But the crystal keep has the same sorts of spaces, yet inside, under glass. The cylinder-dome castle has everything I want and it even has those four towers on the corners, but it has no natural spaces, though I can just put a garden on the front side and the back side of the towers… And yet, I really like the straight and curly metal accents on the crystal keep, like it’s a giant gem set into a holder.”

O’Lark’s eyes lit up as he smiled wide, asking, “Are you sure? That those are the parts you like?”

Erick glanced at the man, and then stared at him. He was up to something. “… Yes.”

“Step back! And witness the power of my modeling magic!” O’Lark held up his hands toward the three models, bright copper flickers rushing up and down his deeply patinated arms, as he said, “I can do this twice more, but I usually get it right the first time!”

Erick stepped away from the models.

He could have glanced into the future to see some of what was coming, but he felt that would ruin the surprise. Instead, he waited, and a smile came unbidden. This seemed like it would be good.

O’Lark advanced on his models, commanding, “Watch this, Wizard! Watch what truly knowledgeable Book Magic can do!”

Glowing copper words poured out of O’Lark’s hands, like Ancient Script given form and function, turning into ribbons of light that smashed into the three different models, soaking in like water, turning grey stone into something more ephemeral. The spellwork did not affect all three models evenly. Most of O’Lark’s spells went to the first model; the one of conical cylinders and domes. A smaller fraction touched upon the crystal keep, while an even smaller portion traced along the natural spaces of the second model.

In a flash of copper, grey stone dissolved away from the second and third model, while the first became temporarily ephemeral.

And then a great shift happened. Copper light from model 2 and 3 turned back into words, tracing back to model 1. Erick caught sight of all those words as they turned into sentences, like clouds gathering, and then they passed in front of him like sideways rain, falling in graceful arcs toward their destination, the first model. Those words weren’t just Ancient Script anymore. There were snippets of conversations Erick had had about Art Deco, written in Ecks. There was talk of metal filigree, and water fountains, and words of stone and glass.

Like snipping bits of text from one story and plugging them in another, O’Lark placed intrinsic parts of models 2 and 3, into model 1.

When the magic faded what was left was a masterpiece, and two duds.

O’Lark breathed hard, but he was already grinning, because he saw the look on Erick’s face, and he knew he had done well. He laughed out loud, saying, “Normally I tell clients they got five minutes before I either gotta revert it or leave it like it is! But I told you I usually get it on the first try! AND MY RECORD REMAINS INTACT! YOU LOVE IT!”

And Erick did, but he was still trying to understand what had happened just now.

Models 2 and 3 had become… lesser. Less unique. Less polished. Like someone had rushed them to completion, trying to do in 5 days what they usually got 10 days to do. But model 1 had become a work of art. Something that a sculptor back on Earth would have spent years upon years putting together.

The original shape of model one remained the same; wide-base conical cylinder towers rising up into the sky, with the largest tower in the center almost as wide as a stadium, and smaller ones spreading outward from there. But now it had a square base, and that base expanded out to a scale-size 750 meters on two sides, and a scale height of fifteen meters, forming the first two floors of the building. That base sloped on the edges, and was riven with straight-line and small-curve designs, like an Art Deco bas relief of metallic angles and support. The original towers still only took up their original 500x500 meter space, rising to a height of 450 meters. This left a great lot of open roof space in the gulf between the edge, and the original buildings, and all that space became a land for gardens and water fountains.

There were even carved divots in that base which formed courtyards and side entrances around the original building’s entrances, allowing people to enter the buildings from well-protected ‘gatehouse’-type areas.

All of the central towers and the four corner towers gained bottom rings of even more Art Deco angles, and that theme continued inside, running along the base of all the walls in the main hallways. Those shapes seemed to resemble roots the more one got closer to the center of the building. Those roots came together in the assembly hall, forming an abstract design of Yggdrasil on the back wall—

“Oh! It’s Benevolent Lightning surrounding the entire base of the building.” Erick said, “Not just Yggdrasil’s roots. It’s both.”

O’Lark smiled wide. And then he sighed, as though relieved. “Yes. It is both.”

“I love it.”

“If you find something you want to move around afterward, you can.” O’Lark waved a hand, as though most of his energy had vanished, saying, “But that’s the basic structure, ready to be turned into House Benevolence.”

Erick said, “I love every part of it.”

O’Lark went to weakly slap the arm of an assistant, but he didn’t get very far at all before the assistant instantly conjured a chair. O’Lark summarily ignored the assistant as he sat down, taking a great weight off of his feet as he set his sight on the mountain of white eternal stonewood ahead. With a content voice, he said, “I'm ready for a show, Wizard.”

Erick smiled, and then he began Shaping.

Like a waking leviathan, the white mountain began to move.

- - - -

Erick walked down the main thoroughfare of his new House and was in awe.

It needed lighting, and Erick added some preliminary lights. It needed windows, and Erick Shaped them out of desert sand. It needed minor Shapings here and there to better come into tune with the vision presented by O’Lark, who was ten meters ahead of Erick and having a great big moment of his own. Kiri, Jane, Teressa, Sitnakov, and Poi followed in their wake, while O’Lark’s own assistants hurriedly tried to keep up with the old man. There were lots of sights to see.

Teressa saw the most of any of them, with perhaps the exception of Sitnakov; Erick still wasn’t sure how far the adamantium man’s senses extended, but they were at least the 110 meter range. Teressa was currently at 150 to 175 meters.

Erick was only at 75. But he had ten Ophiel! That helped a lot.

And as he saw his new House, from several different angles and from seven different sites, Erick was briefly struck with a happy thought that sent giggles rising up from his stomach.

He giggled. And then O’Lark giggled.

“I need some staff!” Erick happily announced.

“50 to 150 full time staff! A daily throughput of five thousand guests! A thousand other people! A fraction of a fraction of the embassy of Stratagold.” They reached the front foyer, and O’Lark’s voice rose to fill the room, “But still a monument to the ages!”

The room ended in a massive T intersection, with left and right hallways even larger than the front thoroughfare, reaching up into vaulted ceilings large enough to make a dragon comfortable. There wouldn’t be any dragons here, but Erick was not going to have any cramped spaces in his House. He was all about being open. At the center of this first intersection lay a large arc of a table, as you would see in the front of any large organization. To the left and the right were other such reception areas, though most of the actual receptions would take place in private offices in the various buildings all around the main structure.

Above that central, first table, was a massive rune for [Renew]; a nearly closed circle, but with two angles at the top, like an arrow turned in on itself. Or an—

Jane joked, “You could make that [Renew] look like an actual ouroboros. A dragon eating its own tail.”

“Nope!” Erick said, still smiling. “That would offend either the dragons, or Melemizargo, or Rozeta since this is all white wood, and I’m not doing that.”

“But isn’t this ‘ouroboros’ idea similar to your [Reincarnation] magics?” Kiri asked, her voice a small thing in the grand halls of the House. “Takes a person and turns them into something else that they already are… And you’re going to be using it on dragons anyway?”

Erick mocked a frown at both Jane and Kiri, saying, “You’ve already named me ‘Apparent King’. No need to go dragging this topic up for the fifth time in order to mess with the historical significance of [Renew].”

Jane smirked, shrugging.

Kiri, however, had a different reaction. “I think this ‘ouroboros’ idea is quite beautiful.”

“I honestly didn’t even consider an ouroboros when I was making [Renew].” Erick turned his attentions back to the room, and decided to head left, since O’Lark was already running down that way. Erick smiled and started to walk faster to keep up, saying, “The Assembly Hall is going to be wonderful.”

Sitnakov spoke up, “It’ll be nice if it actually gets used how you intend it to be used.”

Jane tried to return to the previous topic, saying, “This eternal stonewood has built-in illusions, right? Just make it look like an ouroboros to people who stand in a specific spot!”

“Nope!”

Erick rounded the bend and found O’Lark staring out at the central atrium. Erick joined the man at the balcony.

The central area of House Benevolence was a massive open space of eight different floors, situated in the center of the main cylindrical building. The atrium extended from the ground floor (though there were two more maintenance floors down below that) to an arched dome. Above that dome was five meters of solid eternal stonewood separating that ceiling from the direct offices of House Benevolence, and the meeting spaces of many of the main forces which Erick wished to invite to this land. Right above that, lay the assembly room, which encompassed most of an entire floor. Above that, at the very top of the central tower, under the dome above, lay the throne room and Erick’s personal offices.

This atrium here, in the center, would serve as a dining room like the cafeteria at Archmage’s Rest, or the eatery at Stratagold’s embassy, or the gathering space in the center of the Grand Wizard’s Tower in the Core. It would bring everyone together who wanted to come together.

All around this atrium, on this floor and on the other floors above, arching hallways branched out, leading to every other cylindrical tower in the House. The main offices of many different people would be in those main towers, adjacent to this central space, but even beyond those other cylindrical towers there was room to expand in all the other hallways of the first two floors, since those first two floors (and the maintenance floors below there) served as generalized office space that Erick would open up as needed.

Right now, though, there was no need to open up those other parts of the House.

House Benevolence was completely empty, and somewhat dark.

Sound whistled through the to-be-placed windows all around the top of the atrium, letting in the afternoon sun at a slant; an arc of light carving through the white gloom. It was, perhaps, foreboding, but Erick saw the future here in this House.

And especially here, in the atrium, where dozens of smaller businesses would be invited to open up in one of the locations Erick had carved out of these many floors.

Erick imagined a branch restaurant of ‘Meat! Bread! Cheese!’ over there in that location. A fine dining establishment in that bigger, more private location on floor three. A few places from Nelboor, selling rice and fish and various dishes with lots of sauces. People from every part of his House would come through here to eat, and to mingle.

That hallway over there led to the Benevolence Research tower. That other hallway over there led to the offices where Erick would put House Fae, House Death, and House Carnage. The wrought of Stratagold (and eventually others) could have that tower past that hallway on the very opposite side of the atrium.

“It’s beautiful,” O’Lark said, as he gripped the railing in front of him, steadying himself. “It’s magnificent.”

Erick smiled. “And it’s still alive, too, since it’s eternal stonewood. Fully capable of illusions! So let’s glimpse the future, shall we?”

Eternal Stonetreeshape, instant, super long range, 5500 mana

Warp an eternal stonetree into your desired shape or warp the illusions around a living eternal stonetree into your desired shape. Unreal control. Spell lasts 5 minutes.

Without waiting for confirmation, and as peoples’ eyes started to widen in anticipation, Erick cast a grand [Eternal Stonetreeshape], targeting nothing physical. Instead, he targeted the manasphere itself.

The entire House lit up like it was fully operational. Stained glass windows replaced the holes encircling the atrium. And then people began to appear, like silent apparitions. They walked this way and that, off to a meeting or to meet a friend or otherwise for lunch, down in the central space. Signage appeared in the air before the restaurants, and people started cooking at grills behind glass while servers handed out food to paying guys in suits.

The barest sound of susurrus filled the House, like the whispering of wind, but more personable.

For a little while, no one spoke. They just watched, and imagined.

And then O’Lark broke the gentle noises of the atrium, saying, “Thank you, Wizard. You can take it from here.” He pulled back from the railing, looking completely satisfied. “The House is big right now, but I’m sure you’ll grow into it.”

Erick asked, “Will you be joining me for the Shaping of the church?”

The wiry man’s assistants tensed, but O’Lark himself simply shook his head. “You’re doing good work here, Wizard… Erick. But I’ve faced the Dark too many times to go poking my nose into those shadows. I couldn’t stop myself here, but… You’ve got the plans. You can make adjustments as needed. You can make it work. But…” He looked outward. “I want to see this House without illusions, please. Once more before I leave.”

Erick Shaped away the illusions, dropping the room into shadows and the simple light of the sun shining through the windows, once again.

O’Lark nodded outward, saying, “It’s a stable construction. You’ll fix it up here and there as needed, too. Eternal stonewood is a great material. You could have made that crystal roof an illusion, yes? The design would have remained essentially the same.”

Erick smiled, saying, “No illusions in my Benevolence, if I can help it.”

“A good tactic.” O’Lark waved his hand at the atrium. “I’m done! Send me home, Wizard!”

Erick gladly did so, opening a [Gate] to the side that led directly to the cavern down at Stratagold, right beside all the other Gates. Soldiers on the other side stood at attention, but then they realized nothing was happening besides O’Lark’s return, and so they stood down. “Farewell, Architect O’Lark. It was good talking with you, and working with you.”

“Same! Same.” O’Lark walked through, followed by his assistants. The man and woman incani wrought both bowed to Erick as they reached the other side. O’Lark turned, and said, “You’ve given me a lot to think about! If you ever need another structure, or if you want a proper model filled with magic, let me know.”

Erick nodded, and said, “I will.”

And then he closed the [Gate].

Sitnakov said, “Queen Strelkova has some resumes she wishes to hand off to you, for your staff.”

Ah.

Back to work already.

Erick said, “I am thrilled to receive them, but I’m rather sure Kirginatharp has some to look through, too, and I think Ar’Cosmos has some, as well. That’s going to be a mess which I will be happy to untangle, but first I need to get the church out of the way. That will likely be an even bigger mess.” He opened a [Gate] to Candlepoint, saying, “Time to meet some gods!”

He seemed to be the only one not struck by a dozen odd emotions, like fear and reverence and fearful reverence.

Erick tried to assuage them with the truth, “This is likely going to end up in some massive problem, so be ready.”

To varying degrees, his family, and the hanger-on that was Sitnakov, steeled themselves.

Erick did the same.