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Kal’Duresh was a white-walled mountain oasis in the orange lands of the Crystal Forest, with walls thirty meters tall. The city covered an area twice as large as Spur. One thing Erick liked about the place was that each building and tower and residence on that mountain enjoyed a view of the land beyond, instead of a view of their neighbors.  

‘Kal’Duresh’ was also a castle up at the very top of the mountain made of white stone and tiers and twisting trees. It looked more like a work of airy art than a true residence, especially from Erick’s angle down in the gardens right in front of the Castle, while sunset painted it all in golds and reds.  

Erick was currently in the stone gazebo, located in a garden with boxy rows of bushes that barely came up to his thigh. He had been here before, so it was a semi-comfortable location. Plum tea steamed up from cups in front of him, while Zago sat to his right, Poi stood just outside the stone gazebo, and Baroness Pirazel Xelxex, the bright magenta incani who basically owned all of Kal’Duresh, sat across from him, sipping her own plum tea. She wore a red wraparound dress, and red-stone jewelry on her uneven horns. If they were enchanted gems, they had leaked out their light long ago.

Thick air flickered here and there in the garden, and over the Castle, and everywhere else.  

Introductions and pleasantries had already happened, as well as smaller talk of what Erick was going to do with his magic, exactly. Or rather, what Ophiel was going to do, before five of the [Familiar]s went and did it.

Five Ophiel had each conjured their own [Teleporting Platform], that they each wrapped in a low-grade [Prismatic Ward] to fill the whole of the hovering stone. With their Restful spots prepared, each Ophiel had taken their positions in the center of the platform, and began casting [Domain of the Withering Slime]. White spheres had sprung up around the winged [Familiar]s, smaller than the diameter of the platform.  

Erick then sent those five Ophiel across the city, making sure that they got the whole place. After checking through each Ophiel to make sure the entire city was covered, Erick had conjured a sixth to fill in the occasional gap that appeared between Domains; Kal’Duresh was a large city, with an underground aspect to it that ate up a lot of Ophiel’s range, and besides, overlapping Domains was a good idea in a land of tangled stone and water.

Shadowolf notifications had poured in, like barely-there blue box raindrops. Erick mostly didn’t care about those notifications, though, so they stayed out of his sight while he waited for something unexpected to show.

 While he waited for the unexpected, the pleasantries wound down, and an Ophiel passed overhead. The [Familiar] rode his platform like he was a miniature version of the planet Saturn, flying through the skies of Kal’Duresh, guiding a galaxy of thick air. That same air strummed with full-powered violin music flavored with guitar accents. It sounded… nice.  

Or a certain version of ‘nice’, anyway.

Xelxex also watched the Ophiel fly overhead, barreling forward like he was the head of an illusionary tsunami. She sipped her plum tea. She continued with the pleasantries, “Your [Familiar] certainly does seem to be enjoying himself.” She paused to watch a pseudopod the size of a large apartment building swipe through the gardens around them with little more disturbance to the peace than a soft breeze. Her eyes went a little wide, as she looked to the sky again, but she controlled her reaction to almost nothing. As the thick air and violin-wind passed, she said, “Though that song is somewhat disconcerting.”

Erick said, “I can have him tone down his song. A lot of people don’t seem to like that.”

Xelxex shook her head the faintest, proper amount, saying, “Nonsense. I just mention it because it proves the depth of your commitment to your summons.” She smiled professionally, saying, “One would think you were a Summoner, and not the herald of some new magic that the world has never seen before.”

“I’ve always tried to treat him well.” Erick said, “I understand most people don’t do that.”

Xelxex said, “No. They do not. Usually they are nothing more than expendable troops, sent to out to perish to the benefit of their casters.” She added, “I have never studied too deeply the summoner’s arts, but I have heard some say that any mannerisms witnessed are the simple nuances of a million small lessons taught to them as they are raised. But starting off with a good base is just as important.”

Erick smiled. He changed the topic away from Ophiel, saying, “I’ve been meaning to apologize for the rudeness of the imaging I used upon your city. I just did it, but I really should have gone through your proper channels. Sorry about that.”

“It was good to dispose of hunter trash, and we are all in the rough and tumble business of quick decisions and fast actions out here in the Crystal Forest, especially when attackers like the Red Dot mage are involved.” She got a stern look on her face, as she said, “But some magics are not—”

A notification appeared. Erick snapped his gaze toward the blue box.

--

You have slain Shadowcat A!

95% Participation

+302,202 exp

--

Xelxex waited for Erick to speak, her pleasantness a mask upon her face.

Erick said, “Shadowcat A.”  

Xelxex dropped the mask, revealing strictly contained rage. She halfway turned to the guard standing behind her, outside of the gazebo. She ordered, “Find it.”

Erick offered, “I might could find it, too, if you would care for another imaging of your city?” He added, “It won’t work underground, tho—” Two more shadowcat notifications popped out of the blue box rainstorm to the sides of Erick’s vision. “Two more shadowcats.”

“No.” Xelxex declared, “I don’t approve of blood magic. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if I ever find that spell near my lands again, I will press charges against both you and Spur. In the unlikely event of another Red Dot attack, and the ‘necessity’ of further imaging, I will still press charges.”

Erick paused, struck between asking ‘Who would oversee that lawsuit’ because the answer was ‘no one’, for there wasn’t an overarching government of the Crystal Forest that Erick knew of, and ‘What the heck? Blood magic?’ So he just drawled out, “Oookaay.”  

Zago raised her eyebrows at Erick’s tone, but she said nothing. She had mostly gone silent after introductions. Erick held no illusions that Zago wasn’t in league with the Baroness in some long-term capacity, but Zago was still a part of Spur, first and foremost, according to everything Erick understood.

But Xelxex certainly made a point of noticing Erick’s long ‘okay’. She frowned at Erick, then paused, herself. She set her glass down, speaking with resigned understanding, “It’s not blood magic. You don’t know what souls are, either, so I suppose that makes a crude sort of sense.” She asked, “So what is your imaging, if not blood magic?”

He almost asked, ‘How do you know I don’t know about souls’ before the answer became obvious. She was the baroness of a major city. She had spies, of course. One of those spies might even be sitting right beside him, and named ‘Zago’. Erick did not look the guildmaster’s way, as he said, “All I know is that I have no idea what blood magic is, exactly.” He added, “So they’re probably not the same.”

Xelxex sipped her tea. Pleasantness returned to voice, but only enough to cover the hard iron below, “In that case, I wish to formally hire you, to bring you over to the Kingdoms. To grant you a title of nobility and land, and win you over to the Wasteland.”

Without a second thought, Erick said, “No thank you. I won’t put myself in a position to choose a side in the Quiet War.”

“I will accept that answer in the short term, but in time, I think you will change your mind.”  

“… I don’t think I will?”

What little comfortableness there was to the conversation, vanished, utterly and entirely.  

“You will, and it will have very little to do with the Quiet War.” Her pleasant tone vanished, and out came the Baroness, in full. “Due to the arrival of Candlepoint, there’s going to be a real war in the Crystal Forest. Months off; maybe less. It will be a coalition of interested nations, and since Candlepoint is so near the Kingdoms, my people are going to be at the center of that war. Our nation will endure this storm and bring peace back to the Crystal Forest, but others will take the opportunity to weaken us however they are able. The Converter Angel might have already been summoned.”

Zago gasped, “Already?!”

“Where?” Erick asked, “How do you know?”

The Baroness said, “We haven’t even gotten direct confirmation, but there is a guildhouse in Candlepoint. There is even a questing board in there, overseen by enthusiastic shadelings. On that board are quests to kill all sorts of monsters. From wyrms, worth one darkchip, to unicorns and Ancient Stone Elementals to Toxic Hydras to Monster Mimics to Singing Colpers, worth three to eight chips, to the Converter Angel in question, worth 10 chips.” She said, “We believe they are true listings, because of an example already shown to be true.  

“We haven’t had a single Singing Colper sighting in a decade. But yesterday, the listing was not there, and today it was, and the lake where they usually surface was suddenly disturbed by ten meter tall waves and a piercing wail that drove the investigators off. Hours later, the adventurers came in and killed the beast, netting themselves eight chips, and enough to buy one of those 5% Reduction Beads. That 5% bead is real, too, by the way.

“We think the Converter Angel is real, as well.

“In fact, we think almost everything on offer in that city is real, at the moment.  

“And so, there will be a war, soon. Either with Candlepoint, or with the Greensoil Republic over control of that city.” The Baroness asked, “What would it take to convince you that being impartial in the face of the coming atrocity would be the wrong move? What would it take for you to choose to help and protect those who need protecting? Money and power are obviously not your wants, but if you wish to be left alone to help others, or granted a leadership position in the Magisterium, we are prepared to offer such, and much more.” She stressed, “Archmage Flatt. Erick. Our entire nation, over three million souls, is still trying to recover from the last time a Converter Angel was loosed upon our lands. We need your help.”

Erick did not expect his meeting with the Baroness to turn so heavy. Maybe he should have.  

She continued, “I have more than enough power to assure you that you would never be used as a wartime asset. Defensive measures only. But if you are worried of being human in a land of incani, in a few years, you might be able to gain an incani [Polymorph] form in the natural, non-hunter way, of living with us, and experiencing the beauty of our land and our people.” She added, “But you have power, Archmage Flatt. Power never before seen—”

“In months, Particle Mage will be open in the Script. So will [Call Lightning], and [Exalted Storm Aura]. And [Withering]. You don’t need me. I am not going to be a part of your war.”

Zago said, “You assured me that you would be there to help against the Converter Angel. Did you lie?”

Erick turned and stared at Zago, completely unprepared for her to say such a thing.

The Baroness said, “I doubt any of your spells would be released in the Script how you think they will.”

Erick turned back to the Baroness. “… What?”

“Your Class, Erick. That thing to which all else is attached.”  

“We are not on a first name basis, Baroness.”

Zago looked away.  

The Baroness continued, undeterred, “We doubt more than a handful of people will ever be able to gain Particle Mage.” She added, “Powerful Classes always have some sort of strange unlocking requirement. Witch, for Curse Magic. Spellthief, for Copy Magic. Dread Warrior. Fel Cutter. Time Mage. Rightful Heir, for those who would be Ruler. All of those are dangerous Classes, that if part of the Open Script, would spell doom for many people.  

“Particle Mage would no doubt become one of these special, hidden Classes.” She looked at Erick, and said, “You might be the only Particle Mage to ever exist. Therefore, your [Exalted Storm Aura] might be the only one to ever exist.” She looked up as Ophiel flew overhead, dragging with him a lake of thick air. She continued, “Your [Withering] will be lost, forever, if you do not teach people this magic; if you do not help others to gain this Class. And I don’t mean just one apprentice. I mean a school of your own, where you take the kids when they are young and you instruct them in your magic, and hopefully we can cleanse every single city on Veird of monsters, before moving on to the wilder, darker spaces of this world. 

“I can make that happen for you.” She said, “If you want to support children gaining power, knowing that they will use that power properly, then let me sponsor you, so that you can do what is right and good for the world, without worrying about the safety of the children in a rough city like Spur—”

“I know I am spied upon quite a bit, but this is a bit much.”

The Baroness sat straight, and said, “War is coming. The time for subtlety and hiding the full extent of one’s power is quickly coming to a close.”

Erick said, “I just got notifications for two Puppet Masters in your city.” While the Baroness’s eyes went wide, and intent radiated from her head, Erick continued, “And you might be right. It might be naive to think that I can avoid whatever Quiet War is brewing alongside the war coming against the Shades, but I’m going to try.” He added, “I don’t know what a Converter Angel is supposed to look like or be, but I promised to help, so I will. If it ever appears, just let me know. Most things die to a few lightning bolts, anyway.”

“You are a poor fighter, archmage Flatt. I don’t need you on a battlefield. I need you in a classroom. You can help by teaching students, hand-picked for their virtue and desire to help the world.”

Erick said, “If I didn’t know any better, I would take you up on that offer. But I am done here. Thank you for the tea and the hospitality.” He said, “I’ll leave Ophiel rushing around for however long you need and inform you of the larger kills when they happen.” He added, “As for payment, I want you to give me a letter of introduction to the Magisterium so I won’t be touched while I clear out the majority of the mimics behind their ‘Wall’.”

“I will have your letter drafted at once, and I will pay for this service today in the usual manner.”

Erick said, “Don’t worry about the payment this time. This is a gift. We all have to stick together in the coming war.”

“Nonsense. I will pay the same price as before; the rads within the monsters slain.”

“I will not accept your payment. This a gift.”

The Baroness smiled gently, but her voice was solid and full of promise, as she said, “Then I accept your gift. I hope to return such an act of kindness when I am in a position to do so.”

Suddenly, Erick felt as though he had made a mistake. Had Zago talked up the Wasteland custom of giving gifts and demanding debt, in order for this meeting with the Baroness to happen exactly as it had? Did Erick play this right?

Obviously, getting into debt with someone was one way for a relationship to continue. Ostensibly, that relationship could continue in a positive manner, if all parties agreed to such an arrangement. But it was a relationship with one hand open and inviting, and the other holding a dagger.  

Maybe.

Erick had to read up on Wasteland customs more. He even had a little green book back home that might have the proper answer. He had read the The Foreigner Mage before, of course, but maybe it was time to sit down and read it again, before he went to the Magisterium.  

Erick nodded once, preparing to blip away, as he said, “Contact Poi when you no longer need my spellwork—”  

“Before you go.” The Baroness lost some of her regalness, saying, “Understand that we, the Wasteland Kingdoms, are trying to win you over to our side with candy and kindness.” Her voice turned adamantine again, as she said, “If you would like to know what the knife looks like, it would be us leaking to the Greensoil Republic that you have already agreed to help kill the Converter Angel. In such an event, we would strive to help you kill it when it came for you first, and we would help to defend you from the Republic’s assassins, but it would be much more difficult and taxing for everyone involved.” She stressed, “Whatever decision you make, I urge you not to go to Frontier in person. It is entirely possible that this theoretical Converter Angel already knows that you have entered into an informal contract to help kill it. It might be waiting for you there.”  

Erick listened. He did not respond. What could he have said to that? He blipped away.  

Poi followed, on his own. Zago remained.

- - - -

Sirocco waited to give her report. She watched as Pirazel also waited.

After several moments, a woman with grey skin, wearing black and gold mage regalia, stepped out of nothing, onto the steps of the gazebo. She said, “We are alone, Baroness.”

Sirocco bowed her head to Pirazel, saying, “Baroness.”

“Pah!” Pirazel flicked a dismissive hand, saying, “Raise your head, Sirocco. You did well, given the circumstances. The Kingdoms wish you could have more time, but if a Converter Angel truly exists, then we don’t have years.”  

“The Angel is troubling news indeed.” Sirocco asked, “Have there been any overt signs, yet?”

“None. The first we have heard of it was the listing in Candlepoint.” Pirazel said, “I was ready to be mad at you for stressing that Flatt could send his [Familiar] to deal with the mimics past the Wall, but this is likely the better course of action. Slower and steady is better than throwing him into those vipers at the Magisterium before he is ready.”

“I am grateful for your kind words.”

Pirazel continued, “Silverite was as cordial as ever to my questions and demands, but she is the same adventurer-turned-ruler that she has always been. Always more concerned with individual rights than what is good for the rest of us.” She asked, “Tell me, how has your experience been with your ‘Mayor’ since last we spoke?”

Sirocco, ever deferential, said, “If I push any further with Erick, it does not matter how well I run the Guild, or that there is no one to replace me. I will be exiled.” She added, “If Erick speaks unkindly, I might already be exiled.”

“She might be crude and dangerous, but she has been at this for a lot longer than any of us. I doubt she would upset her house when we are so close to one of those fabled Shade Wars you read in the history books. You have done enough pushing, for now.” She asked, “Enlighten me, is that imaging of his truly not blood magic?”

“Though it uses biological material to search, it has none of the telltale markers of blood magic. No ritual bloodletting. No sacrifice. No pain or death or coercion involved at all, and no lasting effects, either. I’m sure a specific kind of [Ward] would block it, but I am unaware what kind. [Weather Ward] does not work, and neither do any of the other usual ones. But the most telling aspect of [Cascade Imaging] as non-blood magic, is that he can target other active magic and display it on the map.”  

“Bloody archmages. They make everything so much more complicated than it has to be.”

Sirocco nodded, and continued, “My best guess is that he is targeting lineage markers long suspected to exist, but never found. Or at least never written down for the rest of us. He must know what those markers are, at their very core.”  

Pirazel turned to the black and gold mage.  

The woman said, “Likely true. It did not look like blood magic to me, either.” She added, “Find a Mind Mage willing to flip and you’ll find the deeper truth. It might be worth it. If you could find leverage enough to use on this Poi fellow, you would find more answers about the nature of Reality than you knew what to do with.”

“No. Great Aunt Herie went up against the Mind Mages and lost everything that mattered. We will not be pursing that option.” Pirazel turned back to Sirocco. “Let me take the blame for calling his spell blood magic if it is prudent to do so, and if he even understands the depth of the insult I gave him, but don’t work him too roughly. We have put him on edge, and too much of an edge can make a knife cut strange. Whatever the case, hopefully he keeps that attitude of gift giving. That attitude will serve him well in the Magisterium.” She added, “Dismissed.”

Sirocco nodded, saying, “Baroness.”

- - - -

Erick blipped back home, next to the couch of the sunroom.  

“Fucking shit god damn Quiet War bullshit—”

Poi blipped into the sunroom, on the other side.

Erick asked, “Not go to Frontier? Really?”

“It might be a good precaution.” Poi said, “You don’t have to physically deal with any of these people.”

“Is Zago a part of Spur, or an arm of Kal’Duresh?”

Poi frowned a little, and said nothing.

Erick mocked, “Fucking shit, Poi. Are you or are you not supposed to be looking out for me?”

Poi instantly answered, “I am. But it’s more complicated than—”

“Just tell me the truth!”

Poi seemed to break a little. He said, “I can’t.”

“… Fine.” Erick said, “Then tell me… Is it a breach of security to trust Zago for anything?”

After a moment, Poi said, “Your question is too broad.”

“Okay. I can work with that.” Erick asked, “Am I in danger if I go to the Magisterium?”

“… Still too broad.”  

Erick tried to be understanding, but all he could remember were all the times Poi went silent, or said nothing. Poi had never endangered anyone with his silence, and he had always spoken up when security concerns were raised, but talking to the man was like pulling teeth, and Erick had had enough.  

Erick asked, “Why is it like this, Poi? Are you never allowed to just give an honest opinion, based on the facts you see? Just tell me, please! Is Zago a liability?”

“The facts I see are not—” Poi stopped himself.  

Erick waited. Moments passed in silence.  

Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside, drawing closer. Erick turned away from Poi, to see who it was, when the footsteps stopped at the archway to the room. Kiri stood there.

“I couldn’t help but overhear.”

Erick asked, “What do you think, Kiri?”

Kiri said, “Every time a Mind Mage speaks of what they see among their allies, nothing good ever comes from that information. Some people call it the Curse of Mentality. Relationships break, and they break hard, fracturing in horrible, unforeseen directions.”

Poi was stone-silent, as he gazed off to the side, into nowhere.  

“An actual curse?” Erick decided, “Then let’s break it.”  

Poi looked up to Erick, hopeful and despairing at the same time.  

Erick asked, “What do you need?”

Kiri continued, “It’s not… It’s not a real curse. It’s just what always happens. I just called it that because it seemed right...” She offered, “But you can talk to me, if you want?”

Erick sighed. “That’d be nice, and maybe you should come with me to the lesser threatening areas, but you can’t help with this. You weren’t there.”

“True.” Kiri said, “But you could tell me what happened.”

Erick looked to his apprentice. She seemed resolute; she wanted to help.  

Erick said, “Okay.” He said to Poi, “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

Poi smiled a little, then said, “Thank you.”

Erick plopped down onto the couch, and began, “It started with Sirocco, when we went up into her office so she could tell me about the Magisterium...”

Kiri sat down on the other couch, and listened. Poi silently watched. Erick talked.

When it was over, Kiri said, “The Quiet War is shit and you need to stay away from all sides. Don’t go to Frontier. Don’t go to Kal’Duresh ever again. In fact! All politics are shit out here in the wilds! This isn’t the Republic, and it certainly isn’t the Kingdoms, and it doesn’t need to be! Don’t even talk to Guildmaster Zago if you don’t want to, since apparently she needs to be out of a job as soon as possible.”  

Erick sighed, saying, “I’m not going to get her fired.”

“I doubt you even could, but that’s your choice.” Kiri said, “Whatever the case, we’re in an emergency, and you’re an archmage. Just send Ophiel over there to the Kingdoms if you want and clear out as many mimics as you can. Go crazy! Prove to them that you have power, and you’re not afraid to use it.” She added, “I’d really like to know what that ‘hydrogen bomb’ spell of yours looks like when cast on twenty mimics across twenty kilometers. Probably loud enough to hear for a hundred kilometers.”

Erick chuckled. “Thank you. That helped put a lot of things into the right perspective.”  

Poi spoke up, “Please don’t go over there in any way, shape, or form, without clearing your actions through the proper channels.”

Kiri demanded to know, “Why! All they’ll do is use him, Poi!” She said, “I’m still mad at Sizzi.” Kiri added, “I grilled her after you and Zago went away. Apparently that uncle she spoke of was in debt for a loan he was swindled into by some peon in their bureaucracy. Hearing what you just said about debt being a way of life over there, I simultaneously don’t understand how anyone could be stupid enough— Oh. No. That’s not what happened.” She paused in thought. She said, “I didn’t see it before, but the way Sizzi said it…  Her uncle wasn’t stupid enough to get into debt that he couldn’t repay. He knew he could repay it, by getting Sizzi to spill. Maybe he tried already with Zago— No. As a guildmaster, she’s socially out of his range...” Kiri added, “Debt is much more clear cut in the Republic. If you’re stupid enough to get into debt, they take you for all you’re worth. You don’t have time to make plots to get out of it; you either go to the mines, or they put a bounty on your head.”

Poi went back to what he had said before, by repeating, “You still need to clear your actions with someone before you cast widespread magics on foreign soil.”

Erick asked, “I want to speak to Silverite. Is she able to talk?”

Poi looked to the air. After a moment, he said, “In five minutes, for ten minutes.”

- - - -

Erick blipped directly into Silverite’s office, alone. She was at her desk with five open books and an open notebook in front of her, a pen in her hand, and a good seven lines of intent flowing from her head, into the manasphere. She glanced at Erick, at his arrival, but continued to scratch at the notebook. Erick waited.  

After a moment, five lines of intent flickered and snapped. Silverite turned her attention to Erick. “What is wrong?”

“I need to know if I need Zago in order to help the Kingdoms with their mimic problem.”

Silverite set her pen down. She composed herself, with a straight back and an even gaze, as she asked, “Have you caught wind of a Wasteland plot against you, or any other humans?”

“Not… as… such. No—” Erick said, “I just don’t like— Look. I’m not going to speak ill of her. I like her. I like how she is with magic, and absolutely everything else… Everything else that is not Kingdom related.”

“Good. Because I don’t have time for whatever is going on here.”  

“… I would appreciate a little bit of time, seeing as how I plan to be a part of your war effort whenever the time comes.”

“Fair.” Silverite said, “Then let me explain something to you, Erick. Guildmaster Zago is a known entity, who tries to keep her people safe and strong. Most of the time, Zago’s actions are good for Spur. Some of the time, her actions are good for the Kingdoms. Most of the time, these two events are in accordance. Most of the time, she even reigns in the darker tendencies of some of her people. Bulgan was a man that got away from us all, and it would behoove you to understand that if Zago would have known about any one of his later actions, she would have put a stop to him. Usually, she manages to keep the Quiet War very quiet in my city, which is about the best I can hope for.” She stared at Erick, saying, “So that little spat you pulled in the war room was very unkind.  

“If you had come in here disparaging her, I would be very cross with you. But believe me when I say that she is walking many fine lines from several different sources, the Magisterium, Kal’Duresh, more than a few Kingdoms, the Wall, and let’s not forget Spur, so let’s not get too upset when she pulls for the side that has kept her safe from assassinations, and provides her with the resources necessary to keep Spur running and prosperous.”

“… Assassinations?”

“Of course! She is an incani is a position of great influence in a neutral land ruled by physical power, more than breeding, or birthright, or even bureaucracy. Her station as guildmaster here has long been a threat to others. When Viscount Andro Helix first came to power years ago, he tried to kill her. It failed, obviously.” Silverite added, “And then, most recently in the Red Dot attack, both her and Mog were subjected to Caradogh Pogi’s strongest hunters, because the two of them are irreplaceable to Spur’s good health. They survived that, too. The point is, is that they have survived some of the worst this world can throw at them, and as such, I keep them happy, and try to overlook their eccentricities, as long as they don’t get too out of hand.”

Erick suddenly felt very foolish for thinking that he knew anything about anyone. He said, “This is why archmages hide, isn’t it.”

Silverite nodded. “Like many archmages before you, you are basically a commoner who has managed to eke out a vast amount of power for themselves. Unlike many archmages, you remain in the public eye, and you continue to accrue physical power. This has elevated you to a station far higher than most could ever hope for, where the people with political and social power play dangerous games around each other, in order to keep civilization running as well as it can.”  

“… Do you have any advice to survive the politics? To survive Zago?” Erick said, “I’m not going into hiding.”

“Glad to hear that.” She said, “This is my first piece of advice: repair and work on maintaining friendly relations with Sirocco, but when it comes to the Kingdoms, treat her as a member of the Kingdoms, first, and a citizen of Spur, second. Other than that, she is a good friend to have.”

Erick packed that information away, wondering if he could actually see Zago like that.  

He instantly decided that he could. He wasn’t some fresh-faced kid—

Okay. Maybe he looked like he was some fresh-faced kid, but he was not.  

“As for dealing with the Kingdoms, specifically?” Silverite said, “Stay away from formal contracts of any sort, but you’ve already entered into an informal contract to kill the Converter Angel when it appears, so you’ll have to do that.”

Erick thought back to what the Baroness had told him, as he asked, “Has it really appeared?”

“I don’t know, but I do know that it’s on Candlepoint’s quest board. Baroness Pirazel Xelxex recently told me some of her own theories regarding that, and that quest board might be a true reflection of what is out there in the world… or it might not.”

Erick quickly considered how to find the Converter Angel before they could kill anyone...  

A Kill and Exterminate Quest, perhaps? But a quarter of a million people had to die in Odaali before Atunir released that Quest, and Erick had to identify exactly how the Halls of the Dead had done the deed, too. His wild guess had been correct, though. The Kill and Exterminate Quest went out right after, and pinging that quest showed the direction toward the three creators of the Daydropper, and the nearest vines, too.

He almost asked Silverite why anyone had to die, at all, for Koyabez to get off his ass and do the same sort of Kill and Exterminate Quest, but he reframed his question at the last moment, asking, “Is there some way to short-cut the normal route of people having to die before one of those divine Kill Quests goes out?”

“That won’t happen, here.”  

Erick blanked. Stuck between furious and disbelief, he asked, “What! Why?”

Silverite frowned, but not at Erick. She said, “Koyabez can’t give out those kinds of quests since it directly impacts the interests of the demons or the angels, and those forces have other divine allies that would block—”

“That is cowshit!”

“I know! Believe me… I know.” Silverite said, “But if the problem gets large enough, a Champion of Koyabez might appear. It has happened before. I’ve met three in my lifetime. If it does happen, than they can call for a Pacification Quest, and then lead a force to return the soldiers of Celes back to their moon.”

Erick ruminated on that thought for a moment, forcing his anger to go away. He said, “Fine.”

“But your outburst there is a good segue back to the main topic. It is a much smaller concern than the Domains of the Divine and how they war and block and cooperate with each other, but much more poignant to our current circumstances. You seem to do alright with normal, small politics, but when murder is involved, when nations are involved, you fail, and you fail hard, if this is what you do when you realize that Sirocco has interests outside of Spur. Make no mistake, Erick, what is coming down the road from Ar’Kendrithyst will have us working with murderers and killers of all sorts, some of whom probably killed the parents of the others.”

“Has that really happened to you?”

“Yes. It did. That was not a pleasant year.” Silverite continued, “But anyway: it takes nobles ten years of schooling and a lifetime of exposure to Polite Society to get this kind of stuff right, and some of them never do. I’ve had to learn the law of ten different lands, the bureaucracy to match, the lineages and children and offshoots of great houses, and how to make a trade deal, and how to end a war before it began, because Polite Society is the name of the game everywhere except here in the Crystal Forest.  

“Even though I have been the Mayor of Spur for 550 years, I’m only halfway decent at it, because almost everyone still sees me as an uncouth upstart adventurer that only got as far as I have because I refuse to die.” She stressed, “As long as you can manage that last part, most people in charge will never see you as more than some upstart archmage from another world, no matter what you accomplish.  

“So, with that in mind. I don’t think you should even try to play the political game. Not right now, anyway.  

“And… I would absolutely never say this to anyone else… But don’t worry too much about Polite Society. Almost all of them aren’t worth shit compared to those who live out here, on the front lines. So have some more fun, Erick, and don’t care about politics and making everyone happy so much. Sure, some people are out to kill you, but that’s true of everyone in your position.

“If I had any real advice for you, it would be this: Go ahead and damage your relationships with people outside of Spur, if you want, but strive to keep people like Guildmaster Zago in your good graces, because she certainly will be trying to do the same with you.  

“You have power. Power that you gained through your own strength of will and knowledge that no one else has ever possessed, and your benevolent attitude. You’re expected to be eccentric and kooky, and people will work with that. Work the angles presented to you, and you’ll find a lot more people are willing to give you a lot more leeway than you ever thought possible.” She asked, “I bet you never thought twice about Mog or Sirocco talking to you like an equal, have you?”

She called Mog, ‘Mog’, but Zago by her first name of ‘Sirocco’? Had he been calling Mog by her first name this whole time? Erick filed that thought away for later, as he tried to think about how he felt of his, apparently, casual disregard of… etiquette? Or something? He said, “No, I have not thought about that.”

“Exactly! In any other nation, you would be a slave to the people in charge, in all but name. You would run around, never knowing those who controled your life from all sides. But here, anyone can talk to Sirocco or Mog whenever they have a need, and all three of us are always in the public eye, taking care of problems as fast as we can! We have some regard for bureaucracy because you can’t have a government without it, but the point still stands: we’re much more relaxed out here. So remember: You’re an adventurer, and those people in the safer parts of the world are just nobles squabbling with each other, inventing their own evils and killing each other for it, while we’re killing the real dangers before they can get too far.”  

Erick didn’t really know what to say about that, but he did feel better, in some strange way. Less burdened, perhaps.

She added, “And remember this, too: Spur and I have always led the main adventuring force against everything the Shades have ever done. When the time comes, you, Obsidian, Wave, and Opal, you four will be run ragged defending where you can, and evading when you can’t.” She said, “Life is short, Erick. I never expected to be Mayor of Spur for more than 5 years, and even though I’ve survived for a lot longer than that, I still make the best of it when I get a chance.  

“You’ll never know when you’ve seen your last sunrise.”

Erick smiled softly. “Thanks, Silverite.”

“Anytime.” She said, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work.”  

“Me too.”

- - - -

Erick sat on his couch in the sunroom, while the night sky twinkled outside, and the moons painted his dark garden in white, pink, and silver lights. He set down the small green book he had been reading; ‘The Foreigner Mage’. The book had been a farewell gift from Hocnihai, and he had read it before, but in light of recent events, the words in that small book had painted a more complete picture of Wasteland culture.  

It wasn’t a kind depiction, but it had gone into detail about the dangerous people to stay away from in the Wasteland; the answer was ‘everyone in a position of authority everywhere, but especially those of the Magisterium’. There was more to it than that, but when Erick read a caveat, snuck in after all the horrors of the previous sections about blood magic and curses and the various ways there were to take down a mage, that caveat said that if you were an invited mage of the Magisterium, then all you really had to worry about was getting screwed over in a business deal. If that happened, then all the other warnings applied.

What the green book said was more or less what Erick had already heard.

Paired with Silverite’s words, Erick felt a lot better about dealing with the Wasteland, and of dealing with Zago. He smiled into a cup of coftea, glad that the people around him were basically good people in bad situations, as he thought about his wants and his goals.  

Obviously, he wanted the Shades dead. That was the long term goal. If this Candlepoint business went the way everyone thought it was going to go, then the Shades would get pushed back to Ar’Kendrithyst, and that would be that.  

But that wasn’t good enough for Erick.  

Maybe he could get the Wasteland to work for a more permanent solution?

Silverite had been wrong about one thing: Erick was not some uneducated non-political person. He just had a point of view that was wildly different than everyone else’s, and he had yet to fully absorb all the new ideas in all various new cultures and lands and people all around him. But he was learning!  

If people expected him to be a bit of a kook, then he could work that—

Poi spoke from the side of the room. “Sir. Sorry to interrupt. Kal’Duresh is finished. Frontier wishes to host you while you work on them, next. Guildmaster Zago wants to know when you’ll be ready to go to the Magisterium.”

“I’m sorry I snapped earlier at you, Poi. I know you’re under some stress from being a Mind Mage, but I didn’t know how bad it actually was.”

Poi startled, his eyes going wide as his poise broke. He quickly found himself, and stood straight to say, “Thank you, but there is no need to apologize. We’re all under some uncommon stress, at the moment.”

“Even so: sorry.” Erick continued, “To answer the other concerns: I will not be [Withering] Frontier in person. Please inform them that too many things are happening all at once, and I… I’m busy? That’s sort of the truth.” He added, “But the truth is, is that I just found out that Frontier tried to kill Sirocco years ago, and that doesn’t sit well with me. I’m not going to the Magisterium, either. Please inform Sirocco that Ophiel will journey with her, when she is ready to depart.”

Poi said, “As you wish.” After a moment, Poi said, “Zago will be ready in five minutes. She will depart from the war room.” After another moment, he said, “Frontier accepts. They have already readied their city. You may send Ophiel whenever.”

Erick briefly reached out to the Ophiel over Kal’Duresh. With a command, of the six of them on site, four blipped over to Frontier; from the white, pearly mountain, far from the Shades, to a stone castle town, south of Ar’Kendrithyst, where every building had walls wide enough to stop a vast majority of destructive magics. Erick’s [Familiar]s began dropping minor oceans of thick air on the thick down. Notifications began to rain.

He sent the other two Ophiel blipping toward the Wall. Erick conjured the remaining four Ophiel, bringing his squad up to the full 10. They hung out in the sunroom for now, whistling to each other, excited to see new sights.  

When Sirroco introduced Erick to the Magisterium, through Ophiel, he would send these over.

But while he waited for her to get ready, he asked Poi, “What’s with the Puppet Masters? I’ve read about them, but never killed any. I thought the Mind Mages took care of that?”

Poi frowned. He said, “I’ve already informed my people. I can’t… I can’t really tell you much, except that the problem is being solved as we speak.”

At that, Erick had a thought. Hours ago, he had seen an image of the faux Adventurer’s Guildhouse in Candlepoint. That image, along with many others taken from different parts of the shadeling town, were all on all the viewing screens he had seen before, in the war room. That experience, taken with the location map of Candlepoint he had also seen in the war room, was enough for a [Scry] to accurately land where he wanted.  

[Scry].

Erick’s sight landed in a large, bright room, with white stone walls, and pillars, and nice wooden furniture. It looked like the foyer of an expensive hotel. People were there, but almost all of them were shadelings; behind the sign-up counter, or manning the rad turn-in area, or standing beside the Quest Board. Erick could tell they were shadelings mainly by their dark eyes. The other people in the room were incani, and humans, and orcols, and dragonkin. No wrought, though. The people talked with the shadelings; some of those people were guarded, with hands itching to fight, some were pleasant, maybe putting on a brave face, or maybe not.

Erick had [Scry]ed into the main lobby of Candlepoint’s Adventurer’s Guildhouse.  

He half-expected the shadelings to turn and stare at the [Scry] eye, but none of them did. There were lots of [Scry] eyes all around Erick, anyway, so what was one more added to the cloud of eyes hovering above everyone?

They were all looking at more or less the same thing, too. The Quest Board. More than a few people down below were staring at the board, too. It was dense with writing, listing every single monster Erick had ever encountered, and a hundred more besides, on little stone bricks that could be moved around as needed. The bricks were organized by reward cost first, and alphabetically second, with the larger rewards at the top of the board. As Erick watched, and read, a shadeling to the side of the board moved a few bricks around, and added more.

There were no shadowolves or slimes on this list. It was filled with the names of every single major monster Erick had ever killed, and many, many more besides that. Wyrms; 1 chip. Umbral Leviathans, 2 chips. Those balloon-like Blood Cloud monsters he had Withered out of the sky that one time; 1 chip per twenty. The Devil Dog that Erick had to kill for Mog while he was at Oceanside; 3 chips. Puppet Masters and Minds were worth 4 chips and 2 chips, respectively. Unicorn was there, but no Ancient Unicorn, like the one Jane had killed. There were more than a few other ‘Ancients’ on the list, though. Ancient Stone Elemental. Ancient Rivergrieve, whatever that was. 5 chips. Toxic Hydras— Oh. There was the Desert Rose that never appeared like everyone thought it would. Maybe it was active right now? And it was worth 3 darkchips?  

An archmage level threat was only worth three darkchips? Eh. Erick didn’t know about these numbers...

Whatever the case, Ramizi might like to know that his Rose was out there—

There it was. Converter Angel. 10 chips. Near the top of the board, between Ancient Rivergrieve, and Ballooning Spider Horde.   

Erick came back to himself, sitting in the sunroom, shivering at the thought of a ballooning spider horde. And then his thoughts turned to the angel. He glanced at the night, outside the window. Maybe the angel really was out there? Maybe it was already mutating souls into nascent angels; into soldiers for Celes, and the Celestial Host? That’s what Converter Angels did, if he recalled correctly.  

Poi said, “Guildmaster Zago is ready.”

Erick nodded. He sent an Ophiel blipping to the war room.  

Sirocco immediately locked eyes on Ophiel, then softened to a controlled smile. She stood near the longtable, wearing immaculate, deeply purple mage robes hemmed in silver flourishes. Blue gems adorned her horns and her hands. Most of those gems had to be for show, because they were set in silver and cut to reflect brilliance, while two plain iron and silver sphere rings adorned her hands, and Erick’s rings did not play well with other enchantments.  

Erick spoke through Ophiel, “I can make you better rings than whatever you have there. You might need them, going forward.”

Sirocco softened into a real smile for a split moment, her eyes joining in the emotion, briefly. Then she switched to all business. “I accept. But not right now. We are expected.”

Poi’s voice came to him, ‘Viscount Helix is demanding your attention.’

“Apologies, Sirocco. One second.” Erick then sent to Poi, ‘Patch him in.’

As Sirocco nodded, slightly perturbed, Poi did as requested. Erick quickly felt another presence enter his thoughts.

‘Archmage Flatt! We have prepared a small get together for you. Would you reconsider your absence?  Could you come in person?’

‘Apologies, Viscount.’ Erick sent, ‘We are in a minor war already, and I cannot spare the time right now. I will take you up on that offer some other day. Please let Poi know when you want Ophiel to stop his spells.’

‘…Very well. I look forward to hosting you another day.’ The Viscount’s voice felt tainted with barely-there acid, as he sent, ‘Do be careful over there in the Wasteland. They’re slavers to their own kin, you know. They’d do the same to you, if you have them half the chance.’

‘I am well aware of the dangers. Thank you for looking out for me.’ He cut the connection, and returned his attention to Sirroco, speaking through Ophiel, “I’m ready. I have a fun spell that I’ve been itching to try, too.”

“I look forward to seeing it.” Sirocco gestured to an open space on the floor of the war room. A violet disk of light sprang into being. Ophiel followed her onto the disk, Erick keeping his form to a mere two meter height, but with thin wings; he was not much larger than a person. She asked, “Ready?”

“Ready.”

The world blipped violet once, and stars filled the sky. Another blip, and the night sky was gone.  

A cathedral of silver and stone soared in all directions, with carved metal pillars, surrounding hollow glass cores, holding up the dazzling mosaics above. Silver fire flickered in long ribbons of light inside those glass pillars. There were no true shadows in this place of metal and magnificence.   

Three people stood in the otherwise-empty room, maybe five meters from Sirocco’s landing spot.  

Two of the people looked like guards, but really expensive and competent guards. They wore robes similar to Sirocco’s, but maybe a little less ornate, and with gold flourishes on the purple cloth, instead of silver. But the guy in the center wore robes made of purple and gold, in a fifty-fifty ratio, filled with stars and serpents, fire and air, magic and more; the center guy’s robes were a work of art. He was a man of average height and maybe a bit skinny, with a drawn face and thin horns. As he saw Ophiel, whatever kindness might have been on his face, vanished.  

Sirocco stepped forward, off the platform, saying, “Magister Iordex. Good of you to meet us.”  

“If you would call it as such!” Iordex said, building up steam. “I should have just sent my [Familiar], too… No.” He dispelled whatever anger washed over him, composing his stance and his words, to say, “No matter. We have work to do.”

Erick spoke through Ophiel, saying, “I’m here to help. This infestation needs to get gone, so we can focus on the more important problems.”

Iordex gave a dismissive nod, saying, “I agree.” He said, “Now display for me the spell you will be using, and give me a brief overview of how it works.”

If Iordex wanted to play that sort of game, Erick could, too.

He put a bit of disappointment in his voice, and said, “You don’t know what it says? What it does?” Erick added, “Besides. That seems in poor taste. I’ll be using a great many spells to do what needs to be done. It’s almost like you don’t trust me.” Erick certainly didn’t trust Iordex right now; that’s why he was there in Ophiel, instead of in person. To hopefully illustrate that point, Erick fluffed out Ophiel’s wings a little. He continued, “But if you’re just asking for information, that will cost you.”

Iordex’s stance solidified; he totally understood what Erick meant by fluffing out Ophiel’s wings. He narrowed his eyes, as he asked, “How much?”

“Unspecified favors to be returned at a later date.” Erick added, “In addition to the balance of debt you already owe, due to my open and honest lecture on Particle Magic with Archmage Hocnihai.” He continued, “In addition to the rads of the mimics I kill tonight.”

Iordex said, “We will not take on more ‘unspecified favors’, therefore we do not require the spell knowledge; use whatever magic you deem necessary. And if you want to collect all those rads, go ahead. When we take to the field to make sure that you got all of them, then we will collect what remains for ourselves.”

“Then you can do that, and send me half.” Erick said, “That will be the payment I require for tonight’s service. Outside of this agreement, I will leave up a [Cascade Imaging] for you, in the center of the infestation, tracked onto any mimics, so that you may easily collect the ones I miss.”

Iordex seemed to wrestle with that idea for a moment, but it was entirely possible that it was all a show, and he was ecstatic that Erick had bargained for that little. There was a risk in leaving [Cascade Imaging] up in the middle of not-friendly territory, but Erick had already displayed the spell way more than that when he was imaging the whole of the Crystal Forest for hunters, and for the Hand, and for Caradogh. The Magisterium had probably already gotten a great big eyeful of that particular spell.  

… But this time they would know what Erick was searching for, and they could test various [Ward]s to see what blocked it?  

… Maybe he had made a mistake, but the words had already been said.  

Iordex said, “Agreed.”

Let the chips fall where they may. Erick asked, “Where is the center of the infestation?”

Iordex swept a hand through the air, conjuring a map, alongside a compass rose. The map was even labeled. The Wall was a line on the west, stretching a thousand kilometers from mountains to the ocean, and dotted with settlements and cities. Aside from the Wall, the only other large structure on the map was a river, labeled on the map as ‘The Grace’, just under a thousand kilometers from the Wall. Erick had read about that river. The Grace was like the Mississippi; it was the lifeblood for the Kingdoms, a waterway that connected every city to each other, that provided a mostly-safe road through the great forests and toxic swamps and poison bogs that composed the majority of the Wasteland.

Erick briefly looked over the rest of the map, before focusing on a red rash-like structure next to the Wall. The red blemish was spread out over maybe five hundred kilometers. It had already surrounded a few settlements, too.

Oh. This was much worse than Erick thought. How had it gotten this bad?

So Erick asked, “How did it get this bad? How long has it been?”

Iordex sighed out, “Three days. Three very long days.” He said, “Mimics go crazy when they see green life. When they’ve been exposed to greenery for as long as they have been… it gets worse. Everything about them multiples. Their levels go up, sometimes double. They double in size. You get red ones every thousand mimics, instead of every ten thousand.” He gestured to the settlement deepest in the red, saying, “This town is gone. It was to be the centerpoint of a spearhead against the plague, but the mimics crashed through the walls.”  

“They can do that? Get larger and break walls, I mean?”

“Not normally.”

“But surely, if it was your spearhead… then how were your powerful, hopefully flying mages, able to be killed by grounded monsters?”

Iordex frowned at the map. He remained silent.  

Erick guessed, “Either you’re not sure, which is bad, or you do know, and you can’t say for fear of… something?”  

Iordex asked, “Do you need assistance to get to the center of the infestation?”

He wasn’t going to answer that question, was he? No matter; Erick wasn’t on-site, anyway.”

“No. I guess not.” Erick said, “One more question: How about putting up another wall; some small thing that would stop the mimics for now? Maybe twenty meters high? A double-sized mimic is still only fifteen meters tall, at the most, right? Does that not work, either?”

Iordex frowned. “I cannot answer that question, because I don’t know. That was the original tactic. It failed. Somehow.” He added, “We’re still trying to understand how it failed.” He continued, “We have records of this sort of mimic infestation occurring before, during the Fracturing Wars, but those records have not prepared us for the current crisis. Suffice it to say, that they were not able to stop them back then, but the Grace is twenty kilometers wide at its thinnest; that was enough to halt their advance. Hopefully, we don’t have to rely on that final fallback; it would mean a million homeless, if they could even get away before the mimics came.”

“I’ll head over there now.” Erick added, “But you need to make sure that there are no people in those lands. I’m going to be using a semi-sentient wave of [Withering] in addition to the Domain, and that one will travel erratically until it runs out of duration. If any people in the area of effect have intestinal rads, then they will be targeted by the spell.”

“We will not hold you responsible for such an event.”

“It’s not about being responsible!” Erick suddenly felt a chill. “I don’t want it to happen!”

“Your concern is admirable, but misplaced.” Iordex said, “These monsters have already killed thousands and will kill even more. Now please, dispense with these words and help.”

“… Okay.”  

Iordex said nothing more, and Sirocco hadn’t said a single word during the whole exchange, so Erick blipped away; to work.  

Somewhere in all of that, Erick wondered when he had started to mentally refer to Zago by her first name of ‘Sirocco’.  

… It was before that meeting, after speaking to Silverite, somewhere in reading ‘The Foreigner Mage’. Sirocco had split loyalties, and that was fine. She was who she had to be in order to survive.  

Erick would do the same.  

And right now, the needs of everyone in this room were in accordance. Erick needed the Wasteland Kingdom to not have this great tragedy tear them apart. They needed to be whole, not only for their own sake, but for the good of the world. The Kingdoms would likely play a great part in the coming conflict with Ar’Kendrithyst and Candlepoint.

Erick briefly came back to himself, back in Spur, in the sunroom. The four-pointed Silver Star of Koyabez, pinned to his shirt, had felt weird. He looked down at his now. It was flickering tiny fragments of divine fire into the air. For the briefest of moments, Erick was worried, but then he relaxed. The pin felt good, somehow, like a warmth that was not a warmth, but more a feeling of contentment made into an etheric manifestation. He wasn’t exactly sure what it meant, but it seemed good.

- - - -

The Longshadow bog, according to Iordex’s map, was supposed to be right under Ophiel. It was supposed to be a place of tall trees and heavy moss and deceptively deep waters, where only the foolish sought to tread, and a wrong step would send you plummeting down into waiting schools of sharptooth, or to drown as the land closed up above you.  

What it was right now, under the light of the moons and a few wide-angle spotlights Erick had trained on particularly active looking sections of land, and as far as he could see in every moonlit direction, was a land of mimics that were methodically, and crazily, ripping apart every tree, pulling up all the green moss that made the water look solid to walk upon, and devouring everything in sight. Fish went into crystal gullets. Branches went into crystal gullets. Particularly mossy rocks went into crystal gullets. Tree trunks and entire root systems, yanked from the ground in cooperative efforts, got devoured by schools of swarming, glittering crystal mimics.  

As Erick watched, two fifteen meter tall ruby mimics crunched into the throng below, to attack a thirty meter tall, five-meter wide cypress-looking tree that the rest were unable to crunch. The reds, with crystalline spike arms, began gouging huge rents in the dense wood. It sounded like metal striking metal. It took the reds thirty seconds to tear down the tree. When they were done, they ate little of their kill; they moved on to the next major target and left the tree to their smaller brethren. Those smaller brethren gnawed on the dense wood like lions trying to eat an elephant.  

… I hope Domain actually works against the larger ones.

This was the leading edge of the swarm. It stretched out all around the entire infestation, as a 20 kilometer thick band of way too many mimics. Further east, the bog was still intact, and animals were running and swimming away, trying to outpace the horde. To the west, where the mimics had been, there were still some stragglers, cleaning up the smaller bits of greenery that the frontline had forgotten. Erick had hoped that he would only need to really worry about killing the front line, but those stragglers were still such in number that they were five times as dense as the mimics surrounding Spur. Maybe more.

But what was most disturbing, was that every single mimic seemed to have an active part to play in ensuring the success of their attack. Blue and grey goo seeped from between their crystalline spike arms, forming smaller copies of themselves, that then went on to eat the green right alongside their parents.  

This was an ecological disaster unlike any Erick had ever really understood. This was a never ending tide. This was the true form of the Crystal Plague.  

… Time to work.

Five more Ophiel blipped in. Soon, all six Ophiel on scene were each riding their own [Teleporting Platform] imbued with a mostly full-strength [Prismatic Ward]. While Frontier was still taking their time clearing out their problems, Erick began organizing the Ophiel here in the Wasteland.  

He had already done the math. Each Ophiel’s version of [Domain of the Withering Slime] only covered a single cubic kilometer of space, but flying over the land at twenty five meter height, and the fact that the spell only filled a 10 meter layer of land with itself, meant that a single cubic kilometer covered just under 100 square kilometers of land, and with no shaping, it wouldn’t move much past a circle centered on the casting Ophiel.

100 square kilometers might have sounded like a lot, but that distance would get taken up rather quickly by dips and hills and caves and monsters taller than ten meters and a whole slew of nuances in the lay of the land. Spur was roughly 12 kilometers in diameter, which was an area of about 120 square kilometers, but that didn’t take into account the heights and depths involved. If it was Erick supplying multiple Domains to this land, his own modifiers would make math unnecessary, but this was Ophiel casting the spell, and therefore a plan was needed.

The roughly 500 kilometer by 400 kilometer space currently overrun by mimics translated into over 200,000 square kilometers of land, with great attention given to the leading edge, but no less than normal efforts necessary for the rest of the infestation. The leading edge was roughly 20 kilometers wide…

Erick put the math away for now. He knew what he had to do. He set his Ophiel five kilometers away from each other, well within the tolerances for the overlap of the spell, and 25 meters off of the ground, or close enough to there to not make much of a difference. He then stretched two lines of three Ophiel perpendicular to the leading edge, setting the one over the leading edge, in front of the leading edge. That would ensure that any mimics running ahead of the horde couldn’t get far.  

After each Ophiel regenerated a little bit of mana, in the Restful air of their [Prismatic Ward]s, it was time.  

 At once, while the moons lit the sky and mimics ripped the land apart, each Ophiel became a tiny Saturn. Thick, killing air, spilled out into the night.  

Mimics dried and died. Some instantly. Some taking longer than normal. Smaller red ones screamed and ran, while everyone died around them, but there was no where to run. They died, screaming, chittering, calling out into the night. It was a horrible sound, accented by the woosh of [Cleanse]s bursting out of the horde, disturbing the tsunami air that wrapped around them all.  

The larger red ones just tanked the spell.  

Erick had no idea how they did it. They just stood very still, and did nothing, while thick air tore at them, ripping out red water from their crystalline hides. But they didn’t seem to die. Or maybe it just took a while? Erick waited, not moving the Ophiel.

A minute passed. Too long. There were too many of these monsters, too much land to cover, to wait this long. Erick briefly lowered the nearest Ophiel into range of the nearest target, and cast, himself.

[Electrolysis Bomb].

As that Ophiel quickly retreated back to the sky, the large red mimic screamed out horrors as blood turned to protected air, and electricity flashed across fake crystal. After forty seconds, the second part of that spell triggered.

Hydrogen combined with oxygen in a conflagration that ignited the night briefly into day, and seemed to fill the world with noise. The nearest Ophiel’s [Prismatic Ward] cracked, and so did the [Teleporting Platform] under him, but neither broke; he was a hundred meters away by the time the spell triggered.  

There was no smoke from the explosion. As soon as the fire passed, the area that had held the red monster was visible. The monster would have been visible, too, if it had survived. It did not survive. Red, tree-sized limbs, were broken and bleeding and scattered in every direction. The horde of bodies around the large red mimic was gone. A crater a meter deep quickly began to fill in with water from every side.

Erick briefly came back to himself to see the notification. He found it amid the rest, fast enough.  

--

You have slain Grand Ruby Mimic A!

95% participation

+ 690,872,870,987,254 exp exp

--

“What level was that!” Erick checked his Status. “I almost leveled from one kill.”   

--

Erick Flatt

Human, age 48

Level 65, Class: Particle Mage

Exp:  2,476,835,931,716,187/2,777,789,003,528,800  

Class: 6/6

Points: 8

HP --- 2100/2100 --- 29,700 per day

MP --- 6707/6900 --- 29,700 per day

Strength 20 / +50 / [70]

Vitality 20 / +50 / [70]

Willpower 65 / +50 / [115]

Focus 65 / +50 / [115]

--

Favored Spell waiting!

Favored Ability waiting!

Favored Ability waiting!

Favored Ability waiting!

--

Kiri looked up from her book. “What?”

Erick sent the box toward her. “Grand Ruby Mimic!” He glanced back to the battlefield, then came back, saying, “I’m looking at two more of them right now. Same size, too.”

Kiri smiled as she read the box, her eyes turning emerald green with an inner light. She dismissed the box, then turned to Erick, asking, “So… Uh. Can I…? Can I have a try?”

Erick was more than willing to let her, but, “My Domain doesn’t work that well, but there has to be more of a reason that they’re not killing these things.” Erick sent her a telepathic image of the location, and a brief idea of how to get there. “But if you want to try your hand with Sunny, go ahead.”

The Sunny on Kiri’s shoulders, all green and sparkling, blipped away in an emerald flash. Kiri was already viewing the world through her [Familiar]; Erick could tell by how she went still, and her eyes closed.  

Erick transferred back to Ophiel.  

He watched as Sunny spat fire at the second Grand Ruby Mimic, who was still tanking Ophiel’s Domain. That fire promptly rebounded against Sunny. And then Sunny was gone. Huh. Erick came back to himself. Kiri frowned as she summoned another Sunny.

“What was that?” Erick asked.  

“That was my first attempt.” Kiri patted Sunny on the head, saying, “It was just a tier 4 fireball. It obviously wasn’t good enough against the mimic’s innate [Reflection]. The big ones must have a better version of the original ability.”

Kiri’s second attempt went much better.  

Sunny popped holes in the mimic with a spell Kiri had never used before, that she called [Hermetic Bolts]. Those holes spilled out torrents of ruby blood. It didn’t seem to do much, but it did enough. In the end, she could damage them, but not enough to kill them; Erick got 75% Participation. Ophiel’s Domain actually did the deed.  

Kiri went and got Teressa, since Poi was already asleep. Teressa smirked as she read a book, watching over the both of them in the sunroom, while Erick sent his Ophiel down the leading mimic edge, and Kiri tried to kill a Grand Ruby Mimic on her own.  

She cheered, wonderfully, when she managed to actually get the kill. It was a nice sound.  

Erick had already moved on, far beyond Kiri’s location.  

Poi came downstairs an hour later, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He said, “Frontier is done. Did they have Puppet Minds, too?”

Erick checked his notifications; there had been a lot of notifications. After several minutes, he found them. “Yup. Puppet Master aaaaand—” He counted. He declared, “15 Puppet Minds!”

“… Fuck.” Poi muttered, “Fine.” He walked away as a dozen lines of intent began radiating from his head.

Erick would ask him about that tomorrow.  

He returned to overseeing Ophiel’s journey across the Wasteland, which he now supplemented with the four Ophiel who had been at Frontier. Now, all ten Ophiel and their Saturn-like setups were flying across the Crystal Plague. Grand Ruby Mimics seemed to litter the front line. Erick killed most of them with a single [Electrolysis Bomb], for there was no time to wait for Kiri to kill however many she could. But Kiri did get one every half hour, or so, which was about as long as it took her to kill a single one, and then rest up for the next.

When an Ophiel was at full mana, Erick had them send out [Withering Slime]s across the land, directed north, south, and east. The semi-sentient thick air would search out and kill every monster it would come across, which was almost entirely mimics, in this case. Each wave would only last ten minutes, but that was more than enough time to kill the most prominent threats, and take care of a lot of the smaller, normal mimics.

It wasn’t long before the northern line of mimics hit the Greyhorn mountains, and the southern line of mimics hit the Wall.  

Erick turned back, and continued, killing the second wave of mimics that sprung up after the first ones had died.

Kiri crashed, too tired to do any more, as the sun rose across Spur.  

Erick continued.  

This was not a job that would just take until midnight. Looking back on it, Erick realized that Sirocco was joking.

Teressa made breakfast. Erick ate with her and Poi, and then she went to bed, and Poi took over guard duty.  

Erick continued to kill mimics the whole time. Ophiel was rather good about auto-pilot and alerting him to the appearance of the big red mimics. He took breaks here and there, but he made sure Ophiel was on the correct track; it was a constant battle to keep him on track, and make sure that the leading edge did not return to full strength.

By lunch, he had gone over the leading edge twice; it had only moved west a little in that time.

By dinner, Erick had gone over the leading edge a third time. Yet still, more mimics popped up.  

 By now, other people had begun to join Erick in killing the mimics. People in purple and gold robes flew high and rained fire, or cutting wind, or chilling frost. They hovered on platforms and crushed mimics under boulders, or rained acid, or built walls to prevent the advance.  

More than once, he saw what had to be other archmages.  

The first time Erick spied another potential archmage, they were dressed in black and gold, and flying upon a golden disk. At their command, the ground swelled under the frontlines of the mimics, for ten kilometers in every direction; the land became an ocean of stone. Mimics fell in to that ocean, and as waves ripped the surface, crushed mimic bodies moved the entire front line of mimics kilometers to the east.  

That was pretty cool.  

Erick waved at the stranger with Ophiel. They waved back.  

The second meeting of the archmages occurred when the land in front of Ophiel was covered not in living mimics, but in dead mimics, and thick, orange mist. The black and gold caster of that spell was a small woman who hovered in a ball of orange light. She trailed clouds of that orange glow onto the ground below. Whatever the range was on that spell, it was further than the line of five Ophiel he had stretched out for 25 kilometers to the east and west; much further.  

A slight problem occurred when their spells overlapped. When Erick got the kill on the mimics below a [Cleanse] burst up through both the thick air of his Domain, and cut a ten-meter hole in the woman’s orange cloud.  

She and Erick were headed in opposite directions, directly toward one another, so when her path intercepted his, she flew closer to Ophiel and pointed down, so that Erick could see what he was doing to her spell. He had already seen. What did she want him to do about it? Not kill the mimics? Whatever the case, she spoke loud and angry in a language Erick did not know and kept right on going, the way Erick had come, looking disgusted.  

When Erick finally passed the orange cloud, the mimics that inhabited that poisoned land were only those who had come further from the east. That archmage’s spell had done a lot better job keeping the mimics dead than Erick’s had; his didn’t get the baby mimics, hers killed everything. But she was only one person, and though her magic certainly had range, her poison killed everything. Not even the little bit of green that the mimics had barreled past survived the archmage’s passage. The land was dead and brown and decayed.  

Erick continued to kill the Grand Ruby Mimics when they came up, while his double line of Ophiel’s continued to [Domain of the Withering Slime] the land, in 25 kilometer long perpendicular chains. Ophiel continued to blast out ten-minute duration [Withering Slime]s out into the teaming mimics, when they had the mana.

By dinner time. Erick noticed a change in the horde, and in the Wasteland.  

People had constructed tall stone walls where there had been none before, where the land to the west was heavily damaged, but salvageable, and the land to the east was still full of mimics. There weren’t nearly as many of the monsters as before, and Erick had killed a great many of the large red ones, so maybe these smaller walls would hold?  

When Erick passed by the same section of land, on his return trip, those smaller walls were larger, and a second set of walls had gone up further east. In a short while, Erick had found his Ophiel flying over a corridor of bare land, between two minor walls.  

It wasn’t long before Iordex told him, through Poi, to move his Ophiels back toward the leading edge, which he, and everyone else working together, had pushed back 25 kilometers.

By midnight of the second day, they had pushed the horde back 50 kilometers, and people had layered minor walls in 25 kilometer wide corridors, from that new leading edge, all the way back to the Wall, how only 350 kilometers away. The former leading edge was empty of all mimics. They had broken the horde.

After a bit of organizing with Iordex, Erick switched to sending waves of [Withering Slime] forward, down those corridors. Those waves of semi-sentient dehydrating air seemed to stay in those corridors, rather well. With the decreased monster density in front of him, Ophiel flew a lot faster, too.

By morning of the third day, Erick was, perhaps, a little tired. He wasn’t running [Hunter’s Instincts], after all. Besides, the major danger seemed to be over. In his flights down the corridors, he had seen both the Stone Archmage and the Poisoner several more times, but only in the day. Erick waved to the Stone Mage in passing, and she waved back, as she gradually closed the leading corridor behind him, veritably picking up and moving a million tons of stone like she was simply moving her hand across a game board.  

Erick did not directly see the Poisoner again, but he did see her orange cloud billow over the edge of the corridor next door, more than once.  

By lunchtime, Erick had moved another corridor over, and flew over his first city.  

The city was a ten kilometer wide ruin. Orange dust laid heavy over rotting wood and orange stone. Grand cathedrals and tall apartment buildings were half rubble, their insides strewn across wide streets and over smaller structures. Great rents in the wall of the city were crowded with five meter long gashes, laid deep in the stone. Nothing moved.  

But Ophiel’s domain sucked into the ground, like a seeking amoeba, tunneling into the sewers crafted under the city to deal with both sewage, and the slimes that would have spawned in the city if the sewers didn’t exist. He couldn’t see what the Withering had found where he was, high above the ruins, but he didn’t need to.  

Thick air billowed up and out from holes in the ground. Erick briefly came back to himself, and the casual, slight ticking of mimic death notifications, turned into a small torrent. A hundred mimics died in a minute, before the rain of blue boxes turned gentle again.

“It’s like cleaning a house with a toothbrush,” Erick complained, over dinner. “Obviously we’re making progress, but it seems never ending.”

Teressa had cooked a nice roast with a lot of potatoes and carrots and onions, exactly how Erick had showed her a month ago. She used some of the stranger spices in the meal, but they were good spices, whatever they were.  

Kiri said, “That poisoner killed all the plants, so maybe the respawn will get better.”

Poi suddenly looked up from his plate. If a new line of intent had joined the jumble around his head, then Erick didn’t see it happen. Poi said, “Iordex is saying that the job is over.”

Erick set down his fork. Something like relief tickled at the back of his mind.  

“Woo!” Kiri cheered, small yet happy.  

Teressa smirked as she went to get up from her chair, saying, “I’ll crack open a keg.”  

The moment of relief passed. Erick frowned. “But it’s not over yet?”

Teressa sat back down.  

Erick continued, “There’s still at least 300 kilometers between the front lines and the Wall.”

“What’s the story, Poi?” Kiri asked.

Poi listened to the air. He said, “He’s not willing to tell me exactly what happened, but someone attacked their Stone Archmage, breaching through three walls in the process and leading a minor horde back into green lands. Others stopped the advance. Their Stone Archmage is recovering in an undisclosed location. Without her, the clean up has been set back weeks because she won’t be recovered for weeks.” Poi said, “So the job is done, for now. They’ll send out their other mages to go about the task slower, but more methodical.”

“Well... Okay. I guess.” Erick asked, “Then that’s that?”

“I guess,” Poi said.

Erick thought for a moment. He said, “Tell them I hope for her full recovery.” He narrowed his eyes, and asked, “Ask them, specifically, if she was soul-mutated, or whatever it is, into an angel.”

Poi listened to the air. “They say ‘thank you for the concern, but that is not the case’.”

“… Okay?” Erick asked, “So what happened?”

“They’re deflecting my questions with non-answers.”  

“… Fine.”

Poi asked, “They would like to know your final count?”

Erick wondered if this problem of transparency would go away if he actually sided with the Wasteland.  

Eh. He’d never do that.  

If they didn’t want to tell him, then that was on them. So Erick switched to answering their question. He brought up the stream of blue notifications raining at the side of his vision, looking at the latest one.

--

You have slain Crystal Mimic EMODL!

95% participation

+ 20,693,935 exp

--

Ophiel was still working though, so it wasn’t two seconds later that Erick got another notification.  

He asked, “Is there a way to stop it from listing kill counts alphabetically?”  

Kiri excitedly said, “Oh! Oh! I can do this. Give me the letters.”

“There are a few things you can change on your own, but not that.” Teressa said, “You need a Registrar to change how things are counted, but it costs a grand rad to change that, and no guard or governmental agency accepts non-standard Status reports. Letters are cleaner.”

Erick smirked, thinking it nicely convenient that Ecks and English were both a 26 letter language. Somewhere in the past months he had started to think and write in Ecks, and his boxes had switched to match, but the number of letters had stayed the same.  

“As a known archmage, he doesn’t have to worry about that, so much,” Poi offered.  

Teressa said, “You can switch how experience presents, though. A lot of high level people do that. That’s an accepted deviation in commonly accepted Status presentations.”

Kiri demanded, “Just tell me the letters already.”

Erick smiled, saying, “E-M-O-D-L.” He added, “I think I will go to Irogh and switch that up.”

Kiri waved him off as she looked into the distance, deep in thought.

Teressa said, “Spur is popular enough now that you’re going to have to make an appointment.”

“That’s not a problem,” Erick said. “I can wait.” He asked, “How do you switch how experience shows?”

Teressa said, “A small prayer to Rozeta, asking for the change.”

“Shhh!” Kiri said, flapping her arms, still thinking.  

Erick smiled as he ate another piece of potato. Teressa was a really good cook. The beef drippings had basically fried the potatoes and carrots and onions into deliciousness, as everything simmered in spices, salt, and fats. Erick asked, “Which spices did you use for this, Teressa? It’s really good.”

“That rosemary you made, but primarily the spikepuff and bluebottle from Ratchet’s store, along with a lot of butter, salt, and that pepper you made, too. I like that pepper.”  

“Pepper is pretty goo—”

Kiri shouted, “Two million, five hundred and twenty three thousand, six hundred and twenty FOUR! HA!” She said, “Got it!”

Erick chuckled. He brought up the final box for the last Grand Ruby Mimic. He said, “Here’s an easier one for you, Kiri. A-P-N.”  

Kiri took a moment. She said, “1106. What was that?”

“The number of Grand Ruby Mimics.”  

Kiri’s eyes went wide. “Holy gods and demons!” She whispered, “What level are you— Nope! Sorry. Forget I asked.”

For a brief moment, Poi looked ready to say some harsh words to Kiri, but he relaxed.  

Erick said to Poi, “2,523,624 normal mimics. EMODL, if they’re asking. 1106 Grand Ruby Mimics. APN.”

Poi nodded. After another moment, he said, “They thank you for your time and effort. You will be paid the agreed upon price as soon as they are able to collect the remains off of the land.” He added, “They wish to know where your [Cascade Imaging] is, so that they might find more mimics.”

Ah. Yes. That.

“Tell them… I forgot.” Kooky planar archmages can be forgetful when it suits them, right? Erick added, “Besides, we didn’t need it, and a lot of the mimics have gone underground in the cities, or at least in the one I saw.”

Poi paused, listening to the air. He said, “They knew about the infestation underground, but they thank you for your concern. Mimics get down there, but they won’t survive, so they’re not a concern. When the final mimic is cleared and the land is retaken, they are asking for your [Exalted Storm Aura] to help heal the land back to green. Your payment should be ready at such a time, too.”

“I’ll think about it, but right now my answer is ‘yes’.”

Poi looked away. He turned back to the dinner table, saying, “That’s it.”

“Good.” Erick smiled, then gave a small, silent prayer to Rozeta, asking for a small change.  

His Status popped up, unbidden, looking slightly different.

--

Erick Flatt

Human, age 48

Level 76, Class: Particle Mage

Exp: 7.64 e17 / 8.94 e17

Class: 6/6

Points: 30

HP --- 2100/2100 --- 29,700 per day

MP --- 6900/6900 --- 29,700 per day

Strength 20 / +50 / [70]

Vitality 20 / +50 / [70]

Willpower 65 / +50 / [115]

Focus 65 / +50 / [115]

--

Favored Spell waiting!

Favored Ability waiting!

Favored Ability waiting!

Favored Ability waiting!

--

30 points was a lot of extra points. He’d figure out where to put them all later, but he’d probably keep his Stats mostly balanced as they were. He could certainly use more Willpower, though. More maximum mana was always good.

Erick asked, “So anything happen while I was busy killing mimics? Any news of Candlepoint?”