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A chime struck, ringing out a hundred bells that rang and then went silent. A chorus of quiet, shrill voices sang in some unknown language, then calmed; waiting. Another chime. A drum. Thum. Thum. Thum. Quiet voices rose to the sky, as drums beat and the chimes turned to strings, vibrating out a tune of power, charging words with focus and ritual.

The music of the Feast flooded out of a pavilion made of light and shadow and rainbow-stained glass, three levels up from the ground floor. The song started the second Erick decided to leave for the party, and now, he was stuck, frozen in sudden reverence at the entrance to Quilatalap’s property. How could he move with that eerie song vibrating against his very soul, as drums thrummed the very sky? How could he do anything else but listen, as the white light of the Brightwater, the source of all illumination down here, began to flicker and mutate, and the air above began to change? He could not, for the music held him, and he listened.

Erick’s attention broke northward, to the center of the Brightwater District, where the eclipsing sun held high above the lake. It flickered. It was not the lake that was flickering, but that dark sun. Suddenly, that blot of darkness and light broke, scattering into a million pieces, spreading throughout the sky like the breaking of a glass world, turning the high sky of the Brightwater district into a land of broken darkness.

The music of the Palace went silent, as the sky stilled. Up above, in the pavilion of light and shadow that was sure to be the party, a woman in a white dress stepped out on a long cliff of white stone, facing the broken sky. She was alone, and she longed not to be alone any longer. She sang soft words to the world and though she was easily several hundred meters away, Erick heard her strange language, like she was singing directly to him. The singer was Queen; Erick almost didn’t recognize her. But that was Queen.

The music picked up again; a crescendo of power, rising to meet Queen’s unknown words. She bled, from her throat, from her arms, from her body. Her white dress turned to red. The white cliff dripped with red streams.

Suddenly, the music reached a point, and broke, and was no more, as Queen carried herself and her voice, all alone, out to the very edge, her words becoming every language Erick had ever heard.

“We live in Light, but seek the Dark, to seek the night, we give a spark! A time of fate, a land made whole, the world is made by this, our soul!”

The sky cracked. Queen disintegrated from the inside out, in one final, glorious moment. The shockwave of her death spread out in every direction, blowing out windows, cracking stone, breaking crystal from monuments and breaking the windows of Quilatalap’s house.

Erick held his breath. What the fuck just happened? Ophiels took up the music that was gone, but theirs was a quiet imitation; they were on high alert, but the music had been interesting while it lasted, and they wanted it to happen again.

And then the sky shifted once more, as a dark laugh reverberated the Palace, and Melemizargo spoke,

“A valiant, honorable display. But come on back, my little Queen. You’ve got plans to prepare!”

Time reversed in the vicinity of the white cliff. Blood, bone, and gore, flowed inward, resuming the shape of Queen. The Shade immediately knelt toward the sky, just in time to watch as six auroras flashed into the broken black sky above. Six lights, from white to black, along with red, green, blue, and yellow, shed deep glows upon the entire Palace, and likely the rest of the Brightwater District. The black sun did not return. The lights remained. The six lights became more as they mixed with each other, becoming true rainbows as more and more intermediary colors came into being. Under those prismatic lights, Erick watched the broken windows of the Palace heal, the broken streets shift back together. Walls that had fallen, rose; repaired.

Erick whispered, “What just happened?”

Quilatalap said, “They started the party without us.”

Erick looked askance at the man. Quilatalap was smiling as though he had told a funny joke. Normally, Erick would have retorted with a joke of his own, but had no jokes at the moment. He was all out of fucks to give, too.

Quilatalap noticed. He added, “Uh. The symbolism?”

“I got that part… But the murder? Was that real?”

“Of course. And then it was reversed.”

“Ah… Okay? Sure. Why not.”

With a fake smile on his face that had the chance to be real sometime in the future, Erick strode past the gate to Quilatalap’s house. He waved to the kowtowing shadelings and otherwise on the streets, and proceeded up the side roads of the Palace, toward the party area a few tiers up from ground level.

The music was well underway by the time Erick had approached the actual event. Ethereal, heavy, and yet upbeat, sonorous tones undulated the auroras of the sky above, while the party happened down below. From this angle, it was still impressive, but it was not what he had expected from the ‘Shade of Opulence’. This place had looked like a warehouse, or a cathedral, from his position below, but from up here, Erick wondered why there was only one wall. Sure, it had stained glass and looked pretty enough, but what about the other three walls? That wall didn’t even protect from anything; it was situated next to the stone wall of the next tier up of the Palace District. The main party took place on a well-kept, yet empty temple floor, but it was an open-air party.

Erick looked up, past the lone cathedral wall. The party also took place up above, on the next tier above. The band must have been up there, somewhere, because though Erick could hear the music well, there were no musicians in sight.

What was in sight, were Shades talking to other Shades, or eating, and…

Floating images, hanging in the air, next to the overlooking edge of the party? Erick would have to see to those later. They looked like viewing screens, of some sort.

But he needed booze! Shades were already talking amongst themselves, while shadelings and otherwise exited from doors set into the stained glass cathedral wall, to refill nearby food tables, already stacked high with food, probably to ensure that they never looked less than perfect. There was one long table for meat, another shorter one for cheeses. Then there were breads and sauces. Fruits and veggies. And there’s the booze table, and a bartender!

… Shade bartender. The one who wore the cocksock at the Telling. Erick only saw the top half of him. Maybe he was still wearing the sock? He eyed Erick, as Erick eyed him. The Shade winked.

Great.

Erick looked around, at the direct entrance to the party, to see if there were guards or some hidden line or something, set into the ground. This place seemed like a trap, for sure.

A bit odd, that, for there was no proper entrance. This particular road of the Palace District ran right into the party. Now that Erick looked at everything, again, this place seemed like there might have been a church here, or something similar, long ago. And then something happened, and all that was left was the one wall near the next tier up? That seemed odd. All the other buildings everywhere were intact; this was the only one that looked like a ruin.

Erick wondered at the etiquette of entering such an event, or if there was anything like etiquette when it came to Shades, or to this sort of party. Quilatalap said something about heading for the booze, and simply walked forward, crossing the invisible threshold into the festive space. After a brief moment of hesitation, Erick followed, as he stationed his Ophiel around the place, but he kept them to their tiny forms. A few Shades eyed the Ophiel and then him, as he walked in, but they returned to their own conversations soon enough. He also left one outside, down the road a bit, and in his full three-meter height.

More than one kowtowing parishioner had followed Erick and Quilatalap up to the party, but they had remained far behind, and gave Erick a wide berth. That full-sized Ophiel quickly drew a crowd.

Quilatalap got to the bar, and its Shady bartender, just before Erick.

The Shade on the other side of the bar was an incani of light blue skin, with short white horns and short, trimmed hair. In fact, all of his hair was trimmed, over every part of him. Annnnnndddd he was not wearing the sock anymore. Everything was all hanging out, behind the bar, and the bartender smiled as Erick glanced over the bar, down at the goods.

There was a certain drink that Erick would have ordered in any other situation like this, and if he were still on Earth. But alas, he was not on Earth, the man wouldn’t even know what the shot was, and despite displaying it all out there, and the obvious interest in the guy’s eyes, Erick did not want to lead the guy on.

Quilatalap looked from Erick, to the Shade, and decided to do some introductions. “Erick. This is Professor Farix. He runs the Truedark Academy.”

Erick scrunched his eyebrows together, as he looked upon the naked man in a slightly different light. He heard of ‘the Professor’. This was yet another rarely seen Shade. Killzone didn’t say much about the Professor, except that the Professor’s crimes were not very well known, nor were his motives, or true age. It was theorized that his was an inherited position, drawn from graduates of Truedark Arcanaeum, and that former ‘Professors’ moved on to other titles when they left their post and took up power in other parts of the Dead City.

Erick said, “Nice to meet you, Professor Farix.”

The man smiled, revealing bright white teeth. “Only my students call me Professor; please call me Farix, unless—” He backed up a half step, twisted his hips, and slapped his thing onto the bar in front of him. “— You’d like a few private lessons? A few after-hours study sessions, perhaps?”

Erick looked at the piece of anatomy staring up at him. It was quite nice.

But.

Erick burst out laughing. He rapidly stopped himself, but barely kept it together, and mostly because he was honestly interested, but here? Now? No. Not going to happen. He said, “I’m gonna need some booze first, and to know that you wouldn’t screw me over in a way I wouldn’t want, Farix.”

Farix smiled, dropping himself back down behind the counter. He turned to the five tiers of booze sitting on lit-up shelves behind him, saying, “Anything you want. How drunk are you looking to get?”

“As drunk as safety would allow.”

Farix smiled wide again. He did have a rather nice face. And then he opened his mouth and started talking and Erick barely kept from laughing again. Farix said, “Perhaps a Busted Arsehole, or a Raging Manhood? Perhaps a Raging Orcol Manhood? Or I can make you a Slippery Slope, if you’re looking for some truly fun times—” He stopped speaking, as another approached.

Erick was glad for the new distraction. He was a second from another burst of laughter.

Queen spoke from Erick’s right with a perfectly pleasant voice, “I’ll take a Slippery Slope, and you stuffed back into your sock before I violently cut it off.”

That wasn’t a joke; Erick could tell. Mirth vanished. Erick was both relieved, and saddened, that the fun moment of sexy talk was so short-lived.

Farix waved his hand over himself, and he was back to wearing his sock. “Anything for the Queen.” He asked, “Ice, or no ice?”

“Ice.” Queen turned to Erick, and with a much nicer voice, said, “Glad to see you come out.”

“I wouldn’t dare miss this event,” Erick said, in a way that he hoped came off as ‘dangerous’ and not ‘scared about possible retaliation’. As soon as that thought formed, he knew a lot of this party would be like this. He already knew that, of course; but knowing and experiencing were two different things. He would have to be slightly dangerous himself this whole time, or else they would eat him like he was a butchered cow floating in a school of sharks.

“Partake of whatever you wish. Nothing is poisoned, and I’m working the rest of the problems as we speak,” Queen said, with a great deal of what might have been sincerity. “After a few warnings and my personal clearing of some of the more obvious traps, more than one person saw the error of their ways and came up to me and reclaimed their own contributions to this Feast. They said they had something better, and they were able to produce those items, but I’m letting you know now that they were simply removing the traps that they had laid.”

Farix used shadows to gather four different bottles behind him, as well as four different fruits from the fruit table, near the bar. With expert handling, and more body movement than was likely necessary, he crafted a drink for Queen.

Erick was sort of stunned. Not that there were traps in the food and in the party, that much Erick had sort-of expected, but it was surprising that Queen was being so open about it. What was her angle? To prove herself to Erick, somehow? Or was she lying about the traps, in order to drag Erick’s opinion of the other Shades to a new, lower level?

He almost told her that she needn’t have bothered; Erick’s opinions of the Shades was already as low as it could possibly go. There was literally no way to go lower than ‘all of them should die’, for even that was beyond the depths of Erick’s usual lowest-possible opinions of people.

Literally the only way Erick’s Shady opinion could go was up.

And wasn’t that a sobering thought. Erick almost cursed.

Queen took the drink, saying, “Thanks,” and then she turned back to Erick, to continue, “There’s usually a lot of trapping and poisoning at this sort of event, but I’m thankful that most are keeping that to a minimum.” She spoke a bit louder, for some of the other Shades were obviously watching, and listening. “I have found two traps that were not removed, though.” She gave the sweetest, yet most diabolical grin. “I’ve got provisional leeway to kill those two Shades, so don’t worry about getting dead, Erick. Even if you suffer that indignity for a short while, we’ll bring you back and then you can help us collectively kill the murderer. So have fun!” She gestured to Farix, but continued to speak to Erick, saying, “He’s a great lay, just so you know. If only he could be a bit more proper in public, but like that really matters, am I right?”

Erick stared at nothing in particular for a long moment, then his brain kicked back on. He said, “Okay!” He turned to Farix, saying, “I’ll take a Slippery Slope, for some truly fun times, as you have so helpfully suggested.”

Queen smiled, then said, “That has some mild psychedelics, just so you know, just in case Farix wasn’t going to tell you. Nothing too ostentatious, but it makes the auroras above really, really pretty. If it gets bad, just [Cleanse] yourself.”

Farix mocked offense, “I would never compromise Erick’s position or alter his state without telling him!” He quickly gathered the Slippery Slope ingredients again, and said to Erick, “But if you wish for a compromised position, someone else can man the bar for an hour or two.”

Queen looked Farix up and down, and the man noticed. He casually stretched while he was making Erick’s drink, giving Queen as much of a look as she desired. She just giggled, then turned away, drink in hand, to go greet other guests.

In ten more seconds, Erick had his own Slippery Slope, expertly poured by a wonderful bit of eye candy. It was a pink drink, finished off with a slice of some fruit Erick had never seen before. He sipped it, while Quilatalap and Farix watched him drink. The archlich, probably to gauge if he had to rescue Erick from death, the naked Shade probably just because he wanted to watch. The drink tasted good. Really good. Farix smiled.

Quilatalap told the man, “I’ll take a Vivid Gloom.”

Erick suddenly had to ask, “Why did they name a drink after my spell? That threw me for a loop when I visited Candlepoint, too. What’s in it, anyway?”

Quilatalap shrugged. “To mess with you, and I’m not sure.” He turned to Farix, “What’s you say it was? Arafruit, farrowroot, cream, rums, and liquid shadows?”

Farix began constructing the Vivid Gloom by starting with assorted fruits, three bottles of various shades of brown and clear, and some white stuff in another bottle, while a bit of controlled shadow stuck a toothpick into a tiny jar and came out with a drop of what looked like velvet darkness. As the fruits and such went into a mixer, he said, “A Vivid Gloom is frozen, crushed arafruit, farrowroot, some cream liquor, three different rums, mostly clear, and a drip of liquid shadows distilled into an exterior coating.” He shook the mixer as he took the toothpick of darkness and ran it around the inside of a glass. When he poured the drink into the class, the contents flowed like white pearl and shimmering darkness. He handed the drink to Quilatalap, and said, “The liquid ‘darkness’ is actually just shadow essence that’s had almost all the light sucked out of it, but it’s still shadow essence.”

Quilatalap took the drink and happily said to Farix, “Dark Essence is too poisonous, anyway.” He asked, “What other projects are you working on?”

“Tryna fuck Erick.”

Erick laughed.

Farix smirked, then momentarily spoke like a professional, “There’s no projects right now, since we’re all facing down a restructuring. The school is off for break and this year’s break might be longer than usual. But some of my students are looking for private tutors to fill the gap. Would you be interested in holding a class, or teaching some students for a month?”

“Not this time.” Quilatalap said, “I’m not sure what the future holds either, and I might be going rather introductory with my lessons in the near future. Your students wouldn’t want to sit through that.”

“And if they are willing to sit through that?” Farix calmly stressed, “Some of them would be interested in whatever you felt like giving.”

“Eh.” Quilatalap asked Erick, “You want to have some fellow students for your own lessons?”

Erick almost spat up his Slippery Slope. “Uh. Did we agree to lessons?”

Quilatalap said to Farix, “It’s like this, then.”

“Understood.” Farix said, “I’ll have some disappointed students, but they’ll get over it.”

Erick was quite interested in whatever was going on with Quilatalap and Farix, and he almost asked about ‘What lessons?’, but then two new Shades were approaching. One, was a goldscale woman, the other, a whitescale man. Both wore rather normal attire. Erick had forgotten the woman’s name, but she had definitely been part of Killzone’s briefing; it was hard to miss a goldscale in a crowd, for they usually gleamed like liquid sunlight, and this one was no exception.

But the whitescale was Welodio, the Shade of Flames, and he drew all of Erick’s attention as soon as Erick noticed him. Erick was supposed to run away from him, no matter the circumstance. Ah. Shit. Did that apply here, too? The male dragonkin’s eyes were bright white, while flickers of shadow danced across his scaled eyebrows, as he drew nearer. Goldenscale was much calmer, by comparison.

And then they had moved their five meters of space, to stand next to Erick, and he couldn’t realistically get away anymore.

Welodio smiled as he said, “Hello, Erick. Do you know of me?”

Erick honestly, and perhaps stupidly, said, “I’ve been told to run away from you if I see you.”

The flames on his eyebrow ridges got thicker, as he said, “Oh?” He added, “Good advice. You should have taken it.” Welodio snickered, as flames reached for Erick—

Erick had not dismissed either his [Lodestar], or his [Greater Lightwalk]; the two spells had just been left to sit under his skin, and under his clothes. But now, he flashed his sunform into a barrier. It barely held as flames consumed his world. Someone cried out, “Not the booze!” Another cried out about the food. And then the flames died, as fast as they had come. They had never gotten through Erick’s sunform. As the flames vanished, Erick saw they hadn’t gotten very far at all. Barely past Welodio, actually. Or what was left of him, anyway.

Welodio’s body slumped to the ground, but his head remained in the air. A thick sword, like a shelf, held the head on its flat surface. Goldscale’s dainty fist held the sword’s grip. There was no strain, there; holding that sword and its resident head was easy for goldscale. With a smile toward Erick, and a flick of her hand, she hefted the sword, jostling Welodio’s head into the air. With another heft of her weapon, and as though she was hitting a ball with a baseball bat, she knocked the dead whitescale’s head into the air—

Where a maw opened up in the sky, like Melemizargo’s own, but different. More wild and less real than the maw of the Darkness. The head went in, and with a chomp, the maw closed, and the head was gone. The jaws vanished right after. When Erick looked back to the goldscale, her sword was gone.

The casual talk all around, at the whole party, had only briefly paused, and only while Erick was actively being attacked. Some people went right back to their conversations.

Queen appeared, somehow. She stared down the goldscale, and with only the barest amount of seriousness in her voice, said, “Are you going to clean that up?” She gestured to Welodio’s body.

“I’m getting to it!” Goldscale turned to Erick, saying, “Hi. Erick. Nice to meet you. Sorry it was in such a messy way, but Welodio there was already planning on jumping you the second he could. I got wind of it, and I decided to be here, instead of elsewhere. He was one of those worthless people who joined us in order to cause destruction, so don’t feel too bad about how it went down. I’ve been looking into you and you might feel that way, but maybe don’t? Anywho! Take care! I’ll be watching your back for you.”

“Goldie.” Queen’s voice was harder than usual. “You could have warned me.”

“No time.” Goldie looked around, saying, “And nothing was damaged. This was a rather contained assassination. I’m good like that.”

“… I suppose you are.” Queen turned slightly toward Erick, saying, “Erick. Meet Goldie, the Shade of Assassination.”

Goldie beamed at her designation.

Erick firmly remained in his sunform, and tried to shore up every possible chink in his armor he could imagine. There wasn’t much firming-up left to do, though. Erick was already at ‘as good as it gets’ with his sunform. And wasn’t that a sobering thought.

He needed more Slippery Slopes.

Queen continued, “And what she hasn’t mentioned was that she joined the Clergy in order to kill people, too. Just like Welodio.”

“Uhh!” In a voice like a sorority-girl best known for her ability to mix and mingle and make friends anywhere, Goldie exclaimed, “Of course I did! It’s why I knew what Welodio was planning.”

“She’s been trying to kill Welodio for years.” Queen frowned at the goldscale, asking, “Did he finally think that your ‘banter’ was just friendly banter?”

Goldie smiled wider, revealing sharp, sharp fangs, unlike Erick had ever seen in a dragonkin. “He thought that for a long time!” She turned to Erick, saying, “I’ll be watching your back, for as long as Melemizargo demands it~”

Erick tried a joke. “Hopefully not in the bathroom.”

Goldie didn’t appreciate the joke, but her pleasant voice didn’t waiver, “I kill more heads-of-state in the bathroom than in any other location. You should bring your Ophiels into your bathroom more.” She added, “And this lightform of yours is good, but it won’t stop the stronger kinds of physical/ethereal damage out there. You should work on that. The Headmaster has a similar style. You should bother him about all of that.”

“… Well okay then,” Erick said. Then he dropped his sunform and sipped his drink.

Queen regarded Welodio’s body. “So when did this get sanctioned?”

Goldie said, “Two hours ago.”

Queen gestured to the body. “Erick, if you’d do the honors of disposal?”

Erick almost laughed and told Queen off, but instead, he had an Ophiel throw a [Cleansing Flame] over the corpse. Welodio lit up like old tissue paper; white fire burning fast through a thoroughly corrupted corpse. Whoosh! And then it was gone. Erick blanked, as he took in the sight of nothing; there was nothing left.

Goldie said, “Whoo! That one went up fast.” She said to Erick, “I expect a few more bodies before the day is through.” She pointed out at the crowd, at two Shades in particular.

The entire party stopped.

All eyes at the party turned to regard who Goldie pointed at. One, was an orcol woman, wearing black dress armor that was much thinner than the armor Erick had seen Quilatalap wearing. The other, was a harpy woman, who was nude, but you couldn’t tell through all the feathers.

Goldie’s voice was low, and serious, but everyone heard, as she said, “Torika, Shade of Ashes. This orcol morphs her body in order to pose as various military personnel who fit into various military command structures around the world. She then plays along with her current side in those wars, bringing them victory after victory, but when everything looks to be going well, she turns and kills the commanders on ‘her side’. Her actions have set the continent of Nelboor to wars that would otherwise not have happened. Her current personal death count is just below a thousand, but if you count the battles she won, she’s up to half a million, easy.

“And then there’s the harpy: Binjara Farwit, Shade of Desolation. This harpy likes to kill farms and farmers. She’s particularly active in the Greensoil Republic. Her actions have also caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people. Maybe more.” Goldie stared at the two offenders, speaking to them, but also everyone else, as she said, “We’re watching you.” And then she smiled again. A mean smile. An awful smile. She cheerfully added, “But we know you can’t help yourself; you just want to see this world burn.”

Torika, the orcol, stepped forward. “This world deserves to burn.” She stared at Erick, as she spoke to everyone. “He is an aberration. In a hundred years, when his existence as a Fire is proven as a falsehood, Melemizargo will kill all of you who helped him rise to prominence. I’ll still be here, though. I’ll still be holding the line, giving this world the death by a million cuts it deserves.”

Binjara stepped toward. The naked harpy briefly fluffed her feathers, saying, “Erick has empowered the church of Atunir by giving her access to his silver rain! For that reason alone, he should be killed. All of our enemies are empowered by access to this miracle! But besides that! He spoke true when he was in the Spire: Everything now has nothing to do with him. We can safely remove this piece from the board without impacting any of Melemizargo’s possible plans.” She added, “We should kill him as a simple matter of removing unknowns from the board! We should kill him because he has the capability to be incredibly destructive to our plans if he is allowed to live!”

“Our plans?! OUR PLANS?!” Priestess called out, as she rushed into the center of the party, shielding Erick from the two women. She leveled a finger at the orcol and the harpy, “Who are you to say what HIS plans are!” Priestess she dropped her hand, and yelled out, “Erick is an untempered Wizard, yet to choose his path! He has created a World Tree! He wants to spread to the stars, and we should wish and work for this to happen! This is our MOST SACRED DUTY, finally returned to us! Because of that, Our Mighty God has declared Erick untouchable! Who are we to care if he is empowering other gods! Who are we to care if Erick steps on our toes, or disrupts YOUR PLANS! Everything you disapprove about him is irrelevant! Your dissenting opinions are irrelevant!” The skeleton woman gazed upon the two offenders, the stars in her eye sockets going wild as she dropped her voice to that of a low earthquake, “Your displeasure is irrelevant. Woe to you and your minor squabbles. Melemizargo is watching.”

No one spoke. No one moved. Everyone watched everyone else. And then people began stepping left or right. People in the crowd slipped this way and that. A few stepped ever so slightly away from the two women. One man stepped toward the two women, his face a rictus of anger, his white-eyed gaze directed at Erick. Someone whispered ‘No’, at him; Erick couldn’t tell who said it, but it had happened, and the man stopped where he was, as though frozen. He thawed fast enough. He came to his senses, crushing down his anger, as he abandoned the harpy and the orcol, just like everyone else.

In a matter of moments, the orcol and the harpy were alone. They stepped to each other. They were resolute in their faces, and in their stances. They knew what they were about, and they would see their path through to the bitter end.

Erick resumed his sunform, hoping it would be enough.

The singers above continued to sing, as instruments took up a lively, percussive, rapid tune.

The music slowed as someone up above said something to the group of players, speaking louder than their music. A violin string snapped. A drum’s thrum lingered, but the instrument beat no more. Something clattered as someone ran and the singers sang no more words.

Fallopolis stepped forward, cleared her throat, then, as though she was offering a perfectly reasonable solution, rapidly said, “Let’s kill Binjara and Torika and uplift a few Erick-approved Shades!”

“We’re not doing this.” Tania Webwalker stepped out into the open. Her tarantula was missing. Erick found the white spider by querying his Ophiel. It was sitting atop the wall, three meters from an Ophiel. Other spiders, black ones, were in the shadows all around the party. She was watching everything, too, just like Erick was. And then her voice brought Erick back to the moment, “We are doing this.” With a flick of her fingers, a twist of deep shadows burst against Fallopolis, the orcol, and the harpy.

Fallopolis went splattering up and out of the party. Bones tore. Legs broke. Skull smashed. The white core of her chest was exposed, for less than a moment.

The orcol and the harpy just burst, the orcol managing to step half of her body out of the way, but a disintegration effect spread through the rest of her, like instantaneous gnawing shadows, turning her to ash. The harpy was nothing more than scattered, disintegrating feathers, by the time Erick looked to her remains.

Erick almost dropped his drink, and for a crazy moment, he almost said, ‘That would have been a party foul.’ But he did not. He did watch as Fallopolis’s burst corpse sailed away...

Nope. Not a corpse.

Fallopolis laughed, wild and free and disembodied, as her body pulled herself together, to stand in the air. Blood covered her broken form, but her face came back together, and eyes appeared out of the gore. Her arms righted, as bones snapped into place and legs flew up from where they had fallen below. Those legs attached to their appropriate locations, under her dress. She laughed with her body this time, as she did a little twisting motion, to reset the limbs and suck in the guts currently hanging out of her exploded stomach…

… She was dancing. It was a small jig, and it was a bit disgusting as blood and gore fell from her, or sucked into her flesh. But in seconds, she was whole. She called out, “Is that the best you got, Tania! You should die too!”

Tania ignored the crazy woman and turned toward Queen. “I want that music back on.”

Queen stepped away, in a flash.

Tania spoke to everyone, “We will not be tied down to one world, full of impostor gods and magic that hides the truth of Darkness. We will spread to the stars. We will drag civilization along with us, kicking and screaming if we have to, and killing half of them if necessary to cow the other half. SOME OF YOU will have your long-waited revenges and killings and humiliations, but all of you will cooperate with the greater goals, or you will perish.” She paused, as the music resumed. It was a softer sound, this time. Tania breathed in, then out, then she turned back to Fallopilis, who was just now stepping back onto party grounds. She looked to the aged Shade, but she spoke to everyone, “When you step out of line, you will receive Melemizargo’s Judgment, and if you survive, then good for you. But try to keep in mind the new goal we all have, and that I will be as liberal with my Judgments as necessary to ensure the proper outcomes.”

“Well said!” Fallopolis called out.

Shades went back to talking like nothing special had happened.

Fallopolis strode over to Erick, saying, “Can I get a [Cleanse], my man?”

Erick blinked for a moment, then obliged. Gore turned to thick air as it burst from Fallopolis. The Shade flexed her hands out, creating streams in the mirage air. She smiled wide, and started to do a little dance in place. A little cha-cha-cha to the left. A little step-turn-step to the right. The music upstairs turned into something deeper, happier, dancier.

Fallopolis sang a little to the sky, and then to Erick, “Five dead Shades! Doo-dee-doo-dee-doo!” She asked, “Care to dance, our Untouchable Fire of the Age?”

“Five dead Shades?” Erick found himself asking.

“Yup! Got some of them before the party started!” Fallopolis did a little jig toward Erick. She leaned in. “Want to replace them?”

“Nope!” Erick held up his drink, which was only half drunk, and said, “I’ve got this to finish.”

Fallopolis stopped dancing and said, “Oh! I need one, too.” She stepped to the bar, asking Farix, “I’d take a Ridilous, pretty please! If you don’t have kioberries, I’d take a Well Laid Plan.”

Farix grabbed some bottles, saying, “One Ridiculous coming right up.”

“Ri-di-lous. Ridilous.” Fallopolis waved a hand, saying, “I’m not partial to Ridiculouses.” She turned to Erick. “Well Laid Plans are about one of the hardest drinks to make, but they’re oh-so-good when you can get them.”

Farix sighed and scowled just a bit, as he pulped red berries and mixed rums, and said, “I’ve been making Well Laid Plans since I was a mortal. They’re not that difficult.”

Erick had to laugh at that, for any other emotion would have been the wrong one to have in this tense situation. And then he looked around, and realized something. “Oh. This party is in the middle of an open field because you expect to fight someone and everything is expected to blow up at some point in time.” He said to no one in particular, “I really should have gotten that sooner. I kinda thought y’all’d’ve been above murder for a single day, especially when it came to your own party, and holiday, and people. But that was obviously expecting too much.”

“Exactly right, Erick!” Fallopolis said, as she took her drink from Farix. The crowd was ignoring her, and Erick, but some people flinched when Fallopolis spoke for everyone’s benefit, “Which is why they all gotta die! Buncha backstabbing lowlives, up in here. With all the new commandments from Melemizargo, I’m aiming for a slew of benevolent dictators, or silent investors in the world, but there’s no room for narcissistic megalomaniacs who only think of their own power and prestige.” She turned to Erick. “What are your thoughts?”

Erick downed the last of his drink. He felt the colors of the world turn a little more vibrant, as he wondered at his response.

These people before him considered themselves the rulers of this world of Veird. If everything continued as they wished, they would be the rulers of multiple worlds. These people would have control over so many others. There would be Ar’Kendrithysts on every world out there, in this solar system of Veird.

If Erick had a say in that… If he couldn’t just kill them all… What kinds of Shades did he want for the future?

Erick decided, “Missing investors.”

Fallopolis laughed at the sky, then said, “Possible! Possible!”

Erick turned to Farix, and with an empty drink in hand, asked, “Can I get this, but stronger?”

Farix began gathering ingredients again, saying, “Slippery Slopes sneak up on you.”

“I’m well aware.”

- - - -

Erick sat on a bench, overlooking the Brightwater, while he sipped his Slippery Slope. It was a good drink that reminded Erick of a mojito; a little minty, and heavily alcoholic, but smooth. It made gazing upon the Brightwater a lot easier. Sure, the Brightwater was dimmer, now, while the sky was filled with auroras, but it was still bright.

And the psychedelics were finally kicking in, so that was great.

He asked his current companion, “What are some example Wizard powers?”

His current companion, sitting on the bench next to him, but still a meter away, was Queen. The regal incani had switched her dress out for something easier to walk around in; a nice, flouncy blouse, and a ruffled skirt. All of it was white, but also iridescent on the edges.

She sipped her own drink, which was a green thing served in a glass cube, and said, “Take any spell of the Script and make it better, and have it cost nothing. That’s the most basic example of Wizardry there is. Destruction is annihilation. Easy enough to understand that one. Paradox is harder. That’s all about influencing fate and time and possibility. You won’t find those spells in the Script, unless they’re given to you by a god.” She glanced over to the left, saying, “Your chocolate has been a hit.”

Erick laughed. “I should hope so!” He glanced backward at the table of chocolate. There were cakes and bars and powders and all of that which Erick had brought, and more. Queen, or someone, had even used Erick’s instruction booklet to make some chocolate themselves, and then work it into a meter-tall sculpture of a tree, with about a hundred smaller animals sitting around that tree. Erick approved. He said, “Chocolate was a career back on Earth. Chocolatiers, they were. Like specialized candy makers. Did you try all of it?” He suddenly asked, “No one poisoned it, did they!”

Queen smirked. “Yes, I tried it, and yes, it was poisoned. The harpy, Binjara, poisoned it, and she never came forth, even when I called out that various traps were to be removed from the foods. Some people got the message, and removed those traps. Binjara did not. Luckily, she only managed to get to a false set-up, though. We replaced it when no one was looking.” She sighed, as though sad. “I don’t think she even knew that we had replaced it, either.” She frowned. “And then we even gave her another opportunity to come clean. But then she went on that rant.”

“Sounds like her death was planned.”

“Not directly. We don’t take the murder of our own lightly, despite what you might have seen today. The Shades of the Spire set certain societal traps she had to trip, first, to ensure that she was truly too far gone to save. But then, like the idiot crazy person she had become, she went and tripped them all, and then she had the gall to rant at us. Binjara was gone. She had probably been gone for a long time.”

Erick didn’t know about that. To him, Binjara deserved what she got, especially if she liked to plunge people into famine for funsies. But he didn’t say anything about any of that.

Queen asked, “Are you going to try and make this Mana Generation spell that they’re talking about?”

“I need to, right?” Erick said, “But I’m going to get some concessions, first.”

Queen smiled. “What sort of concessions?”

“An end to the widespread destruction. And end to controlling from the shadows, though, now that I say that out loud, it seems to be an antithesis of what Shades are and do.” Erick added, “Whatever the case: no more killing. At all. Or mutating. Or any of that horribleness.”

Queen took a long moment, then spoke, “Long ago, we used to be teachers and guiders. We were the wandering archmages in the woods, who miraculously saved the rookie adventurers who were in over their heads against whatever monster-of-the-month they were facing. We were the viziers for the kings and queens, who taught the children of royalty and helped generations upon generations of family lines of good people, who only sought to make their own little fiefdoms a bit better every day.” She said, “I already do that, here, but I have had to be rather ruthless occasionally. A lot more than I imagine I would have to be, if this new world order comes to fruition.”

Erick, wisely, didn’t say anything against that, either. All rulers were more ruthless than Erick was comfortable with. Even if Queen was telling the truth, she was probably worse than any other ruler on Veird.

- - - -

Erick stood to the side of the singers and the orchestra, where a few Shades had gathered to listen more closely. The musicians were all rather well dressed, and only a few of them were shadelings. They sang a song of uplifting news, and traveling the world. It was a good song.

- - - -

Goldie, the Shade of Assassination, held a bar of dark chocolate in one hand, and a hot cocoa in the other. The cocoa had rum in it, or some other liquor, for sure, because Goldie slurred her words, saying, “Now— owh. I mean. Now here’s da shting. Mana reneration is rate and wall. Ut. But! But. You can get furror with soul shundering. Dere are doe many chriminalse, ERICK! Youse can make yoursh Wishardly corhe ow evvar you whant! Jhust kill shome chriminales in dah futuer! Theysh don’t need thar lifes! Eashy!”

Erick nodded, and left Goldie to her own devices. As the party wore on, he caught sight of her more and more, sitting around corners, peering through crowds, looking over the edge of her glass, staring at him, but never approaching.

- - - -

“Do you know any Wizards?” Erick asked the group in front of him.

“None living,” said a woman, who walked away.

“Nope,” said a man who followed the woman.

The third just walked away, silently averting their glowing white eyes from Erick.

This interaction repeated itself a few times. Erick didn’t always ask the same question, but the result was always the same. The Shades walked away from him. Why did he even approach these Shades for a talk? Well. He was on a slippery slope, for sure. Might as well fully experience the ride, to ensure that his decision to kill them all was the right one.

Erick didn’t know whether to be happy, or—

Erick was happy; he decided. This was a good outcome.

Let them flee from him in terror of their own mortality! Bwa ha ha ha!

… He looked to the drink in his hands. He needed another.

- - - -

“There you are!” Erick said to Quilatalap, after he eventually got another drink and found the man up another level, past the music level.

The orcol sat in a quiet stone amphitheater, by himself, sipping on an empty drink. This place was probably a place for private concerts; it was not a large area. Quilatalap said, “Hey, there.”

Erick held forward a Well Laid Plan, and offered, “Want a copy of my own drink? I switched to a Well Laid Plan when the walls started melting.”

“Sure.” Quilatalap smiled as Erick handed him a Well Laid Plan. “Got tired of being shunned?”

Erick’s eyes went wide, as he laughed, and said, “Never! That was awesome. They—” He stopped himself; he was still sober enough to have that much self control. Best not to say that he would never get tired of scaring Shades into hiding. Saying that out loud would risk those Shades trying to prove him wrong. Instead, he sat down next to Quilatalap, and asked, “Know any Wizards?”

“I have. Many, many. You looking to make that mana generating spell, or something?” He sipped his drink.

Erick gave no answer for that, instead, he said, “I’m thinking about it, but now I’m also thinking of the rad-around-the-heart problem.”

Quilatalap said, “Oh. Well. That’s not a large problem. If you take certain precautions. How much do you know about dragons?”

“Not nearly enough?” Erick lost all train of thought for one surreal moment. He asked, “How the heck are dragons related to this?”

“Have you ever wondered why there’s a ‘wyrm season’?”

“Sort of? Not really.” Erick said, “You’re going to have to explain that one.”

“Okay. So. This is a multilayered problem that started with the rise of the Script, and the necessity of levels to gaining power. What I’m about to tell you is an open secret of their particular society, and if you thought Shades were bad, then you haven’t seen nothing. So maybe keep this to yourself. Anyway.” Quilatalap said, “Dragons are monsters, technically, and monsters gain power by absorbing rads and mana into their bodies. Shadelings are also capable of cycling their mana and drawing the mana of the world into their core in order to easily gain levels. But for shadelings, this possibility only goes to level 55ish.

“Dragons can get much, much higher than that, because they can utilize grand rads larger than most, and even multiple grand rads if they have that capability. Dragons can get into the 90s with this method. It’s exceedingly rare for that to happen, but it does happen.

“But here’s the trick: When they’re done with the cycling and the easy gaining of levels, they can discard their built up grand rads, and return to being not-monster.” He stressed, “Only if they’ve managed to keep their soul out of the rad, though. This is key. This gets wildly difficult when they are forced to cycle billions of mana per second in order to reach those high, high levels in any sort of useful time table. But they’re immortal, so they have time.

“Those that are capable of this feat have time. The rest? Not so much.

“Anyway! The dragons have something resembling a society, but it’s difficult when they’re all poised to kill each other when they’re not related by blood. The Draconic Blood Curse, you see.” Quilatalap said, “So their society is rather fractured, but within their families, it is not. They still have ancestral homes in the forests north of the Wyrmridge. They’re hidden, but they’re out there, and a lot of them are inside the Old Dragonkin lands.

“Anyway! Every year at the end of Water Season, when they’re all good and rested and fat and poised for advancement, the younger ones are taken in by their elders in those ancestral homes, and they have a graduating ceremony, where the elders help the youngsters learn how to cycle billions of mana per second without falling to monsterfication.

“Doesn’t always work, but it works well enough. Some survive the process and go on into the world to make their marks or other dragons or to kill other dragons. Most youngsters do not survive this process. They become wyrms. Those fallen children are released out into the world, discarded as failures.”

Erick listened intently to the horrors of dragon life.

“And I’ve gotten a bit away from myself.” Quilatalap said, “Condensing a rad and maintaining your own soul in the process is key to draconic power. This fact has not changed since the Old Cosmology. Dragons have been doing this literally forever. But in this New Cosmology, they do not have control over themselves if they fail to keep part of their souls outside of the grand rads they form.

“Shades don’t have this problem. They get their grand rad and keep themselves from that final fall, but you need Melemizargo’s help for that. In the case of the shadelings and the Shades, they don’t discard their rads at all; they become their rads, completely, and because of Melemizargo’s power, they keep their minds.”

Erick looked to his drink, then to Quilatalap. “You’re gonna need to explain that to me, again, but slower, and more elaborate.” He said, “That feels like… Like big information.”

Quilatalap smiled. “Are you going to become my student?”

“I guess I am.” Erick added, “As long as you don’t have too many skeletons in your closet.”

“First lesson: don’t keep your skeletons in the closet.” Quilatalap joked, “They go in the morgue.”

Erick smiled as he sipped his drink, and the archlich spoke of rads and monsters, souls and mana, and levels.

- - - -

Erick looked away from Quilatalap to see a large orcol man, stepping up the stairs that led to the orchestra down below. His hair was black and skin was brown as bark, and thick, like tree bark. All he wore was a kilt made of leather, and a very displeased visage. His eyes were bright white; he was a Shade. And he was walking right at Erick.

Quilatalap spoke before the interloper could, “Hello, Treant.”

Oh? So this was Treant? Erick had wondered what the reclusive Shade had looked like. Killzone had said that Treant was usually a tree in the middle of the Garden, but he wasn’t sure if Treant was a person turned into a tree, or a tree [Familiar] that outgrew its master. Bets were that Treant was a former orcol, and those bets looked to be correct.

Treant scowled at the archlich, but he turned his displeasure back to a low simmer, and stopped two meters from Erick. He stood there, silent. Unblinking. Angry, and yet unwilling to speak.

Killzone’s main advice regarding Treant was not to go into the Garden and otherwise avoid the man, for Treant was a strident misanthrope of the worst kind. He absolutely hated civilization, organized thought, people of all kinds, and especially politics. But he loved plants. Killzone had given Erick an edge to dealing with this Shade, but Erick needed to wait for the right time, and to see how Treant actually felt before he opened his mouth and spoke of his advantage.

So Erick waited.

Eventually, the bark-skinned orcol spoke, “I am torn.”

Erick successfully resisted the urge to say, ‘Hi, Torn! I’m Erick.’

Treant continued, “On one side, you have created a World Tree, and you have created many new plants. But on the other side, they are farming plants. Lives created to CODDLE—” Anger exploded, but was successfully restrained. Treant forced himself to speak through his anger, “To coddle the people of this blasted world. But on yet another side, I have been ordered to offer you your pick. So pick: Sundrop, Rockdrop. Foamdrop. Stardrop.”

Erick sharply inhaled. Those were the names of the Stat Fruits. He collected himself, and said, “No thank you. I don’t want any of those.”

For the briefest of moments, Treant smiled. It was a wicked thing to see on this man. And then his smile was gone, replaced by his perpetual frown, which turned a hint darker, as he spat out, “If you don’t pick one, it’ll be a hunt through Kendrithyst with forty of us and one of you, and when we find you, you’re getting all of them. I hope you turn shadeling and everyone in your life leaves you. It’ll make you much easier to control.”

“… Ah.” Erick tried an evasion, saying, “Charisma is a death sentence according to the Mind Mages.”

“Then this is good news for you: the Charisma Tree has been altered. I’m debuting the Perception Stat Tree in a few hours. I’m still calling it Foamdrop.”

Erick felt a chill. He deflected, “I need to know: Have you made these yourself, or did—”

Treant sighed. “Stop. Stop this. Stop vacillating. You are trapped by your own actions, so make a decision. Either cut your leg off and try to run and have the yoke forced upon you, or put the yoke over your own head, of your own volition.”

Erick did not instantly answer. He was still trying to think of—

Treant growled out, “Tania. This is going too slow. Help me.”

A shadow stepped onto the ground to the left, and peeled away, revealing Tania Webwalker, in her white dress. Her spider was on her shoulder again. She opened her mouth—

Another dark shadow stepped onto the grounds to the right. Fallopolis entered the conversation, saying, “What are you trying to do here, Treant?”

The man said, “I have been ordered to force a fruit upon Erick. That is what I am doing.”

Tania said, “You were ordered to offer him a fruit.”

“I know what I was told to do, and I am doing it, and then I am leaving. Don’t you play these games with me, Tania.” He looked to Fallopolis. “Don’t you try this shit, either.” Treant looked to Erick, and pulled four fruits from the air. “Choose.”

The first was a fuzzy orange peach that glowed with an inner light. The next was a gold sphere with a tiny green leaf on the top. The third was a small bunch of green grapes; maybe seven on the stem. The fourth was a black apple with white dots, half the size of Erick’s fist.

Treant demanded, “Pick one. Or all four! The only interest I have in this scenario is my curiosity demanding to know if you’d turn shadeling, or not. Choose!”

Tania looked to Erick. “Take all four.”

Fallopolis said to Tania, “None. He shall have none, for he does not want them.”

Tania leveled her white eyes at Fallopolis. “Two.”

“None,” Fallopolis retorted.

Tania smiled. “Impossible.”

Fallopolis frowned. “One.”

“One,” Tania agreed.

They all turned to Erick. He could fight this, if he wanted. But that would just end in pain and hardship and then they’d get their way, anyway. Directly fighting this decision was not an option. So he rolled with it, and decided that he wanted the power offered to him.

Erick asked, “What do they even do?”

Treant gave a groaning sigh, like a tree being pushed around by the wind, then said, “Dexterity improves your ability to move and reduces Health consumption by giving a percentage reduction to all Health costs. Constitution gives you a percentage damage taken reduction. Perception increases your ability to notice the world and people, but the exact nature of the Stat is different for each person. That’s bleed-through from when it was Charisma.” He frowned at Erick, saying, “But you’re going to take Intelligence, so why even bother with this act?”

“I might not!” Erick said, and it was the truth, but only in the moment that he said it. When a second moment came along, Erick realized that Treant was probably right. Intelligence was the one Erick wanted. Obviously.

Treant said, “Intelligence improves your ability to fight with magic, and also reduces Mana costs by a percentage. It also makes you smarter.” He sternly said, “You could use some of that. Maybe if you were smarter you wouldn’t get involved in godly problems ever again, and I wouldn’t have been dragged out of my Garden.”

Erick deployed his Killzone-gifted idea, “Don’t you want the Crystal Forest to be turned into a real forest?” He added another, more personal touch, to try and get out from under Treant’s, and now Tania’s demand, saying, “Don’t you want forests on new worlds, too, Treant?” Erick asked. “Forests without people?” He looked to the Stat Fruits, saying, “I’m not ready to experiment with my own body like that.”

Treant’s white eyes shone fractionally brighter, for several seconds, as he breathed in, and his massive, bark-skinned body seemed to flex outward, into the light, ever so slightly. He came down from that high, and said, “The gods sent people to kill all the World Trees I ever made. Even when I was a plain, misguided orcol, trying to work for the betterment of the green, and the wild. They won’t let the forests fight for themselves. They wouldn’t let anything of that level of power be born unless it’s under their control, and now they got their wish.” He tossed the black apple to Erick, saying, “So forget about your stupid fleshy body.”

Erick caught the apple with a grip of light.

Treant said, “Eat up. You’re going to need some smarts to survive the evil they’re going to throw your way.”

Erick stared at the dark fruit in his hands, and words failed him.

Treant spoke to Tania. “My part is done. I’m not enforcing this.” He stepped away, his feet flashing dark, and then he was gone.

Tania looked to Erick, saying, “Eat it, and this will go easier for you.”

Erick frowned.

Fallopolis said, “Sorry, Erick. You should probably eat that, and then get good and sloshed so that you can go back to having a good time.” She added, “If it makes you feel any better, if you don’t increase your Intelligence with points, then you won’t have any mental changes.”

Erick gazed down at the black apple-like fruit in his hands, with its star-pattern of white spots. He looked to Fallopolis, saw the writing on the wall, and lied through his smile, “That does make me feel better.”

He bit into the apple. It tasted like how he imagined stars would taste; a cold vastness, full of light. Tania watched. Fallopolis sighed, then stepped away in a dark flash. Erick got to what he assumed would have been the core of the stardrop fruit, but there was nothing there. The fruit was flesh throughout; no seeds. Erick got down to the last bite, just as Fallopolis stepped back into the space, carrying three white and black drinks; three Vivid Glooms. Erick finished the fruit.

A blinding, ripping headache turned into a riot of color and darkness, as something intangible zapped through his body. He breathed hard, catching himself from falling onto the ground. His drink had spilled, and somehow that seemed the most awful thing in the moment.

Thoughts occurred, only to be drowned out by other ideas. An ocean of memory flooded through Erick in that second. Time flashed, and then went still. Ideas plinked against his brain like raindrops. And then, he was slightly himself again, but also very much not.

He looked to his spilled drink. Ah, whatever, Fallopolis had brought three, that meant that one was for him, right? As a consolation prize? Right on cue, Fallopolis handed him a Vivid Gloom.

He took it, saying, “Thanks.”

She asked, “What’d you get?”

Erick glanced at his Status. “Some number.”

It was 20. They didn’t have to know that, though.

He did ask, “What’s the name for the bonus at 20, though?”

Fallopolis snickered, saying, “I knew you were a smart one.”

“There is no 20 Intelligence bonus.” Tania said, “Not yet.” And apparently that was enough conversation for her; her job was done. She stepped away in a flash of black.

Erick looked to Fallopolis, “Is that true, about not putting points into it?”

“Well.” Fallopolis sat down on the stone amphitheater seating, next to Erick. “I think so.”

Quilatalap, from Erick’s other side, said, “The first point does give some change; tests have confirmed it.”

“What sort of tests?”

“Adventurers of this city who were captured and used in sapient experimentation,” Quilatalap said.

“Who made the trees?” Erick asked. “I heard that they were made of souls. It was Treant, right?” He looked to Quilatalap.

The archlich said, “I’m pretty sure it was Treant.” He looked away, thinking. “And a few others. Tania was directly involved. Not sure who else. I’m not privy to a lot of the things that happen around here.”

Fallopolis said, “Tania, Treant, Rodel, a few others you haven’t met yet. Lapis, for sure. She’s the Shade of Enchantments.”

“Now there’s a good topic!” Erick asked, “How do enchantments work?”

Fallopolis looked to him, asking, “You’re moving on from this forced Stat rather fast?”

“I moved on rather fast when you tried to do that rhyme at me, too. And that reminds me! How do blessings and curses work?” He looked to Quilatalap, saying, “Got any tips, teach?”

Quilatalap looked to Erick, up and down, then said, “Are you feeling okay? You seem off.”

Erick was feeling fine. Better than fine, actually. “Maybe a little worked up. There’s nothing better than getting over the horror and the awfulness of Shades than by learning something new!” He added, “And I hope they all heard me say that, too.” Erick shot to his feet, deciding, “I need to work on some Stat enchantments for Intelligence!” He glanced from Fallopolis to Quilatalap, saying, “I bet I’ve messed up my rings and my belt and am thoroughly harming myself with these unbalanced Stats.” He looked to Fallopolis, saying, “Give me a moment and I can help you kill some more Shades.” He held a hand out and channeled mana through his Intelligence, producing a manalight of palest violet. “Making new jewelry should be easy enough!”

Fallopolis glanced from Erick to Quilatalap, as she set her drink down and sat a bit taller. Quilatalap leaned away from Erick, regarding him. Erick, for his part, produced a maskward for Intelligence, combining it with a maskward for all the other stats, making a dense sphere of bright purple where all other light was denied.

Tania stepped back onto the lawn, not five meters away.

Erick waved to her. “Oh, hi! I’m going to make some magic!”

She frowned at him, but said nothing. After a moment, Bulgan appeared at her side, like some dark, male shadow a full half-meter taller than her, and with his arms crossed, he glared at Erick.

“An audience!” Erick cheered, “Fantastic!”

Fallopolis mumbled, “Shit. You guys. I think you broke him.”

“I’M NOT BROKEN!” Erick said, “I just have 20 Intelligence now! And some things are much clearer than they used to be! In fact. I think I can do THIS. It should work. It makes sense, anyway.”

Erick had an Ophiel conjure a [Prismatic Ward] to the side, where he then proceeded to have another Ophiel copy the ring on his finger, and while the copy would be non-magical, the metals of the surface would be conductive to magic, for that was the necessary thing. He then took the ring and put it into the Intelligence and All-Stats maskwa—

It was not a true All-Stats maskward. Erick would have to fix that, next.

He scratched the metallic surface of the ring, and pumped all of his Stat light into the break. When he knew it couldn’t handle any more, he Shaped a [Mend] onto the scratch, leaving the rest of the ring untouched by that ‘fixing’ magic.

He took off a ring, and then put on the new one. Success!

He smiled, “Fifty Intelligence! That was simple enough.”

He repeated the process with a second ring, while three more Shades stepped onto the grounds around Erick. He greeted a few of the ones he recognized from Killzone’s primer, naming each one as they appeared. It was so much easier to remember everything with all this Intelligence. By the time he was finished with the second ring and was sitting pretty at 81 Intelligence, there was a dark-skinned human woman over there, who was sort of muscular and also androgynous. She was Lapis, the Shade of Enchantment. She was watching Erick with keen eyes, as Erick watched her. He had been waiting for her to appear, because obviously she was going to appear when Erick was working on enchantments out in the open like this.

Erick invited her over, “Hey, Lapis! Got the colors for the other three Stats?”

Lapis broke into a wide smile, but that smile quickly vanished as she looked to the right.

Erick turned to see. Ah. Tania was eyeing him, and then Lapis. Bulgan was eyeing him. He looked around. A lot of Shades were eyeing him. Ah! Whatever. He turned back to Lapis, saying, “Don’t mind them! We’re making enchantment progress! Don’t you want to help?”

Lapis decided something in that moment. She decided to ignore the silent, brooding, thinking Tania. Lapis walked right up to Erick, saying, “I have those colors. Here, let me help you.” She held out her hand, and produced a yellow light.

“Constitution.” Erick waved a maskward into the air of the appropriate color. “Have that one.”

Lapis smiled, and it was greedy and malevolent and yet, Erick didn’t care. “But can you combine it with the others?” She held up one hand, and produced a light of orange make. She held up her other hand, and produced green. “Dexterity and Perception, though I appreciated it more when it was Charisma.”

“Of course you did.” Erick said, “You’re using it on me right now, and though my dick is hard, my mind says no, so I am glad to see that Intelligence has some sort of a natural counter to Charisma.”

Lapis laughed. She wasn’t the only one, though some of the laughs were more nervous than indicative of mirth.

Erick said, “Oh, drat. How do you change the color of your magic?” He looked around for an answer, saying, “I still haven’t figured that out.”

Lapis said, “Mana Altering for color. Do it often enough and it becomes second nature.”

“WHAT!” Erick said, “It’s that easy!?”

Lapis said, “It’s easier said than done—”

Erick was already conjuring other colors of mana from his hands. “Easy.”

With a concentrated thought, Erick combined all eight individual maskwards into something that let all eight colors through, and none of the others.

An oddly-white maskward appeared in the air. It wasn’t actually white. It was more… iridescent. Pearlescent. Shimmery.

With another copy of his rings, Erick set them into the new oddly-white maskward, and channeled mana into scratches in the rings. A pair of [Mend]s later, and Erick had two nice rings. He put them on.

He briefly saw his Status.

--

Erick Flatt

Human?, age 48

Level 85, Class: Particle Mage

Exp: 7.77 e17 / 6.79 e 19

Class: 10/10

Points: 19

HP, 6,930/6930 , 76,770 per day

MP, 15,211/17,460 , 76,770 per day

Strength , 20 , +211 , [231]

Vitality , 20 , +211 , [231]

Dexterity , 7 , +61 , [68]

Constitution , 20 , +61 , [81]

Perception , 19 , +61 , [80]

Willpower , 80 , +211 , [291]

Focus , 80 , +211 , [291]

Intelligence , 20 , +61 , [81]

Favored Ability waiting!

Favored Ability waiting!

Favored Ability waiting!

--

He mumbled, “Oh hey, look! I unlocked all of them! That was easy.” But it probably came out rather unintelligible because half his face was numb, and drooping. And then his right arm flickered out, uncontrolled. He accidentally slapped himself. He yelled at his arm, “Stop that!”

And then he collapsed.

- - - -

Erick floated above white clouds, in a blue sky.

“Oh. Hello, Rozeta.” Erick said, to the endless vision. “Are you around here, somewhere?”

There was no immediate response.

Instead, Erick had a long moment to realize what he had just done in the center of all those Shades, and what had just happened, and where his body was, and the fact that he had left that oddly-white orb in the air. Anyone could use that orb, now. Erick had created something that he probably shouldn’t have created. If his rings unlocked all the Stats for him, then his rings would unlock all the Stats for everyone? Did he have that right?

“Fuck.” Erick said, “Shit.”

“Yup.” In her white wrought form, Rozeta stepped onto the cloud next to him, and sat down, saying, “You gave them a lot of power. They kinda tricked it out of you, but that’s fine. They were almost there, anyway.”

“It’s the Intelligence. It’s doing something to my cognitive functions. I’m remembering things that I thought I had forgotten and I want to DO ALL THE THINGS. Like figuring out how atomic magic has been Banned or—” He controlled himself for a moment, coming back to himself, as he said, “I remember every single detail of every single physics lesson I ever took to help Jane pass her own classes. I remember… I remember a lot. Oh. Shit. Was your universe Vacuum Decayed?” A sudden panic gripped him. “OH SHIT. Could you Vacuum Decay THIS universe?” For the longest eternity and also no time at all, Erick had a moment, and then he let it go. “Ah. Shit.” And then he latched onto another topic, saying, “But why were the Time Wizards not able to see the Sundering happen before it happened? That seems like someone is lying or they just don’t have the whole story.” He added, “Or time was not what people thought it was. There’s a lot of ideas about time not being real in this universe, too.”

“Erick.” Rozeta said, “I need you to focus on the moment.”

“I am focused!” He joked, “My main Stat is Focus! Or at least it was.” He asked, “OH OH! I have an 81 in Constitution! Does that mean I take 81 percent less damage from every attack?”

“Focus.”

Erick looked to Rozeta; for some reason he had looked away. “What?!” He narrowed his eyes at her, then his eyes flew wide open. “You’re going to do something to me!”

“I’m not going to do anything to you.”

“Which means you’ve already done it.” Erick lamented for a fraction of a second, then decided he wanted to get something for himself out of all this. He asked, “What’s all this about mana generation and soul sundering and World Trees and new worlds and shit? Is that really how it’s going to go down?” He added, “And that was not very succinct or understandable, but you understood me, yes? Of course you do; you’re a god. If anyone doesn’t understand anything, it’s me.”

“I understand you.” Rozeta said, “But back to the issue at hand—”

“No. No deflection! This is my time to talk, and I want answers.” Erick said, “Ever since I got to Veird and made this Particle Magic, every single god has wanted a piece of me. And now I find out that some possible-planar guy named Xoat started your Old Cosmology!” He stared at the goddess in front of him, saying, “You know what I said to Melemizargo when I met him that first time, don’t you? I sang to him like an old friend! I called him that! Serendipity or planning! Which was it?!” He added, “Probably some time-shit.”

Rozeta sighed. “Serendipity. Or maybe it was the plan of a long dead god. Maybe it was the mana itself, untethered due to the madness of its current shepherd, searching for someone it had known a long, long time ago, and it found you. It would take years for me to properly explain planar-distance translocation, but I am not going to do that.”

Half hysterical, Erick straight-up asked, “Am I the reincarnation of Xoat?!”

“Probably not.”

“WHAT?!”

“We did not have the concept of reincarnation before you came along and gave rise to that word. The words we used for ‘reincarnation’ were either ‘resurrection’, or some variation of the word ‘summon’.” She said, “So could you be a reincarnation? Maybe. But likely not, for all that was Xoat was transformed into our Old Cosmology. That much of Shade history is true. We are living in the pieces of him, right now. This means that you literally cannot be Xoat, for you are certainly not everything around you.”

“Fine. Whatever. Let’s discard the idea that your Xoat Cosmology fell into my universe so long ago and this reality all around us is only a fraction of that whole.” He added, “Which was lost to you.”

Rozeta nodded, then sarcastically said, “Yes. Let us discard that impossible-to-verify idea right now.”

“Fine!” Erick asked, “Am I a Wizard, or not?”

“Yes, but that’s not important right now.”

“Fine fine fine!” Erick said, “Then go on and tell me what IS important. Get on with your spiel and then send me back so I can… So I can do something! I’ll figure it out.”

“You’re in a moment of Stat Dissonance.” Rozeta said, “I pulled you into this moment because if you were to continue to experience this down there, then they would engineer it such that you would give them whatever they wanted. You fell into their trap by accepting that Stardrop, and then you went wild in the storm of your resurfacing memories.”

Erick had a dozen thoughts at once, and then he came back to himself, saying, “You’re not here to force something upon me, or to take something away.”

“I am not forcing anything upon you except for you to stand before my presence for as long as you desire.” Rozeta said, “I am doing this to give you the time necessary to acclimate to your new existence. This acclimation will go faster if you concentrate on centering yourself. You would do well to have this experience over and done with sooner rather than later.”

“Because Melemizargo can interrupt this if he notices.”

Rozeta shook her head. “He’s already noticed.” She turned her head to the left, and Erick followed her gaze. A Darkness held on the edge of the blue sky, like an unmoving ink stain. Rozeta said, “I might be able to hold him back for as long as you need, but not as long as you want. You need to center yourself, because you are surrounded by enemies and too many powers are interested in your future.”

Erick stared at the goddess, demanding, “I want my questions about the soul sundering and mana trees and new worlds answered.”

Rozeta frowned a little, but answered, “The soul sundering would come from those who choose The End granted by Phagar. It is a painless process for gods to commit. You and the other Wizards currently alive on Veird wouldn’t need to be involved in this at all. In fact, we would prefer you not be involved at all. Not right away, anyway.”

Erick gasped. He asked, “You’re really going to do that, then? Travel to new worlds? Set up new Scripts? When? How? What is a sundered soul? I don’t understand any of that.”

“And you likely never will, for what you call a ‘sundered soul’ is not actually what is happening at all.” Rozeta paused for a moment, then said, “Quilatalap can help you with this. He’s rather neutral—”

Erick gasped again, as he smiled, then laughed, then giggled like a schoolgirl. “He’s not evil?!” Waves of laughter turned into tears, as Erick got out, “Oh my gods! He’s not evil.” And then the real tears came, as a thousand individual moments of pressure and horror came crashing down upon him, and he wished that this Shadow’s Feast was over and that he was on a vacation or something where he didn’t have to think and plot and plan around Shades and gods and world changing events. It took a long moment before the rolling emotions stopped, and he came back to himself. And then he had another thought. He looked to Rozeta, saying, “Ah. Shit. You said he was neutral. Not that he wasn’t evil.”

Rozeta said, “My own definition of evil is rather subjective. It has to be, for magic must remain neutral in all ways, and at all times. But Quilatalap… Quilatalap never hurts others when he has a choice, and he almost always has a choice. That is rather ‘not-evil’, for many definitions of such.”

“But there’s a caveat to all that,” Erick said, reading between the lines.

“Quilatalap has done just as many horrible things and just as many wondrous, great things, as anyone else his age. If we were still in the Old Cosmology, he might have been leading a school these days, teaching the young and raising up the mages of tomorrow to help Koyabez keep his parts of the universe more stable. More peaceful.

“Necromancy…” Rozeta got a far-off look in her eyes, and her voice turned distant. “Necromancy used to help the Peacekeepers of Koyabez enter the dangerous territories of warring factions, to calm the wars and help who ever they could help, for if they died, they would just come back and try again. Not many people were able to accomplish this level of necromancy, and we were lucky Quilatalap was there on Veird at the time of the Sundering. We would have never survived that event if it wasn’t for people like him.

“After the Sundering, necromancy would have been viewed the same on Veird, if not for the destruction of the Halves, and the creation of the Orcols.

“In the beginning of the Script, there was no magic. The mortals of this world had to create it themselves. Quilatalap created necromancy, and everything was going… Not well. But we survived, and that’s what was important. And then the Old Demons murdered all Halves. We tried to fix that, and we did, for a certain understanding of ‘fix’.

“This fix created the Orcols, and inflicted them with the Rage. Quilatalap was no different in this regard. For the first time in his life, that peaceful man joined a war. He joined The War, where the newly-created Orcols unified under the Rage, and attempted to kill everyone else. His necromancy made them unstoppable, and if it weren’t for Aloethag becoming who she became, draining the orcols of their Rage, then we would have all died, not 35 years out from surviving the Sundering.

“His creations of orcol necromancy, and his actions of that time, ran him afoul of many, many parties, and those wounds have never healed. Angels and demons both hate him. That man has enemies the world over. If he wasn’t in Ar’Kendrithyst, someone would track him down and kill him. The Interfaith Church has been trying to assassinate him for a millennium.”

The goddess’s calm voice, as well as the passing of time, and her words, brought Erick a bit of solace. A bit more to himself, as the storm of ideas inside his head calmed to something less forceful.

Erick said, “You’re trying to get me to talk to him. To confide in him.”

“I am. That is correct.” Rozeta said, “You two are rather similar. He gifted necromancy to the Script. You gave Particle Magic. His war is long over, and he’s been trying to survive the aftermath all this time. Your war is just beginning.”

Erick felt a little bit of his manic episode pass, as he said, “I might have made Particle Magic, but I have nothing else to give. You said I didn’t have to be involved.”

“And you don’t.” Rozeta continued, “But the Shades are trying to make you involved so that they can leverage the controls they already have over you in order to force you to be involved, in order to gain control over worlds yet to come.” She paused, then said, “I see you understand.”

“Now that you’ve pointed it out. Sure.” With that thought, Erick felt a certain kind of full-calmness spread throughout his body, as he knew now what he had to do. With that feeling, came a thought. “Ah. Did I just acclimate? I think I did. But… What are these Stats going to do to me? Short term and long term?”

“Don’t trust any of these new Stats, Erick. They all have diminishing returns. They’re not as powerful as the originals. 81 Constitution does not meant 81 percent damage reduction, and even with the other defensive skills out there, like [Defend], you might still take 25 percent of the damage you would have taken.” She stressed, “But a quarter of a million damage is still more than enough to end you. Do not get cocky.”

Erick followed the logic, saying, “And 81 Intelligence doesn’t mean free spells.”

“Correct. There is always a cost to mag—” Rozeta suddenly frowned. She looked past Erick.

Erick turned.

The blot in the sky was darker, and expanding.

Melemizargo’s voice carried, but it was softer than usual, “We could work on all of that, Rozeta. Make these new Stats something coherent with a new Script. One we can put on other planets out there.”

Rozeta sighed. “We’re not talking.” Suddenly, with a tone Erick knew all too well, that Jane had used on him when he had fucked up, Rozeta spoke past Erick, her voice light, like a lure waiting to capture and drag the object of her ire down into the depths of her displeasure, “We will not talk until at least a decade has passed, and your actions haven’t doomed us all in the meantime. So if you could: go away, now.”

Clouds shifted.

Erick’s cloud flowed away, through the blue, as Rozeta’s cloud broke from his, flowing off into the distance, to where the blue sky met the black void. White stars glowed in those depths, but two of those stars were larger than most; they were eyes. Melemizargo, in all his dragon form, hid in that void, like a nebula rarely seen except in the brightest artistic interpretations of the night sky. Erick blinked, and Rozeta was a dragon, sinuous and white-iridescent, coiling through the endless blue sky.

Melemizargo spoke to his daughter, “We can—”

Rozeta spoke to her father, “We cannot. Because—”

They spoke fast, in words Erick barely caught.

“— well how—”

“A night of—”

“—can I—”

“Centuries! Yes!”

Melemizargo recoiled, “But I—”

The two gods had been talking for less than a second, and also for hours. Rozeta jolted. She turned to Erick. Her voice slowed to a human-level of speed, saying, “The Shades barely answer to my father. Don’t trust his word to keep you safe.”

Melemizargo frowned, then turned to Erick, saying, “She’s right. She shouldn’t be correct in this, but she is, and I would be blind to not see this truth. I cannot protect you from them, and I cannot protect them from you. But please, know this: Some of them are salvageable. Don’t kill too many if you can help it. I would be most appreciative if you could save whoever you can save.”

“Oh?!” Rozeta reared back, and glared at the Darkness in the sky. With an entirely new level of sarcasm in her voice, she said, “Will you actually abide by the divine mandate to let mortals handle mortals? To guide with words and help, instead of clawing and Wizarding your way through your problems? Or maybe you’re only doing this right now because it is convenient for you to use MY HOLY COMMUNION with Erick to get what YOU WANT, in an attempt to show yourself to be more reasonable than ever before?” With the voice of a goddess, Rozeta demanded, “Is that your plot?!”

Melemizargo retorted with the voice of a sorry father, “No! I am just being honest with him because that is the right thing to—”

“Don’t you dare start talking about the right thing—”

Erick dropped out of the clouds as two gods began arguing again.

- - - -

Erick opened his eyes.

He was still on the grass above the music, above the party. Erick knew this, even before he moved his head, or checked the eyes of his Ophiel. Though, upon checking on his Ophiel, he noticed quite a few things happening all at once, all around him. He filed away those interactions for later, but he kept in mind Bulgan, smiling like he had won a great victory, and Tania sighing, like she had lost something important, and Fallopolis and Priestess, both beside themselves with worry. And then the emotions of those four shifted, as Erick stirred awake. Bulgan frowned. Tania’s face became a mask of composed perfection. Fallopolis almost went to Erick, but she held herself back by the accusing gazes of every other Shade.

Barely a second has passed since Erick came back to himself, and yet, it felt like a minute had passed.

… He might have technically acclimated to these True All-Stat rings, but Perception and Intelligence, in particular, were going to take some time. People weren’t meant to notice the whorls of air in their sight, or the dark grubs burying themselves in the dirt, or the perspiration on the necks of all the servers downstairs, and upon some of the Shades. Everyone was on edge—

No. Wait. Some people weren’t on edge at all.

Ah. Those were the crazy ones, weren’t they. The ones that were truly beyond hope of normal interactions with society. They were the ones that saw prey all around them, and were so used to getting what they wanted, that they didn’t know that the world was changing out from under their feet. They didn’t know their god had abandoned them.

Erick had not yet gotten up, or done anything to lift himself from the soft, grassy ground. He still looked to Tania, though, but with Ophiels’ eyes. The Champion of Melemizargo was the key person in this gathering of 29 Shades. The woman was tense; her face was a mask, but—

And then Tania proved that she was not to be underestimated. She sensed Erick’s eyes upon her, either through her spiders sitting all around, or through some other way. Erick couldn’t understand her at all. Something had shifted. And then Erick recognized the change. She was in her shadowform. She had put up her total defenses. She had prepared herself against Erick. Because… Because…

Because she knew that Melemizargo had abandoned them!

Holy shit! She knew that the vast majority of their current Clergy were all dead Shades walking, and as soon as most of them were dead, the rest would follow, because civilization had had enough of them, and if they couldn’t defend themselves, then it was time to get rid of them all.

And with that realization, another shattering thought came down the line:

No one else knew of that abandonment. Tania was the only Shade in the know. If the full Clergy had known, they would go rampant and out of control and that would be the final straw and Melemizargo could officially declare a purge of his own Clergy. Either his current Clergy would die to themselves, and then the world, or they would die to Melemizargo himself. But they would all die, sooner, rather than later.

That Dark god probably had other people lined up, ready to take on the positions the Shades around him had filled, ready to become Shades themselves.

And even if he didn’t, Melemizargo could probably survive for a long time without his people, without his worshiping base. Decades were certainly possible. Centuries were probable. He was a god with a physical body, after all.

Aloethag, the goddess of Beauty and Brutality, back when she was simply Aloeth, the goddess of Beauty and the elves, had survived for a long time without her elves. All the elves had died within years of coming to Veird, after the Sundering, but Aloethag managed to survive for decades. She even survived till after the Deaths of all Halves, and after the Orcol Wars, when she then took over the Rage of the Orcols for her own benefit. That event was 35 years Post Sundering.

Melemizargo’s plan was to kill his entire Clergy. Maybe the Dark Dragon or others would save a few, but most would die. He had even said to Erick that he would appreciate the saving of a few good ones. But.

Did Erick want to save a few Shades?

Oh. Wow.

No.

No he did not.

Two seconds had passed since Erick awoke.

A brief thought came. Erick could open with an Aurified [Vivid Gloom], killing lots of the Shades all around him. His own sunform was off since he had gone unconscious and lost those spells. But he could survive a moment of [Vivid Gloom], maybe.

But. No.

Erick had lost his opportunity for murder, and he wasn’t prepared to cause that murder, anyway. As that thought occurred, he was glad that he had lost that chance. The Shades were an extinct people, they just didn’t know it yet. A moment of clarity slammed into Erick’s mind like a freight truck: was that a good thing, or a bad thing? Personally, Erick didn’t want to help that fate to happen. Intellectually, if that death occurred really fast, then the world could move on, and there wouldn’t be a city of Archmages tearing itself and the rest of the world apart in their death throes.

Ah. That was why Goldie and Tania and others had okayed the murders of Shades at the party.

Usually, there was violence every year, but this year it was deadly violence with a purpose, and with a cover. Tania acted like the problematic Shades were problems to be dealt with, but she turned around and said that the vast majority of Shades were okay.

But. No. She was thinning the herd to prepare for a full culling, all the way down to 3 or 4 Shades, who could then go into hiding and reemerge after a suitably long time, after Melemizargo reintroduced his Shades into this universe. Tania was walking a tightrope across a chasm of death-by-Shades, or death-by-all-the-rest-of-the-world.

Fallopolis broke Erick from his reverie, asking, “Are you… Are you okay, dear?”

Erick was still on the ground. Five seconds had passed since he awoke.

He spoke to the sky, “I think so.” He sat up. He looked around, at the dead people staring at him; none of them aware that their executions were just a matter of time and place and circumstance away. He said to Fallopolis, “I’m feeling great.” He stood up, and standing was as simple as desiring it. Before his Dexterity, any movement at all would have taken some effort; some drain on his seemingly endless Health resources. But now…

His body had gone through a shift, like when he gained Rozeta’s Boon of Recovery. This, now, was not just a younger body, like it was back then. Erick felt… He felt naturally limber. If he wanted, he could fall upon his hand, and do a slow-motion cartwheel. But now was not the time for that.

He put on a smile, and spoke to the crowd, “So that was interesting! Sorry for worrying everyone. I’m fine. Got all the Stats unlocked, though. That’s a thing that can be done, apparently.” He instantly canceled the maskward in the air in front of him. “But I see some of you plotting to make your own, so that’s not going to happen without my permission.”

Lapis, still standing nearer than most, switched from visible anger, to quietly questioning what she was seeing. The transition of emotion was so smooth and so barely-there, that Erick would have never have caught it, if he was his old self. She was going to try and get him to help her, somehow. What were her goals, though? Erick didn’t know enough about her, but he probably would, when this was all over.

Lapis said, “I’ve already gifted you some knowledge. That should buy me some returns—”

Priestess spoke up, “No one is getting anything from Erick. Shoo! All of you. Lapis. No.”

Lapis said to Erick, “We can talk later.”

“He’s given us enough.” Priestess stared at Lapis with starbright eye sockets. “You’re done here.” She fluttered her bone hands forward, at everyone, saying, “Everyone, leave. Back to the party.”

Before anyone could depart, or move, or make their intentions known, Bulgan spoke, “I want to know if he’s still human.”

Everyone paused.

Erick casually turned to the man who had tried to kill him several times over. “There is a question mark there, upon my Status.” He turned on his [Greater Lightwalk], but kept the activation barely visible, and just inside his shoes, at the moment. It wouldn’t be enough to protect him from Bulgan; not without [Lodestar], too. But maybe he could run away if things turned ugly. Erick asked his own loaded question of Bulgan, “Do you feel you are a benefit to the Clergy?”

Bulgan said, “I think everyone here can see the benefit of having one of us specifically tailored to take you down.”

The crowd agreed with him, though no one said anything, they spoke volumes with their bodies, and their slight turns of head, and in the tensions in their shoulders. Erick saw it all, with the Ophiel all around. Now was not the time for a confrontation. Erick would lose, and he would lose hard.

Erick said, “Quite reason… able...” He had an idea. He thought it over for a hot three seconds, then decided to let it out there. “So. I’d like to offer my help to any Shade who wants it! The only caveats are that you’ve got to be trying to make the world a better place for all involved, and then I will help you in those endeavors.” He looked around, “I’m sure none of you are truly bad people. You’re just misunderstood. Your power has given you too many advantages and thus you see others as less than sapient—”

A woman Shade wearing clouds for a dress and a disgusted look upon her face stepped away in a flash of shadows. Three more rapidly followed.

Erick continued, undaunted, “All you have to do is tell me all of all of your current projects and then I can come with you to verify your projects and we can talk about—”

Five more Shades stepped away. Then seven more departed the field. Erick heard a muttered, ‘No thanks.’

Erick continued, “And we can solve some problems! Make the world a better place! Turn the Crystal Forest into real forests! Hunt down and end the Moon Reacher threat! No one likes those guys, am I right? Maybe we could even work to end the Quiet War, once and for all—”

More Shades left. Soon, almost all of them were gone.

Bulgan, Tania, Priestess, and Fallopolis remained.

Erick said, “Ah. Well. No takers, then.”

Priestess happily said, “Don’t worry about them. They’ll come around, eventually. I am happy to see you want to become involved, though. That is a welcome change. What was the cause, do you think?”

Erick snorted, “Well that’s a loaded question.”

“It is.” Priestess said, “But please answer, anyway.”

“Intelligence has got me thinking it’s easier to work with the systems already in place then to try and cull them from existence.”

Priestess seemed to withhold judgment, as she spoke in an even-tone, saying, “I hope that is true. I like you Erick. I like who you are, as a person. But you have been poisoned by civilization into seeing the Shades as evil incarnate. And we are not. Not anymore.” She added, “You speak of culling, but we have already done this much today. The true work begins now, and it won’t be as easy as murdering the murderers. The flock must be brought to heel, and we must heal the damage we have done. I hope you speak true words about helping Erick, for I can give you many ways to help our Clergy, if you are willing.”

Erick spoke what may or may not have been a lie, “I can help with that.”

Priestess nodded, and sighed a happy sigh. She said, “Good. But we can delay that for a day. You are acclimating, and there is a Feast to be had. See you later, Erick.” She floated away.

Erick bid Priestess farewell, then turned to Tania.

The Champion of Melemizargo regarded Erick, then asked, “Do you understand the nature of the current crisis?”

“So you would truly call it a crisis?”

“I would.” She spoke, and Erick understood the meaning behind her words, “But make no mistake: It is a crisis for you, and everyone else. I aim to limit the damage, and to rebuild from the wreckage.”

Bulgan’s eyebrows went up, as he whispered to her, “What are you talking about?”

Tania continued, without care for her right-hand man, “What is your aim, Erick?”

“I aim to help those who should be helped.” He said, “I am not beyond forgiveness.”

“I will hold you to that, Erick.” Tania asked, “Do I have to mention any threats?”

“No.” Erick said, “You do not.”

Tania said, “Good.”

She stepped away; her feet blinking black momentarily. Bulgan looked to the right, to where Tania might have gone. Then he looked to Erick. His emotions were unreadable, but he might have been worried; Erick was unsure. Bulgan stepped away without another word.

Fallopolis whispered into the shadows inside his ear, “I’m ready to start the killing as soon as you are.”

Erick turned to the elderly Shade, who was now sitting on a stone bench of the amphitheater, not three meters from Quilatalap, who had yet to say a single word. The archlich certainly looked concerned, though. His face was in a scrunch, while his lips were in a frown, showing his lower fangs.

Erick said to Fallopolis, “I seem to have spilled my drink. Party foul, I know. You helped so much to get those other ones, today. I’ll get the next round.”

Fallopolis smiled. “Want some help getting those drinks?”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

Fallopolis nodded. “Tomorrow, then.”

Quilatalap’s frown deepened. He sent to Erick, ‘Oh, please. You’re not being nearly clever enough. Don’t fight them Erick. They’ll kill you. Don’t make me help them against you. Ar’Kendrithyst is the only place that I can live in relative peace.’

Erick told the man, ‘Melemizargo has withdrawn his protection from all the Shades. The Clergy is dying but it doesn’t know it yet. I heard this from the dragon himself.’

Quilatalap startled.

Fallopolis put her fists to her hips, saying, “Unless that’s pillow talk, I want in!”

Erick stared at the pouting Shade. He stared for a long moment. She stared back. Erick looked to Quilatalap, and the orcol nodded. Erick let Fallopolis in on the talk.

The first Feast ended without further incident, though Fallopolis did spend the rest of the time dancing and laughing at no one in particular. That was odd, but not too odd for her.