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Erick stood before his bed, under the protections of his [Prismatic Ward], while he had strung ample [Alarm Ward]s throughout the space and also outside, while Ophiels provided the bulk of the early-warning system. The Ophiels inside were quiet, but the ones outside brought a bit of birdsong to an otherwise silent land. He gazed down at the bed and hoped he would actually be able to sleep. Though he had taken another bath to calm down, and that had been rather successful, he was still rather high-strung at the moment, what with everything that had happened, and that promised to happen.

Erick breathed deep, and sat on the bed. The covers went up and over, and Erick’s head hit the pillow. Three half-thoughts later, he was asleep and snoring.

He woke to the actions of nothing in particular. He jolted upward. For a moment, he panicked, activating [Greater Lightwalk] on the bottom of his bare feet, under the covers. There was nothing in his room except for him. The dense air was still there, too.

And now that he was not running on fumes and desperation, and everything seemed a mite calmer, his new Perception seemed to help him see the density in the air a lot clearer than before. He was almost tempted to try some meditative techniques to see if he could gain a Mana Sense, like how Teressa had gained while they were at Oceanside.

Erick’s mind started whirring as he fully woke, and old memories came to him like sudden waves of nostalgia. Things he had forgotten from his childhood. Events he had cherished, then abandoned somewhere along the way, for reasons he could not recall. His mother’s smile. His dad’s hugs. Remembering those was like opening a forgotten gift left under the Christmas Tree.

For a long moment, Erick sat in bed, and remembered his parents. He had a small cry, which turned to laughter when he remembered the better times. Like Sunday dinners at grandmas, or when mom used to cook. He remembered watching Saturday cartoons with his father and laughing with him. That thought invariably led to remembering trying to watch Saturday cartoons with his own daughter, but the tradition of Saturday cartoons was gone, off the airwaves, by the time Jane was interested in such things. They did have a small tradition of fantasy movies every Saturday when she was small. That lasted two wonderful years, until Jane had gotten old enough that she wanted to spend her weekends with her friends and not with her father.

He smiled at that. Jane certainly grew up fast. It seemed like one moment he was feeding her formula, and the next she was slaying imaginary bad guys, and then she was fighting real bad guys on Veird, and actually slaying them. Erick had mixed feelings about all that, but he left those to the side. It was daddy’s turn to kill the bad guys now, or at least ensure that they burned to their own evil. It was time to make the world a better place for Jane, like he had always tried to do, but only ever succeeded some of the time.

Erick got up, and turned on [Lodestar]. Keeping his sunform to his back, and ready to deploy at any moment, he went and got ready for the day. Or was it night? Hard to tell. Rainbow auroras hung in the sky outside the windows and there were no clocks in this roo—

There was a clock in the living room.

Erick sent an Ophiel to check on the time. There were two clocks out there. Erick had missed the second one. Apparently, it was 8:10 PM, outside-time, but inside Ar’Kendrithyst’s wonky Feast Time, it was a few hours into the third day. Erick had slept more than ten hours. He must have been more tired than he had thought.

Presentations of Power was supposed to begin today. Each Shade was supposed to prepare something that proved their worth to the Clergy and to Melemizargo. Erick was supposed to present something, too, but these people had been spying on him for a long time. He’d likely be ‘asked’ (forced) to give some sort of presentation on what everyone already knew.

Well fuck that!

For one bright, shining moment, Erick considered blowing off the rest of Shadow’s Feast. Of stepping off into some other part of Ar’Kendrithyst and telling them all to go fuck themselves. But then he discarded that notion. He had well and goodly decided not to kill any more Shades unless the perfect opportunity presented itself, but Tania was going to kill more. If Erick wasn’t here to see that happen, to see the winds of change coming, he would be caught unaware by the coming storm, and that was unacceptable.

Sometime soon, the news of the Clergy’s demise would run through Ar’Kendrithyst and everything would start happening, very, very fast.

So, again, Erick considered running and hiding. But where would he even hide, though?

Oh. Now there’s an idea. If Ar’Kendrithyst was truly sealed… Was it sealed against Shades looking to escape, too? If everything came tumbling down and all the Shades started murdering each other in one great, grand blood bath of magic, would it be contained to Ar’Kendrithyst, for the duration of the Feast?

Erick was glad that he had managed to sleep when he could. He was going to need those ten hours.

And yet, despite all the danger, there was something entertaining about experiencing history first hand, and having a part to play in that history. Erick briefly imagined himself in the fall of Rome; wearing a toga, and drinking wine, while the city burned, civil war raged, and all his enemies fell to the swords of his other enemies… Or however it was that the fall of Rome went down. Erick was never a history buff.

He was certainly remembering all of his studies of physics that he had ever looked upon, though. He was remembering a lot. That thought led to another:

Intelligence was not going to stay like this. None of these new Stats were going to remain. Erick felt too strong. He felt too secure. Even discarding the mental changes, which was enough to get Intelligence nerfed to oblivion, there were the simple numerical changes to mana costs.

Erick began a small test, there in his temporary bedroom. He had to rearrange the [Prismatic Ward], and create an empty space for himself to cast, but that was easy enough for an Ophiel to do. The two spells he chose were [Ward], because it provided solid results in a confined space, and [Hermetic Shredder], for much the same reasons.

Ophiel cast the [Hermetic Shredder] for 1200 mana, stringing the spell into five separated lines and 195 lines pushed to the side. Erick did it this way for Ophiel had no spell cost reductions, and what Ophiel cast was what Ophiel got. According to the blue box, those 200 lines each had 200 points of ‘damage capability’ before they broke.

Erick cast the [Ward], spending only 10 mana for a small defensive [Ward].

He dismissed his own [Personal Ward], and reached out to touch the first molecular wire. It broke against his skin; the [Defensive Ward] taking a major hit to its stability. Erick had no way to check the viability of the remaining [Ward], but it certainly looked thinner. Checking his Health, he saw no change.

He touched the second wire, popping the [Ward], and popping the wire. There was not a single blemish upon his finger. He checked his Health, anyway. He was down 2 points. Those two missing points replenished themselves in a regenerating second.

Ah. He recognized a problem. He recognized several problems. Mainly, though, his Constitution was preventing damage, too.

He could probably still figure out something from all of this, though. He just needed more samples, more casts, and more tests.

Half an hour later, he had come up with some rough estimations of the power of Intelligence, and Constitution. Like he had initially theorized, both were wildly overpowered.

That 10 mana he spent on a small defensive [Ward] produced over 300 points of damage soaking. Erick’s [Ward]s only cost 3% of the original costs, meaning that 1 of those initial ten mana was used to create the [Ward] in the first place, but the remaining 9 of those mana went through a (roughly) 33.3 multiplier.

But that much wasn’t too surprising.

Clarity dropped the initial cost of each [Ward] down to 50% costs, and with Favoring [Ward] that cost dropped another 25% off, but then there was also the Class Ability for a 10% Spell Cost Reduction. Force Savant also dropped the cost of [Ward] another few percentage points, for a final cost, before Intelligence, of 12% of the initial costs. So while 81 Intelligence dropping [Ward] down to 3% of the initial costs seemed rather screwy, and piss-poor of what 81 Intelligence should get you…

Practically all of Erick’s spells were down to 3% or 5% of their initial costs. [Hermetic Shredder] very easily demonstrated the raw power of Intelligence, because Erick could just count the wires and calculate his bonus that way.

--

Hermetic Shredder, instant, medium range, 1000 mana + Variable

A Variable number of molecular wires stretch through a Variable space, at your command. One wire does a maximum of Variable points of damage before breaking.

--

Erick spent 100 mana on that spell, and got 1500 wires, each worth that many points of damage, before they broke. With a small mental calculation, Erick worked out that [Hermetic Shredder] was working off of a 4% mana cost multiplier.

So.

Intelligence was way too powerful. This was getting changed, for sure. Erick saw that coming down the line. But that was fine. Shades shouldn’t get nice things. Erick could even forgo this bonus, and quite frankly, he kinda wanted to be rid of it right now. His mind strained with desires to go out there and rewrite the world in his own image, and that was not a nice thought. Still...

Still, he was going to abuse this as much as he possibly could, while he could. He was going to LEARN ALL THE THINGS and MAKE ALL THE MAGIC. Erick practically trembled at the thought of entering a library! A real library. With real magic books!

“OH!” Erick smiled. “The Librarian already gave me a book. Where was it...”

Erick searched for his book. He found it. ‘Defined Barriers’. It was a small, white book, supposedly penned 1200 years ago. He opened it.

Twenty minutes later, it was read. The book was helpful in many ways to understand the nature of the ‘Domain’ class of spells. Cast Domains, divorced from their caster and set out in the world, like Erick’s [Domain of Light], were weaker than those Domains constantly maintained by the caster. Those kinds were effectively dead wills imposed upon the mana. They were called ‘Domains’, and they were; technically. But active Domains, like Erick’s [Lodestar], were the pinnacle of the art. Active, well-honed Domains could be used against other active Domains in a battle of Willpower and Mana reserves. Smaller, harder, and heavily surveilled and secured Domains were better than larger, less-secure Domains.

The book even outlined how to use Domains and Elemental Body spells together to affect a greater working than the two could separately. Erick already knew this from his own experiments with his ‘sunform’, but it was nice to see it all spelled out on paper, and to see a few ideas on that paper that he had yet to discover in his own workings.

After Erick read the whole thing, he suspected that he could tear through any ‘dead Domain’ with his own sunform. ‘Defined Barriers’ was a great, little source of knowledge. The only problems with this knowledge, were that the Librarian had given Erick this book, which meant that she knew what she had given him, which meant she knew all the tricks and tips and magics outlined therein.

Still some useful ideas, though! All the tips outlined also had counters, though. Erick briefly contemplated a scenario where he had to fight the Librarian. He got into a mental chess game of ‘if she does this then I’ll do that but then she’ll do this’, and so on and so on. He didn’t get far in that chess game. He knew all of his own pieces, but whatever the Librarian was fielding would be new to him. Hopefully they wouldn’t need to fight. The possibility was still something to keep in mind, though.

Ah. But! One good thing that was not a trap in this book, Erick tried right now.

Normally, it was impossible to cast tier two magic with an Elemental Body; you could, at most, remake the Basic Tier spells out there, and gain those extra points from those Spell Remake Quests. But with a Domain supplementing your Elemental Body, you can cast pseudo-‘tier two’ spells. You wouldn’t get any blue boxes out of this technique, but you would get the use of those spells, and they would be outside of the global cooldown of the Script.

Erick had already suspected most of that, but it was nice to see it spelled out on paper.

With a flex of his sunform, and a burst of intent, Erick manually cast a [Force Wall] attached to his [Lodestar]. A radiant shield of light burst into the air in front of him, onto the edge of his sunform. Normally, [Force Wall]s were stationary objects. But it was a wall cast in his Domain, and that made all the difference. With a flex of his Domain and his lightform, the shield moved at his command. It bounced around, stable when he wanted it to be, mobile when he wanted it to move.

Erick calculated throwing a 200 point [Blood Bolt] at his side of the shield, which, by his calculations, should cause over 4,000 points of damage. The Bolt wasn’t ethereal, which meant that it would be blocked, but even if it wasn’t, Erick could take the damage.

He had already spent 17,000 Mana on his [Personal Ward], and with all his bonuses, the white sheen that slipped over his skin and clothes was a damage barrier worth over a quarter of a million points, if his calculations were correct.

Erick aimed—

Ah. No. He should be doing this outside, in case he was throwing around too much power and he accidentally broke something. But there was no need to actually go outside, was there? Erick looked to the south, to the window that showed the waterfalls behind the Palace District. With a push of light and the shaping of his auras, Erick remade his shield on the other side of the window. He also had a shooting angle on that shield, from that very same air outside the window.

And since this experimental area was outside…

Erick aimed a 2000 point [Blood Bolt] at the shield, this time. With that much power behind the Bolt, it should translate into something like 40,000 damage, with all the various reductions he had to mana costs.

He let the Bolt fly.

The white Bolt detonated against the shield like a tube of TNT, exploding outward into great, ripping white sparks. But for all that damage, the house was already protected by Erick’s [Prismatic Ward]. The house was fine. The shield was fine. Some of the plants out there were… not exactly fine, but they were okay. Looking over them again, Erick would need to replace some of the ones directly against the house. Those were… Not fine. That area was more crater than wild grasses.

A sigh sounded at the doorway to his room. Erick had seen the man already, but at his sigh, Erick turned to face the music. Quilatalap stood there, on the other side of the doorway, beyond the dense air of the room, frowning at Erick.

Erick smiled at the man, saying, “Hello!”

“At least you did it outside.” Quilatalap looked to the window, adding, “For a certain definition of ‘outside’.”

“Yup!” Erick asked, “Are people giving their presentations yet?”

“You’ve still got a few hours. I was setting mine up when your butler and my people alerted me to an explosion here.”

“Got any places to practice some spells? Or I could just step out of the Brightwater District?” Erick thought for half a second, and decided, “It would be stupid to step too far away, but it could also be smart.”

Quilatalap eyed Erick. “You just gained all that Intelligence, and you’re going to fight, right now? Really?”

“Sometimes fighting is the smart thing to do.”

“You should take some time and learn some things from all the sources on display, today.” Quilatalap said, “Or, I could teach you some necessary skills before you go out and get yourself ambushed.”

“Oh! Sure!” Erick touched the belt around his waist, saying, “Let me remake this— Oh? Do you want one of these rings?” He held up his hand. “Have you unlocked all the Stats, yet?”

“… You would do this for me?”

“So you haven’t unlocked them all? That’s weird. Oh. Is it because you don’t want to accidentally become a shadeling? That has to be it. Or is it the danger of altering your Intelligence?” Erick looked away, saying, “This 81 Int is doing a number on my psyche, for sure.” He added, “Oh! But I didn’t turn shadeling, did I? I just got a question mark on my Status. No Shadeling Curse with unlocking them this way! Well isn’t that interesting.” He looked to Quilatalap, and knew he hit the mark with that last one. “It’s that last one, isn’t it?”

Quilatalap grinned. “Maybe.” He lost most of his grin, saying, “Maybe you shouldn’t remake the belt. This Intelligence is doing odd things to you.”

Erick waved that concern away, saying, “I’m remaking the belt, and then I’ll pick up everything you’re putting down. I’m eager for a lesson, teach!”

Quilatalap gave a small, nervous laugh. “Sure. Let’s talk. Come out when you’re ready.”

Quilatalap walked away from the doorway, while Erick sat down on his bed and took out some supplies from his bag.

Ten minutes later, Erick had crafted a second, 3-sphere, Deep Sky Silver belt, just like the first, but this one was a true All-Stat magical item. He also made a ring for Quilatalap. The orcol would probably have to wear it like an earring, or something, but that would likely still work.

Erick strapped the belt around his waist. The world shifted just a little bit more into focus. It was not the shift that had occurred yesterday, when Erick gained Perception, and he could count the threads on his bedsheets from three feet away, if he wished. It wasn’t like when he gained his Boon of Recovery, and his body shifted younger, and he could count his individual eyelashes in the mirror. It was something lesser, and yet greater at the same time. Like finding a new setting on a television set, or a computer screen, that made the picture just a little bit better.

Diminishing returns, for sure.

Erick felt at home in his body, like he could move however he wished and all would be easy. He felt his mind expand, and all the failed math lessons he had ever had percolated underneath everything else he already knew. He felt safe, as his skin and bones and flesh felt stronger, somehow, in some magical, Constitution way.

And yet, he recognized the diminishing returns of these untested, False Stats, which were surely going to get nerfed sooner or later. But for now, he was going to use them to get what he wanted, and what he wanted was knowledge.

Erick found Quilatalap in the living room, sitting on one of the couches. He enthusiastically said, “Ready! And: here!” He tossed the man a ring.

Quilatalap caught the ring with magic, holding it suspended in the air. “It’s not a smart thing to throw items around when you’re around people of power.”

“Phhhbtt!” Erick said, “You got a recommendation from a source I trust.”

Did Erick truly trust Rozeta? Ehhhh. The jury was still out on that one. But he trusted her enough, and that meant he trusted Quilatalap enough. For now.

Quilatalap startled at Erick’s words, briefly, then he locked that down, his emotions turned to something deeper. His eyebrows scrunched over narrowing eyes, as he spied the ring in his magical grip. With a flick, the ring vanished; gone, somewhere, to some pocket on his person, no doubt. Quilatalap asked, “Where would you like to start? It all starts as one, then flows into ten thousand variations, but in the end, it’s all the same.”

“You say that, but…” Erick took a seat on the other couch in the living room, asking, “I feel like the height of magic is actually soul magic?”

“No, actually.” Quilatalap said, “There are multiple magics that can each take you very, very far. If you wanted to harm others, I would suggest any of the Elemental Magic branches, or even your own Particle Magic. Soul Magic is mostly defensive. There are very few outright harmful soul spells, for most Soul Magic must first pierce the Shroud in order to affect the person. For this reason, most Soul Magic is directed inward, or along non-living angles. These non-living angles include spells such as ancestor summoning, or non-sentient necromancy, or elemental conjuring. Sapient necromancy and sapient elemental conjuring is an order of magnitude more difficult than the lower versions of those spells, simply because it affects a sapient soul.”

Erick scrunched his face. “I expected more offensive uses. Curses and Blessings and such.” He said, “What you said doesn’t make sense, because everyone I know says it’s the most dangerous out there.” He shook his head, adding, “Let’s begin at the beginning. Defensive spells? Or whatever? Sure.”

Quilatalap smiled. “There are harmful soul spells, and they are some of the worst things that can happen to a person, but those workings are compounds of all that comes before. So, yes; let us begin at the beginning.”

Erick nodded, and listened.

Quilatalap said, “Back in the beginning, when magic was not constrained to the Script, it was different, but most magics are still the same at their core.

“Magic is possibility. This much is known, and this much is still true to this day.

“But possibility is not the same from one person to the next. Ideas are not the same. Power is not the same. It is here that the Script has flattened much of the nuance of magic, removing variation and creating a coherent whole, accessible to all.

“But back before the Script, and in a way that remains true against all the more horrible Soul and Mind Magics, but not true in the case of Blood magics, consent is key. You must keep this in mind going forward. Against the worst Soul and Mind magics, consent is needed. But against Blood Magics, consent is not strictly necessary. We are getting a little off track, but some mages will use Blood Magics to fool the biology of a person and guide them into giving consent for the more awful Soul and Mind Magics out there.

“But back to the basics:

“The first technique I can teach you, that will help you against the stronger, terrible magics out there, is to run the constant thread of ‘No’ in your mind, and direct this feeling out toward everything that might touch you. It sounds simple, but it is not. It will make you cranky. It will make you mean. It will cut you off from the rest of the world. But you can eventually get this thought of ‘no’ into your mind, and you might be able to live a normal life from then on, secure in the idea that you will not be fundamentally changed by some stray attacker you never saw coming.

“Back before the Script, this ability to deny the magics of others from affecting you was the most important part of being a mage. Since magic is possibility, the ability to deny possibility is also the ability to automatically [Dispel] all harmful magics. This was the basis for the creation of [Dispel].

“But with the advent of the Script, you can no longer simply ‘disbelieve’ a fireball to the face. You must actively [Dispel] such a thing, using as much force as the original caster put into their belief.

“And now we come to an example: [Teleport], and [Teleport Other]. What I speak of now, is how you went about making those spells in the first place. Not in the spells as they are in the Script; this is a major difference.

“It is here, in creating these spells on your own, that you met one of the greatest examples of where magic starts; the beginning of it all.” Quilatalap asked, “Can you give me a run down of how you made those spells, so I can better teach you? All I know is that you have them.”

Erick obliged, giving Quilatalap a short rundown on how [Teleport] and [Teleport Other] happened.

Quilatalap said, “With [Teleport], you had to have the consent of yourself, or rather, your Ophiel, in order to [Teleport].

“With [Teleport Other], you needed to find the ‘in’, on those Crystal Mimics. They attacked you, and that gave you your ‘in’. From there, you exploited this break in their armor to then encompass the whole mimic, to then have it [Teleport] itself.” Quilatalap asked, “Correct?”

“Correct.”

Quilatalap nodded, then continued, “The break in the armor that was required to enact this [Teleport Other] is what we call Breaking the Shroud. The Shroud, as we call it, is the normal area of subjective reality around a soul. Finding the break and then breaking it to affect the actual soul inside, is called Breaking the Shroud.

“As an aside, the stronger the Shroud, the harder it is to break. It is the density of the Shroud that determines the categorization of a thing as either object, a monster, or a person. Objects have no Shroud. Monsters are not in control of themselves, and like all insane beasts out there, their Shroud is already heavily compromised. Consider this type of Shroud to be as air, and easily moved around. The Shrouds of sapients is stable, and varies anywhere from air, to water, to rock. We will speak of personal Shrouds at another time when you can actually see them.

“And to that end, I suggest you work on gaining a second technique: you need a mana sense. This is among the most necessary skills that any great mage would have.” Quilatalap added, “But an easy workaround to this requirement would be to gain [Mana Sight]. One of the easier ways to gain that skill is either from one of Tania’s shadow spiders, or from any number of other monsters that have this skill elsewhere in the world. Mana Slimes are perhaps the easiest ones to find, as they go up for auction in Eidolon every now and then for a few million gold. Elsewise, you would need to find an aberrant monster that has accidentally and miraculously developed [Mana Sight]. You would need to be [Polymorph]ed into those monster forms to use those skills, though. So that is the downside to those possibilities. Elsewise, you could work on your mana sense. It might be easier for you now that you have all those new Stats.” Quilatalap eyed him, saying, “You seem to have understood every single thing I have said, and that is slightly disconcerting. Talk to me. You seem like you might be having strange thoughts.”

Erick sat back in his chair, and was, indeed, having strange thoughts.

Quilatalap watched.

Erick said, “Okay.” He narrowed his eyes at nothing and no one in particular, saying, “Can I do this ‘no’ with a [Personal Ward]—” A flash of inspiration struck. “Oh. Shit. Can I do that with a [Personal Ward] tied to defense? I’ve never tried to make a [Personal Ward] outside of the normal [Personal Ward]. Oh. Shit. Why haven’t I tried that? I should try that. It should be easy enough to make a ‘[Soul Protecting Personal Ward]’, right?”

“No no no.” Quilatalap interrupted Erick’s minor mental flood, saying, “You would do well not to tie this to a [Ward], for that would mean you would need to cast it, first, and that is not always possible in the heat of the moment. And besides that, if you are tied to ‘no’, then you would automatically decline many things that you would wish to accept. Such as healing magics, or telepathic communications. You must learn how to do this ‘no’ outside of the shortcuts of the Script. It must become second nature, like a quiet voice in your head that you must personally turn off when you wish it turned off. A skill that won’t necessitate the use of a Universal Second of the Script.”

“… That’s going to be such a pain in the ass.”

Quilatalap laughed loud, then he said, “Yes. It is, at first. And then it is not. It’s only truly useful against the most harmful Soul and Mind magics. For example, there’s [Soul Splice], which is a Soul Magic that adds another soul to your own, and mutates the body into a combination of the two. This is how Hollowsaur’s cow-people were created. For Mind Magic, we have [True Domination], which is a permanent [Mind Control] effect.” He thought for a second. He said, “I don’t have an example of that you might have seen. The Mind Mages are rather thorough at keeping that stuff to a minimum out there in the world, and Mind Magic sees little use inside Kendrithyst.” He added, “This technique is useless in most cases. All the lesser spells, such as [Soul Burn] and [Mind Spike] are hard-cast to work no matter what, like that fireball-to-the-face example I gave you earlier.”

“I know of [Mind Spike], but what’s [Soul Burn]?”

“Oh!” Quilatalap smiled, saying, “I can teach you this, but…” He paused. He said, “[Soul Burn] is the beginning of all damaging, offensive Soul Magic. This is not a very deep branch of magic, and if you want to kill someone, almost any kind of magic would be better suited for the task. [Soul Burn] is only useful in that it weakens resistance to other Soul Magics.” Quilatalap handed Erick a blue box.

--

Soul Burn, instant, close range, 50 mana

Disturb the soul of a target, dealing 50 damage. Damage is increased or decreased by the stability of the target’s Shroud. May cause a minor decrease in the stability of the target’s Shroud.

--

Quilatalap asked, “You can see how [Soul Burn]s can rapidly increase in damage?”

Erick could certainly see that. “It’s a spell that gets more destructive the more a person is struck. That’s impressive.” And then he remembered something. “Oh. My apprentice made a spell that increases firelight damage taken by the target.”

Quilatalap said, “If you had a mana sense, I could show you the actual effects of a [Soul Burn], and you would see that it is not as impressive as it might appear in the Script box. Almost any other spell is stronger if you actually want to hurt someone, and whatever spell you speak of with regard to your apprentice is likely better than [Soul Burn] for the purpose of causing damage. [Soul Burn] only truly works in two scenarios: in long, drawn-out fights, where the target is unaware that they need to say ‘no’, to all outside forces. Or when the target is unaware they are being attacked. In both cases, if they are able to say ‘no’, then [Soul Burn] will do almost nothing. In most fights, most people will instinctively be able to have that ‘no’ going on in the back of their mind, so the second scenario is more likely to work than the first.

“This is why I teach students to first defend against these spells by learning to have that ‘no’ in the back of their minds, always.” Quilatalap said, “That is the most important thing, because without that defense… [Soul Burn] does damage, yes, but it is an easy thing to make a better version of [Soul Burn] that does zero damage and inflicts a much stronger, stacking debuff… Imagine, you’re flying around in Kendrithyst, or you’re at a party, or you’re just inside your house, and you’re being struck from the shadows with this second tier of [Soul Burn] every second. You might barely be able to feel more frightened—

“Ah. That’s another thing. A burned Shroud makes the person feel frightened in a primal, complete sort of way. I forgot to mention that.

“Anyway: Suddenly, your Shroud is gone. It’s all over. You’ve lost, and all you felt was a gradually increasing fear that was as normal as any other fear. But your Shroud is gone, and someone hits you with a [Soul Splice]. You’ll never see your death coming.”

Erick felt a chill.

Quilatalap said, “You understand, now.”

“Yes.” Erick shivered. He asked, “If I gained a mana sense… I could see my own Shroud? Know if I was being attacked in that way?”

“Yes.” Quilatalap said, “This is how you can know if you’re being targeted by Soul Magic.” He added, “I see you worrying, but you should know that the Script has other defenses in place against the more terrible Soul Magics and Mind Magics. Health and [Personal Ward] automatically help resist almost all Soul Magic by automagically keeping your Shroud intact. Health provides less of a defense against Mind Magic, and very, very little against Blood Magic, but against Soul Magic? Health is a great defense. The easiest way to harm someone with Soul Magic is to first grind down their Health and then their Shroud, then strike them with the deadly spells.

“You might be immune to most Soul Magics, just because your heavily inflated Stats gives you a great deal more Health than most mages. Most mages, and Rookies, and most of the population of Veird, have under 600 Health. That much Health is not much of a defense.

“Using a [Soul Burn] against people with that low of Health, will almost always result in the wearing away of the Shroud. It is possible to make a [Soul Burn] work against Juggernauts, too, or other such persons, but you have to get their Health down to low, low numbers first, which is a chore. Those types always have Skills like [Second Wind], to turn their Health Regen per day into per minute, for one minute.” Quilatalap said, “Or they just have a really good healing spell. Or a Healer, on hand.”

While all of that was interesting, and Erick vowed to gain a mana sense as soon as possible, Quilatalap’s mention of ‘Health as a shield’ had Erick frowning. “Really? My [Personal Ward] and Health protect me?”

“Of course they do.” Quilatalap said, “And I see you rethinking that all this talk was useless, if you are able to keep your Health and [Ward] up. Know now, and keep this close, that that sort of thinking will do you a disservice. Those sources of defense are not infallible.” He added, “It is much better to have a ‘no’ defense constantly running. Besides, this ‘no’ defense works after death. Having your soul captured is… It’s not good, Erick.

“Whatever the case, if you develop a mana sense and then only use that to inspect your Shroud every now and then, and you only ever use the ‘no’ defense when you’re around people or when you think you’re in danger, that would be a good enough outcome for some good starter defenses.” Quilatalap said, “Actually, you should only work on one of those, for now. I suggest you attempt to gain a mana sense, and try to see your own Shroud, for it takes more than a mana sense in order to see a Shroud.” Quilatalap asked, “Any questions?”

There were a lot of questions. Erick tried to keep it simple, for now. He remembered all his failed attempts at gaining a mana sense in the past, but, just to be sure he had been taught that correctly, he asked Quilatalap, “How does one gain a mana sense?”

Quilatalap said, “Purposefully using the lower ranks of Meditation allows you to experience the world of your soul. From there, become one with the mana. And then, you need to understand what it is you are seeing. I could go into it in more detail, but that is usually enough for most people, and any more explanation than that usually ends up messing with what comes later.

“This is the only way to gain a mana sense, and it takes time. There are no tricks to it, but… If this Perception turns out to help you achieve this ‘oneness with the mana’, you let me know, okay? That would be nice to know, going forward.” He stood up, asking, “Are you coming to the presentations? They begin in a few hours, and though I will be occupied for a short while giving my own presentation, we can walk around afterward and poke around at all the other presentations?”

Erick smiled. “I’d like that.” Erick stood up, saying, “I wouldn’t want to miss it.”

“You might be called upon to give a presentation yourself.” Quilatalap said, “You can probably just say ‘no’, if you want.”

He almost made a joke about how he needed to learn to say ‘no’ sooner, but that thought fled as another took hold. He asked, “How many times has my soul been attacked, so far?”

“Eight times that I know of and witnessed myself.” Quilatalap said, “Five of those people who tried it were executed yesterday.”

“… Ah. Okay then.” Erick asked, “Was anything… done to me?”

“Nope. None of the attacks were real attacks. They were probing measures that couldn’t get past your [Personal Ward] or your Health. Also, your Domain is rather tough, though you would do well to learn to keep that around your whole soul, and not just around your heart and your back.” Quilatalap said, “When you gain a mana sense, we can work on transforming your mana sense into a [Soul Sight], and then you can see what I mean regarding your Domain’s more nuanced functions. We can also talk about... Eh. There’s a lot to talk about. But not until you get past that first step.”

“Okay… Ah. Wait. What about this ‘no’ you’re talking about. Would that interfere with the ‘becoming one with the mana’ part of mana sensing?”

“No. They’re different. You can do both at the same time. You’ll understand when you get there.”

Erick had one more question, and he was loath to ask it. But he asked anyway, “What about Fallopolis? Has she tried to attack my soul?”

Quilatalap lied, “Nope.”

- - - -

Erick sat on his bed, in his room, and banished all thoughts of Fallopolis.

Then he tried to recall everything he had ever heard about mana sense.

Thoughts came to him like a brush of rain, of talking to Teressa every so often about her [Witness], of what Professor Rue Downs had spoken of back at Oceanside, and of what Ramizi had teased when he revealed that there existed a skill that let him see the world as mana saw the world.

Mana sense allowed the viewer to see the world as the mana saw it, which was from every single angle, from both inside and outside of both people and objects. That was how Ramizi counted the fingers behind Erick’s back without using any tricks except for his mana sense. A mana sense would almost be like his own [Detect Intent Aura], which he was guided to by Rue Downs. But a mana sense was also capable of letting you gaze into the past, and unlock [Witness], like in the case of Teressa’s own mammoth affinity for that skill.

Erick smiled a bit, as he understood, now, why those three people had their mana sense.

Ramizi had it because he was likely delving into forbidden knowledge. He went for an Intelligence fruit as soon as he could, and then kept that Stat, even though he had already agreed with Eduard and Maia to get Intelligence purged from his Status, as soon as the test of that Stat was over. What sort of forbidden knowledge? Erick didn’t rightly know. Ramizi had complained about not being able to reach the deeper Force Magics on his own, and yet Intelligence enabled that to happen. So maybe his whole deal was he thought he needed Intelligence to progress as a mage. And maybe he did.

Rue Downs was an Underworld incani. Her familiarity with mana sense was likely exactly as she needed it to be; an extra sense when sight failed down in the deep dark. She had spoken of Underworld inhabitants gouging out the eyes of their children to help them gain a mana sense, and maybe that’s what had been done to Rue. There were too many other variables around the woman for Erick to make a guess about any other possible motives at gaining such a skill.

Knowing what Erick now knew about mana sense allowing a person to inspect their own soul for damage…

Teressa had wanted mana sense to be able to defend herself from the darker magics out there, so that she would never again be subjected to the horror of having everyone she loved killed and then transformed into abominations to then harry her through illusions, while she was forced to kill each and every one. Even just surviving that terribleness ended with the Witch going after Teressa’s whole tribe, to do the same thing to them that she had done to Teressa.

There was no doubt in Erick’s mind that a properly honed mana sense could negate many illusion magics, or at least such a sense would allow the practitioner to recognize illusions for what they were.

Erick banished his new revelations regarding acquaintances and friends, and focused on the steps to gaining a mana sense. He had read some books and passages in various books on the subject, but all of them had given the same steps to mana sense acquisition that Professor Rue Downs had given.

Step zero: Rid yourself of all magical items and effects, and put yourself in a place where there are no influences upon you, save for the mana all around you.

Erick failed step zero, and there was no way to succeed on this matter; he was not about to abandon all of his defenses, while he was here, in this place. But step zero might not truly matter, for Teressa had gained her mana sense while she was inside Erick’s [Prismatic Ward]. She had compared the feat to lifting heavy weights. Erick could probably lift some very heavy weights right now, so: Moving right along.

Step one: clear the mind of all thought.

… Okay. Step one might be difficult.

Moving right along!

Step two: become one with the mana, and see the world around you. Step three was making sense of the new sightless senses granted by step two. Step four was expanding on the understandings of those new ways of seeing until your skill got large enough that you could see outside of yourself, and both into the past and into the future. Teressa’s [Witness] saw into the past. But people like Krakina Kali, the Weather Witch, and her granddaughter, Ikawa Kali, could attune their mana sense to see slightly into the future.

Too bad Erick was stuck way back on step zero.

Maybe this wouldn’t go as smoothly as he wished.

He still tried, though. He gazed out at the room around him, checking on various corners and outside with various Ophiel, before finally deciding that he had seen enough; he wasn’t in danger at this particular moment. And then he Meditated, using the lowest rank of the Skill, divorcing himself from his body for a brief time. Everything became darkness. Everything became nothing. And there he was, somehow, in the center of it all, with his body beyond him, and only his mind to keep him company.

- - - -

Meditation didn’t actually increase ones Mana Regen; it just opened one up to the mana—

No no. Go away, stray thought.

Stray cats. Erick wanted a cat. That was the reason he started making his first [Familiar] in that direction, but cats were all murder machines, and this was even more true on Veird than on Earth—

Stop that, mind. Focus on nothing.

Nothing. The void. The Void? One of Sirocco Zago’s cat [Familiar]s was named Void.

No. Stop that.

Now what were Erick’s ‘shadow magics’ doing when he tried to cast [Shadow Bolt]? Was he fucking up that understanding with Void? Or was that the nascent outcome of his own Wizardly Path manifesting—

Nope. You can flow away on the breeze, too—

OH! There’s a breeze!

Ah. Now it’s gone.

Hmm. Becoming one with the wind. Now there’s a thought. Might as well go for it.

Erick breathed in, and in the dark division of Meditation, where body and mind were no longer strictly connected, he recognized his breath. He saw his lungs move under an illuminated breeze. And then it was gone. But yet…

He felt every whorl, every flutter, every brush of mana. That mana came into him, and then left through his skin.

His skin! He could see his skin—

Oh. No. Gone again.

Erick breathed out, and he pushed those whorls away.

A spark caught in his chest. A drop of light in the darkness all around. Erick saw his heart beat and felt a sense of hope, but then the light died, and darkness returned.

Too much thinking. That was his current problem. Thoughts were not necessary in this initial process. The only thing that mattered was the experience; being in the moment, and letting the moment shine.

A spark took hold. Erick breathed deep. The spark turned into a light, dim and small; an ember in the endless sea of darkness all around. But it was him. It was a part of him, anyway.

Erick knew this, somehow. He saw with this spark. Erick relaxed into the spark.

And the spark grew.

A sudden flash, concentrated stadium lights turning on! Light encompassed his entire body, and nothing else.

He saw himself from the inside out. Blood vessels like roots and branches all throughout. Heart pumping. Bones resting. Brain pulsing with electricity. He watched as breath flowed into his lungs, to brighten the whole. He watched mana flow from his skin, out into the world, sending out streamers of illumination into his surroundings, like glowing inkstains that caught on nothing and everything all at once.

And that’s what mana was. Nothing and everything, all at once. There was no ground. There was no sky. There was no person or object; not to mana. All was the same. It only looked different to fleshy people, but to mana, it was all just a part of the Greater Whole.

Erick opened his eyes without opening his eyes. He breathed in a storm without breathing in a storm. He exhaled an ocean of illumination, without doing any such thing. He became a part of the whole, there, on his bed, in the middle of Quilatalap’s house. He was a small part, compartmentalized to his few rooms of dense air and a little ways beyond, but it was still a lot, and his vision was still growing, as he understood more and more, and became part of the Greater Whole.

He saw himself smile, but he was separate from his body, by just a little bit. Enough to matter. Enough to understand. Whatever [Mana Sight] was, from Jane’s shadow spider, it had nothing on this. This was like viewing the world through his sunform, but even that paled in comparison to this real mana sense.

For [Greater Lightwalk] just couldn’t capture the sense of wind whirling at the littlest movement, or the warmth of the body, or the solidity of the ground below the house, or the moisture on the air above.

Erick looked to himself, and saw a brightness upon his body that had nothing to do with any physical medium. It might have been his soul. Or maybe it was something else. Whatever that particular glow was, it demanded more experimental data before he started drawing conclusions upon what he was seeing.

With a sense of dissonance, but with a willpower strong enough to ride it out, Erick used his fleshy voice to call out to Violet, his butler for while he was here at the Palace District. In moments, the incani woman appeared at his doorway, and spoke to him asking what he wanted, while at the same time, she looked him over, and kept down the panic happening in the back of her mind. Erick heard her words, certainly, but those words were again similar to the difference between seeing the world through his sunform, versus this new mana sense. Words paled in comparison to actually seeing someone, inside and out, while they were talking.

And he saw her, alright. Not too deep, though, for her Health and her soul, perhaps, kept him out of most of her. But there was more to it than that. Her body glowed with a layered density of spellwork. Something was active in her muscles and all of her sensing body parts, such as her eyes and her skin. But there was also another layer of defenses just atop her skin. That last one was a similar glow to Erick’s own [Personal Ward]; he matched that spell up to his rather easily, and if he were to guess, her body spell was probably [Hunter’s Instincts], or something similar. She also had pools of shadow mana active all over her self. [Shadowalk]; had to be.

But there was something else to her, that Erick noticed that he had, too: A density, just atop her skin. Erick held a similar density atop his own skin. Violet’s density was slightly stretched into the shadowy mana at her feet, and wasn’t that interesting!

Erick activated his own lightform, and sure enough, he saw what had to be his ‘soul’ shift toward his new aura, exactly in the way that Violet’s own aura shifted into her shadowy magics. Elemental Forms were shortcuts to aura-work, which itself seemed a shortcut to soul manipulation. So you cast spells with your soul, then?

Ah. No. That was too reductive.

The soul was the self.

The self manipulated the aura to manipulate the mana to cast the spells.

Aura control or Elemental Form control was what made the spells.

The difference was thus: When baking a cake without magic, you did not use your mind to move ingredients into bowls and then into pans and then into the oven. You used your mind to move your body to do all of that lifting and sorting. Souls on their own couldn’t do jack shit. Souls inside bodies could do everything.

Conversely, being reduced to a soul without a body meant that you could do nothing.

Which… Of course that was true. Duh.

Violet said something else, and Erick responded with words that said he was fine. He was fine. But Violet did not seem to believe this. She said something about the time in order to get him to drop his mana sense. Erick still had loads of time, and he told her so, but there was no need to make her worry, after all, it was her current job to worry over him, and it could be possibly that Queen would not be pleased if Erick was hurt on Violet’s watch. Or maybe it was more that Queen wouldn’t be pleased if it came back on her that Erick had been hurt while under her ‘protection’.

Erick told Violet that he would be done soon; he just wanted to mess around with time a bit.

Violet was understandably worried, but she stepped away, anyway.

Now, how to do this? Erick thought for a moment, then took the plunge in the most obvious way: tracing the mana to where it had been in its previous moments.

The world split, as though Erick had crossed his eyes. One set of perception remained with him. The other moved into the past, to where the mana had been in the previous moments. Perception split again, into a broken kaleidoscope of happenstance and never-happened. Violet spoke. But yet, Violet yelled. And yet, Quilatalap showed up instead. Or no. Fallopolis showed up, and congratulated Erick on his accomplishment. Or, not that either.

Erick faced himself, standing in front of himself. The second Erick was a spot of calm certainty in the center of a broken continuum of possibility; an anchor, a solidity—

Oh.

“Oh,” Erick’s voice reverberated the world, and yet only himself. “Hello, Phagar. You’re here, then?”

Phagar’s voice calmed the world, or maybe just Erick, “I’m always here.”

“That would be appropriate for the End to always be nearby, and yet just out of sight.” He asked, “Are my eyes really that white these days?”

Phagar gave a tiny, knowing grin, as his white, white eyes seemed to glow, ever so faintly. “You still have the pupils, but yes, they are.” He said, “I was expecting you to come calling a lot sooner than this.”

“I was unaware that I could contact you like this!” Erick said, in a lighthearted manner.

Phagar sat down at a chair that was not there, until it was. The world stabilized from a shifting kaleidoscope into a solid stained-glass structure. Time stopped, and was yet allowed to happen uninterrupted. The God of the End and Time, said, “I meant that I was expecting a call way before you gained a mana sense. You’ve had a lot of questions bubbling on the stove.”

“Well. Yes.” Erick said, “Truthfully, I didn’t even know what I was going to say the next time we met. Where would I even start? Questions about this plan for sundering souls and accepting Melemizargo’s plans for new worlds? Or perhaps I would ask you about Wizardry? Or Time Magic? Or about Melemizargo trying to claim me as a Shade, or something, but then you went and already had a claim over me? The true cycle of life and death of Veird? The nature of the Infinitesimal Ban as a measure against Wizards? Or how about the Atomic Ban; is that real? Have I been conflating it with the Infinitesimal Ban, and that was just allowed to happen? And— Oh yeah!” Erick had trouble keeping his voice even, as he said, “And what about the Forgotten Campaigns and all that genocide?!”

Phagar held up a hand and rattled off, “Here and now is a good place to start. That plan is decades long before we even start to believe Melemizargo. Ask someone who is not a Shade and who doesn’t kill Wizards on sight; for example, the Headmaster would be a poor choice to ask about Wizardry. Ask me about Time Magic, first, and then we can go from there. That was for your own protection. People are born, creating a new soul in the process of birth, then they live, they die, and the souls move on to wherever they wish, or wherever they do. The Infinitesimal Ban was against Wizards, yes, but there was overlap with Particle Spells; you broke through that slight barrier, though, and probably only because you are a Wizard. The Atomic Ban remains; we put it on after the Atomic Cult came along, but they were never known by that name, and their name has been erased from history. You have been conflating the terms.” With a slightly darker voice, Phagar said, “And you’ll never know what we have done to ensure the survival of this world.”

“… Well. Okay.” Erick thought through Phagar’s various answers, then said, “That was… More succinct than I thought it would be.”

Phagar waved a dismissive hand, saying, “Gods help their followers. I’m not too sure if the ones that originally made you fell out of reality, or whatever happened there, but I and the rest of my kind exist to help those who ask.”

There was a lot to unpack in that tiny statement, and Erick might eventually pursue that line of questioning with other parties, but here and now… “But it’s not that simple.” Erick said, “If it was, then you wouldn’t appear before me. Teressa never mentioned meeting you in this space.”

“Well… We’ve already gone over all the big ideas in your initial flurry of questions. That was my main reason for showing myself.” Phagar said, “But I must correct you on this idea that I have appeared before you. You have it backwards, Erick. You’re the one that journeyed into Time. You stepped into my home.”

“Ah…” Erick frowned. “Is this a problem?”

Phagar laughed a kind laugh. “Not at all. Most accomplished mages and otherwise get to this point sooner or later. Looking costs nothing and changes nothing. It’s not true Time Magic, so I usually let viewers travel however they wish without letting myself be known. But you’re almost my Champion, so it would have been rather rude to not make an appearance when you came along into my space.” Phagar smiled, saying, “Good luck with the [Witness], or whatever other magical sight you desire. You seem skilled enough with that new Perception to go for any of them. [Soul Sight]. [Mana Sight]. [Future Sight].”

Erick said, “Oh. Oh! Oh? Uh.” He inwardly frowned, as he asked, “Are these new Stats getting nerfed?”

“Nerfs? Not exactly. But if Melemizargo becomes involved in magic again, then everything is going to change, Erick.”

“How so?”

“You’ve poked great big holes in the Script with both Particle Magic and these Stat enchantments. You’ve turned small, temporary improvements into necessary, permanent improvements that the powerful will use to subjugate the powerless. Some would call you a prodigy; an example of what anyone should be able to achieve if they begin with enough resources and have enough drive and smarts and good chances. Others would call you the coming ‘normal’.” Phagar said, “That second one scares people.”

Erick imagined people like Bulgan gaining all of these new Stats. He said, “No one should have this level of power. Aren’t you going to remove them when this latest lie of Melemizargo’s is over?”

Phagar sat for a moment, then said, “When we made the Script, we culled most of the higher levels of power that were possible in the Old Cosmology, while giving some of that power to everyone. From our perspective at the time, it was the equivalent of handing everyone a refrigerator and a house and the power to make their small parts of the world a bit better.” He said, “And we succeeded. From your perspective of 8 billion people on a world a quarter of the size of Veird, it might appear that we have failed. It might appear that we could have a much, much larger population, and that we have failed to conquer the natural world as your people once did. But the half a billion people currently living on Veird is still crowded by the metrics of all of our shared, Old Cosmology History.

“Power is not the problem, Erick. Power has never been the problem. Power in the right hands, is.” Phagar said, “By all metrics, you’ve done well with the power you have created for yourself.”

“… It’s not right.”

“Of course it’s not right. But a just universe is impossible to create, for some will always rise, and some will always fall. So accept that Class Ability for the Quest Board and let us help you make it that much better, or at least point you in the right direction so that you can help where we cannot.” Phagar said, “That is another reason that the gods are here; to help mortals make the world a better place.”

Erick had no response to that. He had the responsibility to use his power correctly, didn’t he? By that same token, he didn’t have any right to complain about abuses of power if he wasn’t willing to do his fair part. He wasn’t some guy just trying to make his own way in the world. He hadn’t been that guy for a long time. He already knew all of that, instinctively, but having it pointed out was something new to consider.

Phagar said, “I hope you’re prepared to keep this level of power, Erick. You’re probably going to get grandfathered-in to whatever comes next, just like all the people who already have Charisma.”

And that was a whole new problem to land on his plate. Erick said, “That’s disconcerting. You can’t… you can’t fix that?”

“These new Stats were created by Melemizargo’s power. Their effects are deeper than the Script is capable of fully fixing. Unless you’re willing to deal with the Dark Dragon to have him undo what has been done, then you should accept that you’ve fundamentally shifted who you are.” Phagar said, “All those orcols who came in to Ar’Kendrithyst, and had themselves reverted, are doing well. But all of the people who gained a Stat and then had it removed at a Registrar… They complain of ‘lost limbs’ and phantom pains, for removing a part of the soul always has repercussions.”

And that brought Erick to his next question. He asked, “Am I even human, anymore?”

“Yes, because that is one of the races recognized by the Script, and that’s how we made it work. But you’re not truly human. Not really.” Phagar said, “Question marks upon the Status happens more often than you would suspect. Blood Magic is the most common cause. The outcomes of this transitional state varies from monsterfication, to automagic stabilization back to the original race, to the creation of a new species.” Phagar waited, as though for Erick to ask a question.

Erick rapidly obliged, “What’s happening to me?”

“A change. A choice. A destiny, I suppose, if you want to call it that. But Time is not a straight line. It curves and changes and transforms based on the smallest of details, and the interactions of impossibly large events occurring well out of sight. I travel those paths, all the time. I know what you could become. But that doesn’t mean I know everything that is possible. Here: let me show you a little of what I have seen:”

For a moment, Erick saw Phagar, but he also saw the world shift around the god, and his mana sight go wide. A dozen paths into the past and future collided into sweeping vistas of destiny and promise. A million choices made by people well out of Erick’s circle led to a billion outcomes that affected everyone.

A future filled with green planets, and Earth hanging in the far distance, while spaceships traveled the stars. A future of desolation and deserts, where cities crumbled and oceans dried. A nebula of tree roots and branches. A dozen grandchildren and even more great grandchildren, and dying in a hospital bed far, far away. Collapsing on a battlefield with one hand little more than shards of bone, while the other dug into the chest of a downed man, bursting light out of the man’s ribcage, killing them both. Of making love to the most wonderful woman he had ever met, on a towel, on a private beach, under the night sky while waves lapped in the distance.

Of holding on tight to a walnut the size of a head, and then releasing that first Seed of the Season into the air, to watch it drift away on the waters of the manasphere, to touch the roof of the world, and pluck off a piece of the whole, to carry What Had Come Before as it journeyed to Elsewhere to bring forth What Will Be. Erick turned, and saw Yggdrasil behind him. The World Tree had grown into a mountain of roots and trunk, topped with another mountain of branches and leaves. Its shade providing homes for hundreds of thousands of lives, while ten thousand seeds hung heavy on its branches. All at once, those seeds released, then carried on the wind and mana, up to the roof of the world, where they too, pushed through the Script, plucking off tiny balloons of power, carrying that power with them as each seed conjured a [Gate], and then floated through.

Phagar’s voice drew Erick back to the Near Past, as he said, “Nothing is set in antirhine. Everything could change at a moment’s decision. Your future is up to you to decide, and then make whole.”

Erick said, “That last one. With Yggdrasil…”

Phagar said, “One of the larger possibilities. It was a faint, barely-there idea, when you first dropped to Veird. It remained as such until four hours ago, when it became something much, much more solid.” He added, “Still might not happen like that. There are other versions that I left out of the viewing. Viewings where Yggdrasil is made of blood, and tumors released to the air. Fragments where Yggdrasil turned to shadows, and drew Darkness across this universe.”

“… Oh.” Erick stared out at nothing and everything, all at once.

Phagar stood up from his chair saying, “Good luck with Shadow’s Feast, Erick.”

Erick felt something solidify in his heart and mind. He said, “Thanks for the visit.”

Phagar smiled again as he said, “You’re the one that visited me.”

“Right. You said that… Already...”

The kaleidoscope of the past churned into moving action and never-happeneds, as Phagar vanished into the mana like the turning of a perspective. And then he was gone. Time resumed.

Erick decided to leave more [Witness]ing to another day. A pulse of intent, a flowing back to himself, a concentrated restriction of vision, and Erick was back in his own body. He gasped. He breathed. He saw out of his own eyes, heard the world with his own ears, and felt the bed under his butt with his own fingers, clutching at the sheets. They were soft, good sheets.

Violet spoke from past the door, where the dense air prevented her from entering, “Are you well, sir?”

Erick blinked a few times; adjusting. He said, “I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” He hopped off the bed, and glanced to Violet’s feet, where he knew unseen shadows roiled inside her shoes, and under her soles. He still didn’t get Shadow. Maybe he should have asked Phagar about that? Eh. The god said to call him up any time he wanted. But… Erick wanted to figure this part out on his own. He asked Violet, “What does Shadow mean to you?”

Violet briefly flinched, as though physically struck. Her voice was perfectly professional, as she said, “I am unsure what you mean.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He barreled on, trying to compartmentalize all that he had seen, saying, “We got time for breakfast before the presentations, yeah?”

“We do, sir.” Violet stood tall, as she asked, “Do you have any requests? I am here to serve.”

“Scrambled eggs, pancakes, some meat, and some of that coffee I brought with me. Actually!” Erick walked toward the door. Violet moved aside, as Erick said, “I don’t have much of that coffee. I need to copy it, first.” He decided, “And that’s what I’m going to bring if they ask for a presentation.”

Breakfast was good.

Violet was a great cook. Erick had rarely ever had eggs as good as the ones she made, and while the pancakes were pancakes, the jams and jellies and honey that Violet paired them with turned those pancakes up to 11. The sausage was pretty great, too. Kinda spicy.

Erick ate while he thought of Laplace’s Demon, determinism, Free Will, and what he had just witnessed with his near-[Witness]. Now that some time had passed, he could honestly say that all of that was interesting stuff! It was beyond nice to know that Free Will was a real and true thing. Maybe Free Will was a high dimension, soul-aspect, kinda thing? Or maybe a time-thing?

It was also interesting to think of time and decisions.

The ‘present’ that people thought of as the ‘now’, was actually a few hundred milliseconds. People naturally existed over a small slice of temporal displacement.

Mana Sense proved the ability to see further into the past than was normal, and even into the future, according to Phagar. But it also allowed a person to see the mana, or the soul. Maybe, mana sense was just a step off of causality, and the ability to see the river of time? Mana was ‘liquid’ possibility, after all, and possibilities were endless in the mana.

Was mana…

Was mana, the drawing down of a higher dimension, into this dimension?

Was the Sundering… The ‘sundering’ of a higher dimension? Was the Old Cosmology actually Vacuum Decay’d, like he had feared? Or perhaps, a narrowing of dimensions, from, like, what, five? Down to three? Four, for gods? Phagar was clearly a fourth dimensional being. Maybe all gods were.

Eh! Those thoughts were too deep for now. Best shove them aside and focus on current events. With a glance and a listen through the Ophiel around the house, Erick heard and saw people of all sorts moving around the Palace District in groups of three or four, while rainbow streamers were billowing from the tops of certain towers and buildings, here and there, all around the tiered castle city. Those people certainly seemed like students, but they were quieter than any students Erick had ever seen before. Mostly, they kept their eyes forward, and their mouths shut, as they walked down white lines in the road that wound around the whole district, from one rainbow-streamer building to the next.

Erick exited Quilatalap’s house, saying, “You know, I wasn’t expecting a Science Fair when everyone spoke of ‘presentations’.”

Violet closed the door behind them. “I am unsure what you mean, sir.”

“A magic fair? Where people show off the stuff they’ve accomplished that year?” He looked to Violet, saying, “Those exist, don’t they?”

Violet nodded. “Truedark Arcanaeum is having their Graduate Presentations all this week, except for today, when those of the Clergy present some of what they’ve done this year in order to further Melemizargo’s goals for this world.”

“And they’re presenting to the students? That’s a twist I wasn’t expecting.”

“While the Shades are presenting their projects to the students, the students are here to present themselves to them. The hope and the plan of many today is to find like minded individuals in order for all to rise to new heights.”

“Ah.” And then Erick had another thought. “Ah, shit. I’m not taking apprentices.”

Violet frowned a little, but she banished that expression as fast as it appeared.

- - - -

Every place where a rainbow streamer lifted from the Palace District, was a presentation. From one presentation to the next, were white lines engraved upon the right sides of the roads of the Palace District. Every place there was a presentation, and upon every line, were people in the black robes of Truedark Arcanaeum. Most of those people were in groups of three or four. Erick had initially suspected the students to be of college age, but with the few Ophiel fluttering around him, and with most silently Handy Aura’ing around in the distance, Erick saw that only half of those students were in their 20s or early 30s. Most were much older. There was more than one heavily wrinkled man or woman among the quietly moving crowds, but none of those individuals wore anything that set them apart from the others; they probably weren’t teachers.

The students walked on the white lines. Erick left them to that. He took the center of the road, staying out of their way, and not letting them be in his. Some of those students gasped as they saw him. All stopped as he walked by, and though some stopped and bowed, some just stopped in wonder. Some even looked like they were about to open their mouths and speak to him, but a glare from Violet, or a hard grip on a shoulder from someone with them, stopped words from ever leaving their lips. Erick wasn’t a mind reader, but he could tell a lot about what those who almost spoke wanted from him. Some had greed in their eyes, or academic questions left to rot on their lips. Some wanted something special, and were willing to do anything to get what they wanted from him. There were hate-filled eyes, and hate-filled faces. Some were scared. Others tried to act as if nothing special was happening.

Most, if Erick didn’t have his Perception, he probably would have recognized as just humble people making way for those in power. But he had both a Perception and Intelligence in the 200s, and he couldn’t help but find patterns in the littlest micro expressions. He might have imagined 5% of what he saw, but 95% of it was real, and Erick was surprised at how easy everyone was to read.

It also helped that he flickered on his mana sense, occasionally as fast as between blinks, seeing the world through a whole new lens, and joining the fluctuations on peoples’ Shrouds to their expressed emotions. He got rather good at verifying emotions, rather fast. That guy was nervous in his core, but outwardly rather composed. That woman was horny as all get-out for Erick, and that emotion showed in her eyes and on her face. That guy over there was similarly horny, but his emotions were directed at anyone he saw, while his whole body was thoroughly filled with terror.

Erick could relate.

This was almost mind reading.

A part of him wondered what Poi would say about all this. A part of him wondered at the hovering ‘almost Shroud’ surrounding each and every Ophiel, but that surrounded none of the various automatons that had been stationed here and there around the Palace. The Shrouds of those students on the street varied from air, to water, to one woman’s impeccable stone. He wondered at his own soul, too, for now that he was familiar with the Shrouds of others, his own Shroud appeared as thick as liquid concrete.

Erick wondered about a lot of things as he strolled up the road, to where the white line crossed the street. That white line entered a garage-like space with three walls and a roof, and a few scattered tables with glass boxes upon them. People were there, mainly students in front of the tables, looking down in the boxes, but there was also a woman sitting in the back, atop a stool, watching the students like they were thieves. Her eyes only looked away from the fruits under glass and the students gazing upon them when she saw Erick. And then she gasped. The students rapidly recognized Erick behind them, and parted, shoving themselves out of the way, to let him see the uninterrupted sights of the presentation.

It was then that a side of the room turned to a shadowed puddle, and a woman stepped out; a Shade. She was dark-skinned and muscular. She was Lapis, the Shade of Enchantment. She smiled, and then smiled wider, as Erick blinked on his mana sense. Her Shroud was about as solid as his own liquid-concrete Shroud.

Lapis spoke, “Greetings, Erick! I must say: you have taken remarkably well to those new Stats. A mana sense in a single day, the smarts to use it, and the stability of body and mind to blink it on and off like that, with no ill effects? Remarkable.” She added, “Your own experience is in line with some of my other tests, though. Tell me: do you have a sudden craving for blood or flesh or anything of the sort?”

Erick watched the world with multiple senses and saw when probing bits of shadow tested the edge of his Shroud. He touched the nearest shadowy tendril with his own and gave it a gentle push away, as he said, “Five of the last people to do that got executed, Lapis.”

Students exited the room a quickly as they could.

Lapis smiled, and said, “I was one of those that tested you when you fell, and who was determined to have due cause to test. We had to be sure that you weren’t having a mental and physical breakdown. That’s happened to some people.”

Erick kept his emotions level, and his anger at sapient-testing down to a minimum. “Why do you think I survived?”

“I have many theories regarding these new Stats and the people who get them. But first:” Lapis gestured to the glass boxes on the tables. “Care for an Introduction to New Stats? My assistant was giving this lesson, but I would prefer to do this myself since you’re here.”

“… Sure. Why not.”

Lapis turned halfway to her assistant. “Set up for a full display.”

The woman, a short human with darker skin than Lapis and with dark, human eyes, bowed quickly, then said, “Yes, mistress,” as she bustled to the second of the three glass cases. With careful, quick hands, she began pulling out fruits and metals and objects from the case, and setting them up on the table, as she conjured sculptures of light into the air.

Erick had seen the glass cases and their contents well before now, but this was Lapis’s show, so he let her guide him through whatever it was she had done.

The Shade moved to the first case, in which text sat under glass, next to small drawings. She said, “Here I have detailed the problems of Stats, and the normal ways to increase or decrease them through tainting the aura with a boosting color. Stats and their colors are an artificial construction of mana, you know?”

“Of course they are.”

Lapis gave a small, happy expression. “A rather open-minded perspective. It usually takes a lot of evidence to prove to most people that the Script is wholly artificial.”

“Many things are artificial. The idea of a family. The idea of a community. Just because they are artificial does not mean they are somehow wrong.”

Lapis shrugged, then continued, “Because Stats are artificially constructed from the mana, we can hitch our attempts at enchantment to this artificiality in a few different ways. The first, is to use a like-to-like mana light, boosting the power of the soul by flooding the Aura, and thus the Shroud, with that mana light. This is the normal way to enchant for Stats, and much like you can equip a person with a weapon in order to increase the work a person is capable of doing, this is how you equip the soul with a weapon to thus increase the power of the soul.”

Erick had nothing against her words, except that she was purposefully holding back and that she failed to use words like ‘harmonic’ and ‘lightwaves’, which Erick was sure that she knew. They had been spying on Erick this whole time, after all.

He also said nothing because he blinked on his own mana sense, and checked his rings and his belt, and yes, there was something there that he hadn’t paid attention to before now. He knew how Stat Enchantments worked, after all. But seeing it was different than reading and poking around with various experiments.

Lapis moved onto the next glass case, which had been opened, with the drawings and words therein strung out into hanging lightwards that more easily displayed the information. Lapis went through those light sculptures, and took her place in the center of the display, as she spoke, “Our goal was not to equip the soul with a new weapon, but instead to fuse those weapons to the soul, directly; to change a man’s arms into sword-arms, so to speak. We did this by taking certain souls of the correct natural color out of the manasphere with summoning magics, as well as using starter souls from various sources, and turning those people into Stat Fruit bearing trees. When one of those resulting Meatdrops, Blooddrops, Dewdrops, or Oceandrops, was used by a person, what was happening was that the very soul, the very connection to the Script, was being stressed along its foundation. This stress was then filled in by the Script, fundamentally expanding the power of those Stats by one. Some people, with very low starter Stats, sometimes gained two, or even three points in those Stats.” She added, “The Points gifted to users of the Script, those gained by levels or other means, are also capable of doing this, but we are not able to access this functionality of the Script.

“There is a similar event that happens when someone is at a low Strength but then they eat enough monster meat to gain a point of Strength. That is a much slower method of gaining Strength, but that method was useful to understand in order to exploit the rest of the Script.”

Erick kept his anger in check, but it was getting difficult. This woman… This monster, experimented on people like they didn’t matter. Erick knew this, already. But to hear it again… Erick kept himself from sighing.

Lapis stepped to the third box, saying, “And here is how we created the new Stat Fruits.” She stood before a few different illusions of trees and people. “The hardest part was finding people of the right color magic to start with. We began with a global scouring for those with the dispositions and natural manalights that we wished to pursue. The original thirty resources we discovered ranged from Sanity to Luck to Endurance, to the four we decided upon, and a few others that never came to fruition. From there, we broke those resources with Melemizargo’s help and used those breakings to flow mana in a way it hadn’t moved before, creating Constitution, Dexterity, Charisma, and Intelligence. Recently, though, Charisma was broken again, and shifted into Perception. We tried for Intuition, but that mutated into what it became, and the outcome was acceptable. Perception seems like a great Stat.”

Erick asked, “And what happened to the original people?”

“They’re trees now. They’re happy. Treant has a whole little court of like-minded tree-people, happily soaking up the sun while their roots dip into the dirt.” Lapis frowned a little, as she put on a false front, saying, “I’m not one of those people who enjoys causing pain and suffering, Erick. Besides! Those people were all horrible people who deserved what they got. Not a single one was worth anything to civilization or their own societies, and now they are.”

“Ah. Well.” Sarcastically, Erick said, “That makes everything better.” A bit more serious, he asked, “How do you know that they were useless people to their own societies?”

Lapis was prepared for this. She said, “Rodel was the primary gatherer for both intel and the people themselves. I don’t know about the majority of the failures of this project, but I know for a fact that our Intelligence guy came from a bandit camp in Nelboor. He had delusions of world conquest, and he killed hundreds of people to rise to the top of his own particular heap of shit. He had a harem of women he abused on the daily.” She gently flapped a hand to the right, saying, “The Shade of Whispers is up the mountain somewhere. He’ll know more about the individuals chosen for the honor of becoming the Stat Trees.”

“Maybe I will speak to him, but right now I’m speaking to you.” Erick asked, “Why was it necessary to harm people to create new magic? To create something new in the Script?”

“Because the Script is strong, Erick. It was made by ten million minor and major powers all weaving their chains together, all focused on controlling our reality, on controlling our lives.” Without malice or subterfuge, Lapis said, “We work with what we have, and what we have is soul magic, blood magic, paths already laid down in the Script, and Melemizargo’s power to turn those paths to new directions in the hopes of escaping this prison.”

Erick listened to that answer, and for the briefest of moments, he put himself in Lapis’s shoes.

In her eyes, the world was a trap, and the people therein were also trapped with her. There was no escape from this fate, and the strongest tools that existed to break out of this fate were the lives of her fellow prisoners. For a moment, Erick accepted that this was a valid trade off. For a moment, the sacrifice of other people to break out of an endless prison was okay. But just for a moment.

And then Erick came back to himself. He said, “I hope you have plans to forgo this type of experimentation and harm when new worlds open up to you.”

Lapis lied straight to his face, “Of course.”

He asked one more question, “So what was the purpose of these new Stats?”

“To get the gods to come to the table and debate how to move forward into a new expansionist era, in this New Cosmology.” Lapis said, “It takes a lot to get gods talking. If you want to blame anyone for the horrors unleashed by the Clergy, blame the incompetence of the Interfaith gods and their desire to control us all.” She added, “Personally, I believe that the Sundering was caused by all those falsely vaunted gods, or maybe the Wrought themselves. Melemizargo certainly would never have broken the universe. Even if you take the worst possible view of Our God, it makes no sense that he would seek to Sunder his own power.”

“… Thanks for the presentation.”

“Any time, Erick.” Lapis said, “If you wish to talk about other forms of enchanting, let me know. My assistant will be here all day. Or you could come around to Truedark; I have office hours most afternoons over there.”

Erick left the presentation booth.

- - - -

The next presentation was for how the Shade of Monsters, who never showed, had created a new breed of slime that mimicked normal sewer slimes and yet was four times stronger than usual. Those new slimes had been seeded in thirty different smaller towns and larger cities throughout continental Nelboor. They had gone on to kill somewhere between 100 to 700 Rookies. The only problem with the new breed of slimes was that they did not transform into very good oozes. They were only about half as strong as any normal ooze of the same variety. But that didn’t really matter. They had been wiped out three months after introduction, in an unusual act of cooperation between the warring city-states of that war torn continent.

The man who presented this information to Erick really drummed up the acts of cooperation that came about from the Shade’s slimes.

- - - -

One presentation was empty.

The person in the middle of that space told anyone who came that, “The Shade of Enlightenment has grand plans for the coming years, and cannot divulge any secrets at this time.”

- - - -

In one well-attended room, Erick found a dozen people all reading from huge chalkboards that had been set into the walls. Notes adorned those chalkboards. Notes on atoms, and the molecular makeup of water, and a large number of other things Erick had spoken to others in confidence…

Just…

All out there.

Hanging in the open.

Erick left.

He hadn’t noticed anything on those chalkboards about light, though. For a moment, he was hopeful that they didn’t know any of that. But then that moment passed. They knew about light. Why not display those private talks with Kiri? Why not expose all of what Erick chose not to expose to the world? Were they scared of light?

Possible.

- - - -

A room of scattered blood and viscera was contained behind solid shadows. Guts slithered on the floor. Bones undulated on the walls. A young man stood in the back of the room, untouched by the gore all around him. Where he stepped, blood flowed away. When he stood up from his chair, lumps of cancerous flesh moved to retake the space, but when he went to sit, those lumps of flesh moved away from the chair, leaving the seat pristine, and his for the taking.

Some students stood outside the space, but none dared to move inside, though the man inside was quite amicable to such things. He smiled, and spoke in a friendly manner using words that seemed anything but friendly, “Come on in, if you dare, if you’ve skill with Blood Magic. My master won’t take anyone that isn’t capable of keeping away small monsters like these.”

Erick watched the man talk to the students, and then he walked forward.

The four students who were watching, backed away, fully.

Erick stopped at the edge of the gore.

The man on the other side, in the sea of blood and body parts, and yet not touched by any of it, brightened. He bowed, “Welcome, Fire of the Age. I am the humble servant of Crimsonair, the Shade of Blood. How may my master help you?”

“I have no idea how he could help me.” Erick looked to the moving walls and floor and ceiling, asking, “But what’s with the horror show? And why are you calling them small monsters?” Erick looked around the room with multiple sights, saying, “I can see the soul in that thing, and though it’s spread out, it’s a single monster.” Erick pointed behind the kid, to a particularly bloody patch of gore, saying, “The core is right there.”

The guy smiled, as he sighed a little. He made himself stand tall, saying, “A subtle ruse to knock out those incapable of [True Sight], [Blood Sight], [Soul Sight], or [Mana Sight]. Any one of those would have sufficed.” He added, “As for assistance, Crimsonair is working diligently on adaptability spells, to change a person to survive in harsh climates, in ways that would not need the Script to hold them all together. If you were amenable, he would like to speak to you of your own experiences or knowledge of the dangers of void travel. You might not have personal experience with that, but he would like to speak to you about ideas, either way. In exchange, he could help you with any number of Blood Magic spells that you might be interested in.” The man bowed again, saying, “Please let me know if you are amenable to any of this, Erick Flatt.”

“… Maybe.” Erick was a little freaked out by the blood monster, but not that much. He repeated, “Maybe.”

And then he walked away.

He walked to the next presentation, checking on the various ‘sights’ he had heard mentioned. He had a few of them available for purchase.

--

Mana Sight 1, instant, close range, 5 mana per second

See the truth of mana all around you.

Purchase [Mana Sight 1] for 1 point? Yes/No

--

Blood Sight 1, instant, close range, 5 mana per second

See the blood all around you.

Purchase [Blood Sight 1] for 1 point? Yes/No

--

Soul Sight 1, instant, close range, 5 mana per second

See the souls all around you.

Purchase [Soul Sight 1] for 1 point? Yes/No

--

No.

He had not unlocked [Future Sight] or [Witness], or even [True Sight]. The first two were understandable; Erick had not gone very far with seeing into the past, or the future. Teressa had needed to see hours into the past to qualify for [Witness]. It would make sense for a similar restriction to exist with [Future Sight], though the future was not written in antirhine, so perhaps [Future Sight] worked rather oddly compared to the solidity of the past, and of [Witness].

[True Sight] seemed like it would be a combination of all of the ‘Sight’ skills out there; that one didn’t seem like Basic Tier at all.

Someone around here probably knew the combination to get [True Sight].

“Excuse me,” said no one to an Ophiel on the far periphery of Erick’s walk.

That Ophiel was currently sitting pretty on a street corner five blocks away. Erick ignored whoever had spoken, for people were praying to all of his Ophiel, everywhere, when they weren’t falling down in front of him and suddenly kowtowing like he was some great king. Erick was not a fan of this worship. It was downright strange, and wrong, and weird. But it happened, and he did nothing to stop it.

After all, Jane had once joked to him, ‘If someone calls you a god, say yes!’ and that seemed like the prudent thing to do, in this case.

“Could I have a moment of your time, Archmage Flatt?” said no one, again.

Erick paid the least bit of attention to the voice, speaking through that Ophiel, “What’s up, stranger who doesn’t want to appear?”

Erick could see the speaker, of course, now that he tried to see them, anyway. He had figured out how to work a mana sense through his Ophiel with the barest attempt at the skill. It was a little odd, but no odder than the usual dozens of eyes and myriad of viewpoints common to his [Familiar].

The speaker was a human man nine meters away, cloaking himself against the side of a building, and looking ready to flee at a moment’s notice. Erick wouldn’t have noticed him for all the magics wrapped around him, except that his Shroud was torn and tattered like a broken sail on a ship, and that he was using some sort of voice-projection spell that connected his voice to the air inside Ophiel’s feathers; that was why Erick had noticed the intrusion more than most.

The mystery man spoke like he wasn’t currently keeping a frantic eye out, viewing everything around him in a way that was worse than Ophiel’s usual habits, “Sorry to intrude, sir, but I want money and power, and I am willing to do some awful things to get it, including work with the Shades. I would prefer to work with you, though. Could I bother you to please make me a few dozen All-Stat rings, and for you to leave them somewhere of my choosing?”

Erick laughed, then said, “No.”

“I am afraid I am going to have to insist. The guy speaking to you right now is controlled to say this to you, so don’t go murdering him, please. We’ll do that for you, if you insist on doing this the hard way.”

Anger, like a raging storm, flowed through Erick, all at once.

Erick had a sunform Ophiel cross hundreds of meters in a flashing moment, to stand before the guy, enveloping him with his power. Erick had kept his own body walking down the road, prepared for the other shoe to drop and for some direct attack to happen, as he split a good ten percent of his focus to the now-trapped patsy. The guy dropped to his knees, crying, yet still under his intricate illusion.

The voice said, “I have people on the outside that will do this to your daughter and apprentice if I don’t get what I want. Please keep this in mind during further negotiations.”

Erick was already working his spells through the man. He found what he wanted to find: A packet of light magic strung through the guy’s whole spine, and inside all of his bones. Erick spent 10,000 of his own mana on a [Dispel], targeting the guy.

Four things rapidly happened.

The guy turned visible, stripping away what was likely dozens of wrapped spells that were far beyond a simple [Invisible]. The guy was a kid, maybe 17 or 18, and wearing rags.

A bolt of light came from well out of view, into view, and attempted to impact the kid. Instead, it splashed against Ophiel’s sunform and suddenly summoned shield, turning parts of the street into rubble, but otherwise achieving nothing.

A bolt of light came out of the sky, descending on Erick’s own body, but he wrapped himself in his already-cast sunform and summoned his own light shield, negating the attack.

A third bolt of light impacted Violet, directly behind Erick. She had grabbed the bolt, holding the vibrating, illuminated missile in a wrap of shadows. With a violent smile, she held the attack in the air, and crunched it under her fist, yelling out to whoever might be listening, “Have to do better than that!”