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The day dawned, and Erick ignored it, until he heard Jane and Teressa walk into the apartment. At that point he jumped out of bed, feeling mostly great, to greet his daughter and his guard before they could wander off to bed or otherwise.

“Good morning!” Erick said, happily, as he walked into the living room, trying to ignore the sudden stitch in his side as he moved.

Jane grumbled, “Too bubbly.”

She looked like she had fought a keg of booze and barely won. She was still hunting out there in the woods with Teressa by the time Erick had tucked himself into bed, which was much later than Erick liked to go to bed. So she couldn't have gotten too drunk.

Teressa just looked haggard. But she was an orcol, so her ‘haggard’ was anyone else’s ‘well rested’.

“Good night, sir?” Teressa asked, hopefully.

“Go ahead and get to bed. Both of you.” Erick turned to Teressa, as the woman’s eyes turned soft and thankful, adding, “I’m staying in today. I’ve got no plans for anything but some light reading, and some work with Ophiel. There probably won’t be a need to guard me, unless the building explodes or something.”

“Ugh! Dad.” Jane was temporarily reinvigorated, as she demanded, “Why do you tempt fate saying shit like that?”

Teressa had already ignored the conversation and headed right to her room. As Jane grumbled something about flags and room service and not being able to sleep at the moment because someone decided to push their luck, Teressa was already out of sight. Three seconds later, Erick heard the thump of a very tired orcol hitting a very large bed. Erick began the quick process to order breakfast, and half an hour later, Jane could barely hold her eyes open as she slowly chewed her omelette. She probably should have gone to bed, too, instead of forcing herself to stay awake.

Kiri, however, had gotten a good night’s sleep, so when she joined the group, it was with a happy, “Good morning, everyone!”

Erick smiled as Kiri sat down at the table. “Do you have any plans for the day?”

“Not really,” Kiri said, as she helped herself to the pancakes. “Do you need something from me?”

“Probably, yes.” Erick said, “I talked to O’kabil last night, after you already went to bed, and the Arbors might be asking me to help extinguish the Moon Reachers, among other monsters. Some plants, too, I imagine.”

Jane perked up. “What?”

Kiri paused, her knife full of butter for her waiting pancakes. She unfroze, then asked, “Is that feasible? Like, actually possible? Logistically?”

“What she said,” Jane added, barely more awake than she had been.

Poi just ate his toast in silence, going from normal breakfast eating to narrowed eyes. He only had a few tendrils of thought around his head at the moment, but at Erick’s proclamation, he gained a few more.

“It’s theoretically possible. Aside from killing them all, which will be a very dangerous task for most people, the main problem is finding the monsters, and I can do that. I found a good dozen Moon Reachers on the outskirts of Treehome last night.” Erick declared, “I can do a lot more than I have been doing, so now that the main threat of the Shades is gone, or at least squashed for now, it’s time to be a bit more proactive than usual. If the people here want it, of course. O’kabil is likely speaking with the other Arbors and the Chieftains, or however it is they do it, talking about this very thing that I am now discussing with you.” He added, “I offered tracking services for other monsters, too. All of the plague species, if you want a term for them. It’s a broad category.”

For a good ten seconds, no one said anything.

Kiri poured syrup on her pancakes, as she said, “It’s so weird to casually talk about eradicating a monster species over breakfast… But what’s weirder would be leaving that decision up to a committee.” She frowned, as she said, “I feel like a noble.”

“You can’t just go deciding things for other people, Kiri,” Erick said. “This Forest is their land. I won’t be acting without their permission, or without their direct assistance.”

Kiri’s frown turned into something less, as she said, “Then you’re going to have to talk to the Sovereign Cities, because they border the Forest, too. And don’t forget the Greensoil Republic. That border is massive.”

“I know you’re being sarcastic, but maybe they should be involved.”

“Then you’ll never kill the Moon Reachers, or any of the other dangers out there.” Kiri said, “Because you’ll never get everyone to agree to it, because that is what nobles do. They fuck up good things because they’re not getting their fair share. Watch: Someone, and maybe a lot of someones, will tell you that they won’t allow it, because they’re ‘losing out on grand-rad revenue sources’. They’re going to demand compensation.”

“I’m not paying shit to anyone. So if that happens, then we’ll go forward with…” Erick thought for a moment. “A two-thirds majority.”

Kiri eyed him. “So if two out of three nations say that they want the Moon Reachers to stay, that they do not want you killing these plague species, you would allow the voices of the people in charge, because they were born to those positions, to overrule the lives of people who live near the Forest, who brave the Forest every single day?”

“Yes.”

Kiri gave a sudden, flat stare at Erick. “Really? That does not seem like you.”

“Of course I’ll abide by the decisions of the people who live with the Forest, Kiri. Besides that, do you really think that the people in charge here would want to see the monsters live, when they have the opportunity to End them?” Erick said, “I have a little more faith in people than that.”

Kiri relaxed. “Oh. Yeah. You would.” She added, “But people make bad decisions all the time.”

“Exactly.” Erick said, “It may be I who is making a bad decision in offering this opportunity. When I brought this up with O’kabil, she told me that Moon Reachers are a predator species that kills other monsters all the time. Maybe, from a pure numbers perspective, the correct decision is to let them live.”

“Or,” Kiri countered, “The correct decision is to End them, as you put it, and to also End thirty other monster species while you’re at it. Bring an entirely different balance to the Forest. One with more animals and less monsters.”

“… That’s a good counterpoint.” Erick asked, “Would you be interested in helping with something like that? It would take months, at least, and another operator on my own level would go a long way to that cleaning effort.” He glanced to Sunny, sitting on Kiri’s shoulders. “Sunny and you would be invaluable.”

Jane had said nothing, all this time. Poi remained silent, too. The two of them had just been shifting their gaze from Erick to Kiri while they spoke.

Kiri said, “Of course I would be interested in that. If it happens at all. But just like those nobles, I’m not going to do it for free. Working is a lot more honorable than sitting back and watching money grow itself, after all.” With a bit more strength in her voice, she stated, “And you shouldn’t do this for free, either, Erick. People won’t appreciate what you could give them unless you charge for it, and it’s going to have to be a lot. This is a major undertaking. It might even be harder than eradicating the mimics from the Crystal Forest.”

“All the rads and grand-rads from every monster killed.” Erick said, “If there’s to be a fee, then that’s what I already decided on.” He added, “But I’d really rather do this for free. Or maybe, in the case of Treehome, a house in the city somewhere? I heard you can’t live here unless you’re married into a tribe, but I’m sure I can get around that requirement.” He smirked. “Or maybe I can start my own tribe. Yggdrasil will eventually get more than 2 possible bodies. Maybe I’ll plant one of him on the outskirts of town. The Arbors have already said that they were interested in helping me raise him right, and it’d be a lot easier to do that if he’s in the neighborhood.”

Kiri’s eyebrow ridges were slightly scrunched together, likely in thought, but she said nothing as she ate her pancakes. Breakfast turned silent. Erick almost continued to talk of plans, but he saw that everyone at the table was deep in thought. So he let his words hang there, while they ate.

Eventually, after her third pancake, Kiri asked, “Wasn’t there supposed to be an envoy from Baroness Xelxex to Candlepoint, today?”

Erick waved off the concern, saying, “Mephistopheles is walking around town with that envoy right now. Nothing happening there that I need to be concerned with.”

Jane, a little more awake than she had been, asked, “What’s your goal for helping Candlepoint, dad?”

“For them to be self sufficient, and for me to never need to directly help them out unless there’s a monster attack, or something.” He added, “Why?”

Jane paused, seeming to debate with herself if she wanted to say something. And then she said, “Because I think that Melemizargo is using you to legitimize himself, and you’re willingly going along with his plan.”

There was a lot to unpack there, and while everyone looked to him, Erick considered where he wanted to start. He started at the beginning, saying, “Yes. This is what is happening. I see this. But so what? I’m fine with helping a definitely-dangerous god work toward legitimacy. Someone has to, and I’m just a lowly mortal. The actual people who decide Melemizargo’s presence in the world are other gods, and they’re not so easily fooled. Or at least I hope they aren’t.” Before anyone else could say anything, Erick added, “Besides! I’m not going to ask for people to put Dark Temples up anywhere, or any of that nonsense. All I care about is that he’s not actively hurting people, and that he’s trying to heal old hurts. If people think that he is working through me, I will set them straight. I’m not giving that guy any credit for anything that I do. But if people silently think what they want to think, then there’s nothing I can do about that, and I hope that actions speak louder than rumors.” He added, “And I’ll never repeat any of that for anyone else, ever. I hope that this is the first and only time you ask me that, Jane. It’s a dangerous question.”

Jane looked down at the remnants of her uneaten omelette. Kiri ate her pancakes in silence.

Poi said, “I have been informed by the Mind Mages that we are very interested in your assistance in erasing several mental threats from the surface of Veird.”

Everyone looked to Poi.

Erick laughed. “Okay! Sure.”

Poi said, “The Moon Reachers are one of them.”

“… Ah. Okay?” Erick asked, “How do the Mind Mages work with others? Uh. That’s not my first question. My first question is when do we start? Where do we start? How will this work?”

Poi said, “Now there is a fourth interested party when it comes to clearing Glaquin of Moon Reachers. But there are also Puppet Minds and Masters. Spinal Spiders. Putrescent Slugs. And Book Slippers. These four mental monsters are four that do not need to exist. They cause nothing but pain. Glaquin can be a test case for eradication of these ‘pest species’.”

“I assume I would need to scan cities. But not a lot of cities liked that when I did it after the Hunter attack on Spur...”

Poi nodded, saying, “Yes. This would need to be a long term goal. A worldwide effort in the end, but a continent-wide effort in the beginning. If we managed to cull all of the stated threats inside the Crystal Forest, that would do much to get the rest of the world in line with a culling effort, and those cities already know and have worked with you before. It would be the work of a week to get this first part settled, and with your permission, I will be able to tell my people to start talks with the cities of the Crystal Forest.”

“Yes!” Erick enthusiastically said, “Yes! Sure. Go ahead and start some talks on my behalf.”

Poi nodded, as a few tendrils of thought erupted into the misty manasphere around his head. He continued, “As for going forward, past the Crystal Forest, we would likely need to travel to places like Greendale, the capital of the Greensoil Republic, and work with them on something in order to prove your ability. We’d certainly have to do a tour of several kingdoms in the Wasteland Kingdoms to do the same.” He looked to Jane, saying, “We would need to use the title of nobility you claimed in your Unicorn Hunt, over in the Sovereign Cities, to get a seat at that table.” He continued, “Treehome is already debating the merits of eradicating the Moon Reachers, so that might turn out well; we seem to think so.”

Erick practically beamed, as he said, “That’s wonderful!” He added, “And yes. We can do all of that, I think. Ah? Have they heard anything about the Converter Angel?”

“… No. The angel has gone to ground, or something. Your images of what to see inside of a person if they are infected have gotten around, along with more images handed out by the Wasteland Kingdoms. It seems that they did not like being shown up by you.”

Erick smirked a little at that. “That sounds like the best outcome, so far.”

Jane nodded. Kiri went, ‘yup.’

Poi said, “But if you really want to really flex your mana in a place beholden to none, we could try to clean up Quintlan.”

Kiri barked a laugh, then giggled.

Jane’s eyes went wide. “Now that place is dangerous.”

“Hmm?” Erick asked, “What? We could do it… Maybe. Aside from it likely taking a lot longer than I care to do work on a thankless task, what’s wrong with that idea?”

“Do oozes even show up on [Cascade Imaging]?” Jane said, “I’m not sure oozes have DNA. I’m absolutely sure that slimes barely have DNA; it’s more like a magical signature.”

Erick asked, “Where could I find an ooze to test?” He looked to his daughter, adding, “Besides your [Polymorph] form…” He had a thought. “Because I can’t get DNA from a flaming ooze without it burning up, I think? Which leads me to believe that it would be similarly hard to do the same for other oozes. They have no DNA, do they.”

Jane shook her head. “That’s only part of the problem, and easily testable, anyway. Sorry. It’s… really late for me. The main problem is that the mechanisms that created the oozes in the first place are still there. The old dungeons and old ruins of Quintlan are the bedrock of that entire continent. There’s literally no way to clear all of those up, unless you’re capable of leveling mountains… Which I guess is possible. Ah. But even if you do, the Rock Oozes just make more dungeons.” She added, “Sorry. Tired. I forgot about those. The Rock Oozes make more dungeons all the time.”

“Oh?” Erick asked.

Kiri said, “A lot of monsters make natural dungeons when they dig out homes under the ground. We’re still waiting for the inevitable Ballooning Spider Horde dungeons to start spewing monsters back onto the surface around Spur, any day now. They’ll probably be half a [Teleport] away and no real threat because of the Crystal Mimics, but those holes are out there, for sure. Anything could spawn in those dark tunnels.”

“Ah,” Erick said, a tad sullen. “I forgot about all the natural dungeon makers.”

Poi said, “We might not be able to eradicate every monster on Veird’s surface, but we can do a whole lot of good, if you’re willing. Half a house is good enough when it’s raining, sir.”

Erick thought about that, then said, “Syllea said that we archmages shouldn’t try to solve the monster problems of the world. What do you all think of that?”

“Rubbish!” Kiri instantly said, and likely louder than she meant to say. As the other two turned to her, she continued, “You have power. Therefore, there is a responsibility to use it correctly. That’s what you once said to me, wasn’t it? With great power, comes great responsibility. By your own words, you have a responsibility to save others who cannot, will not, or who are too ignorant to save themselves.”

“Yes. I said that. Which is why we’re having this discussion. There is great, fantastic, all together apocalyptic power, right in this room. You might not be an archmage yet, Kiri, but you’ll get there soon enough. With Sunny on your shoulder, you’re already well above all the other mid-tier mages of the world. Hopefully when you are an archmage, you’ll talk everything out before you decide to change the world.”

Admonished, Kiri said, “Well. Yeah…”

Jane said, “I think archmages should solve the problems of the world, with fire and light and surgical strikes. Have you considered linking your [Cascade Imaging] to your [Luminous Beam]? In a matter of moments, you could create the single most useful death-spell in the world, and eradicate every single Moon Reacher for a thousand kilometers, all at once.”

Kiri looked down. Poi looked away.

Erick said nothing for a long moment, and then he said, “I have thought of that spell, Jane. I have the rhyme, the intent, the power, all ready to go. But I won’t ever pull that trigger. A spell like that should not exist.”

With a quiet voice, Kiri said, “I agree with Erick. That spell shouldn’t exist. There is a limit, Jane. That spell would cross a horrible limit.”

“But!” Jane said, “According to all the spells I’ve seen out there, it could work. Why not make this magic? So what if it’s horrible? It’s efficient. It’s fast. It clears out a problem that everyone but stupid nobility would agree is a problem. So why not?”

“… I could do it,” Erick reluctantly said. “But a spell like that should not be allowed in the Open Script, or locked behind a Class, or whatever other qualifications you want to put on it, no matter how rare and hard to get.”

Jane said, “Give it over to Phagar. Seems like a very ‘Ending’ spell, and Phagar is your sponsor god, right?”

“Sponsor is not the right word.” Erick said, “And I don’t want to have to make that sort of spell, anyway.” He added, “There are a handful of spells that should not exist. I have thought of them. I have almost made them, in my moments of desperation. I am not going to make any of them. And besides that, circling back to Kiri’s words about people valuing this endeavor: If others aren’t involved, then they won’t see the value in what is done for them. I won’t ‘clean up’ this world for the people that live here. That’s just… That’s not who I am.” Trying to keep a mounting horror out of his voice, Erick said, “And aside from all that: I’m not going to put a target on my back by making some spell that could individually kill all the people in a thousand kilometers. Gods! That’s… That’s unconscionable.”

“I agree.” Jane said, “But if I were you, then I’d make the spell anyway, use it to clean up this world, then give it to a god I trusted for safe keeping.”

“You would?” Erick asked, not sure he liked where this was going.

“Yes. The power to, in the space of an afternoon, erase Moon Reachers, or Puppet Minds, or any of the other monsters from the face of the world? Yes. Absolutely. Do it, and never look back. And when people complain, [Teleport Other] them away.” Jane said, “There is a responsibility to use it, and then to lock it up behind all the gates you can find to ensure that it is never used again, but the power itself should exist.” She added, “Besides! If you don’t make it and then lock it away, someone else could make it!”

Erick shook his head. “The power to wipe out any vast part of the world should not exist.” He added, “I don’t even like that the Script allows for more than [Telekinesis] and [Cleanse]. If there were less power in the world, then the Shades would never have been a problem. I’m not going to contribute even more to the problem than I already have.”

Jane sat back in her chair, saying, “This is something that’s been bugging me for a long while, and I think I’ve found some of the problem. You know all my troubles with making magic? Well. I have a theory. I’m a lot more violent than you, dad. By a vast quantity.”

Erick did not like her talking about herself like that. He instantly said, “You’re not violent, Jane. You’re just driven, and this world requires violence. Don’t get the two confused.”

Jane smiled, then lost her smile. “I know what I am, dad. Just as I know that you’re a pacifist, I know that I am violent. I think this is why you’re better at magic than I am. The mana is alive, I’m certain, and it wants certain things, like to grow and expand, and… And I think I am very tired and not making much sense. Anyway. You’re good at magic because you believe in the good of magic. I just see it as a tool to carve a bloody path through my problems. I don’t think the mana likes that.”

Erick didn’t know what to say to that.

There was one secret he was keeping from everyone in his life, except for Poi, because the man was a Mind Mage and knew everything. Erick had never told anyone, including Jane, that he was a Wizard…

Except the Shades all knew, didn’t they. Ah. Shit. Did they tell anyone?

But Jane didn’t know, and it felt awful not to tell her. It felt horrible to hear that Jane thought that things were difficult for her because she was ‘violent’. Things were just easy for Erick because he was lucky… And maybe there was something to Jane’s theory, but...

Erick ignored all those thoughts, and said, “Maybe. I don’t know, Jane.”

Kiri instantly latched onto the idea, saying, “Erick’s methodology is vastly different from normal arcanaeum training, but everyone who goes to arcanaeum goes there in order to learn how to kill monsters or about various other topics. Only a very few graduates ever become archmages, but that number is much higher than the number of people out in ‘the wild’ who become archmages, like Erick.”

“How would you even know that, Kiri?” Jane asked, “Where’s your knowledge base coming from?”

“… I admit, that I might not know a lot about a lot, but I do know a little about a lot, and one of those things is the number of people who manage to become archmages every year…” Kiri added, “Or rather, I know the number of people who the Arcanaeum Consortium verify as Archmages every year. It’s a matter of public record.”

“Is it?” Erick asked, right as Jane said, “Really?”

Kiri said, “It’s widely believed that not everyone who gets accredited chooses to make themselves public, though. With regard to the idea that magic loves pacifists, I would have to look at arcanaeum records for centuries before I would ever go so far as to say that your idea, Jane, has merit, but it is testable.” She whispered, “And isn’t that interesting.”

Erick frowned at that, and asked, “How many archmages are there in the world, according to this publication? How many live on the surface?”

Kiri scrunched her face, and said, “Something like 400, total? Maybe? Only a handful of those in the Underworld, though. It’s believed that Melemizargo doesn’t like them being down there.”

Erick said, “I was told by a priestess of Melemizargo, named Priestess, that there were 47 currently living archmages in the world, with only 18 of them, including me, living on the surface.”

“That’s weird.” Kiri asked, “Why would she lie? Shades don’t usually lie… Wait. I’m remembering Priestess now. She lies all the time to people in order to get them to join the Cult of the Dark Dragon.”

Jane said, “I don’t think she was lying. Maybe they have a different definition of ‘archmage’.”

Erick said, “That might be possible. She said there were only 47 archmages on Veird, and she compared them directly to the number of Shades, saying that they outnumbered the archmages by a fair bit.”

“Huh.” Kiri said, “She was comparing you as a Shade, then. Or at least of that power level.”

Erick said, “Which is another odd thing! They talked of destroying the world, but if there were truly over 60 mages with a skillset similar to my own, then they could have done whatever they wanted to whoever they wanted.” He added, “But I guess they already did that.”

Poi said, “You are vastly more powerful than most Shades, Erick. I don’t think you understand this.”

Jane nodded, saying, “Yup. Which I think is because you won’t kill or harm unless you absolutely have to, and the Mana likes that.” With eyes widening, she added, “But the Shades were manual casters! And as manual casters, they make their magic individually, all the time! … But they’re as violent as I am… so they shouldn’t be that good at magic… Okay. I see a flaw in my thought process.”

Kiri stifled a laugh.

“Anyway!” Erick continued, undaunted, “It is important to have self-imposed limits. I won’t go forward with this monster extermination without approval from others, and I certainly won’t ever make a magic that can automatically exterminate a two-thousand kilometer diameter of Veird’s surface!” He shivered. He added, “Never repeat that thought, ever, anywhere. Please.”

Kiri said, “Of course, Eri—”

Jane slapped a hand against the table, triumphant. “That’s it! You have limits!” She said, “Each Shade had limits, too. Maybe a hard limit means the Mana likes… them…? I think I lost my train.”

Erick looked to his daughter. He tried to keep the frown off of his face and the hurt out of his voice, he asked, “You don’t have limits? Jane?”

“I mean…” Jane fumbled, “I have limits. But I wouldn’t hesitate to press a button and kill every single monster in the world. I guess the Mana doesn’t like that much viciousness in their heroes.”

Erick sent, ‘Did something happen after the Hunt? Or during?’

Jane stood up from the table, saying, “I’m being entirely too melodramatic. Time for sleep. If the building blows up while I’m asleep I’m blaming you for planting that flag, dad.” She sent, ‘I had a good Hunt. I’m just tired.’ She walked off, toward her room.

“Good night— Er. Morning.” Erick said, “Sleep well.”

Kiri watched Jane go for a second, then turned back, and finished off the last of her cold breakfast. Erick had already finished his while it was hot. Cleaning up was as easy as leaving the [Cleanse]d plates and utensils on the food cart, and leaving that cart outside the door.

After the heavy conversation at the breakfast table, Erick settled down onto the lounge with a rather dry, but heady book from his library, for he needed some perspective that was not his own. It was titled ‘On the nature of Magic and Ethics’, and it was dense. It was a thick book composed of selected texts from many of Veird’s historically-known philosophers, but whom Erick had never heard of before. The book was not reader-friendly. Occasionally, when he just couldn’t follow the looping arguments anymore, he shifted his sight to Candlepoint, and to other spaces where Ophiel flew, unimpeded. On his third glance toward Candlepoint he saw Justine, who had moved into the city just last night. She walked alongside the envoy from the Baroness, and also alongside Mephistopheles, as they strode along the boardwalk next to the water. They spoke of trade and products.

Justine looked alright, even if the eyes she occasionally made at Mephistopheles weren’t the kindest. Mephistopheles gave her those same eyes right back, though none of them did any of that when the envoy could see them.

Erick turned his gaze to his house, back in Spur. Justine’s room was empty, except for a note.

--

Dear Archmage Erick Flatt,

Thank you for everything you have given me. From the words of encouragement, to the opportunity to dip my fingers back into alchemy, to the clothes and the allowance, to the room, to the home, thank you.

I hope to be able to repay all that you have given me, some day, and I hope to continue to work with you in helping the people of Candlepoint live out in the open, with lives of their own, with their own dreams to guide them.

Please remove my [Prismatic Ward] permissions.

With all my gratitude,

Justine Erholme

--

Erick smiled, and then lost his smile. With a heavy heart, and a twitch of thought, he disallowed Justine from entering any of the [Prismatic Ward]s he had, anywhere in the world. The moment passed without fanfare or demarcation.

He returned to his book.

- - - -

In a forest of twelve trees, where a million small messages passed between roots each day, and all minds were in a sense, as one, a voice grumbled, and rose above the susurrus.

Wyrmrest spoke, “An Idea has been presented. Small deliberations are complete. We will now begin the large discussion, and come to an accord within one standard week, or sooner.”

The susurrus went quiet. Other voices rose into that silence.

“Which monsters have we decided upon?” asked Ikabobbi. “I wish to know which ones I will no longer be able to taste.”

“That is strange for you, Ikabobbi.” Home said, “I would have thought you would have been against this idea.”

“I am against it, but the small deliberations have won me over.” He said, “Twice now, a chieftain has died to those Deathsoul Shrooms and deprived me of my Honored Meal. That shrooms would feast upon what was mine by ancient pact is beyond unforgivable.”

“There’s the Ikabobbi I know,” said Home, with maliciousness in her voice. She dropped her anger, and said, “I vote to proceed, though I would prefer to kill all of the monsters listed, I can live with ridding our Forest of the selected two.”

O’kabil said, “There is still the matter of payment for Erick.”

Nosier said, “He has gotten enough from Syllea. If he wishes for more secrets of magic then we can give those to him, but I refuse to actually pay him anything at all! This action against the Forest will cripple many of my enchanters! I will lose money with this plan, and I don’t like it.”

Home said, “Disgraceful.”

“And when the anti-magic runes on your houses fade and the Grand [Prestidigitation] Stoves stop working, then you will come to me begging for grand rads, and I will have none.” Nosier said, “This is what will happen. If anything, he should pay us for hunting on our lands!”

“Enough squabbling over money.” Icebrand said, “My mages and I stand ready to purge the Forest. We are eager to bring about the deepest days of winter to those who have done us the deepest harm. Freeze the Deathsoul Shrooms to splinters. Bury the Moon Reachers in ice. An avalanche upon the Twisted Visions and the—”

“Just the first two, my sweet.” Firebrand said, “We’re not touching the rest of the list. It has been decided.”

“… What!” Icebrand vibrated with chilly anger. “Kill them all!”

“I agree. Kill them all.” Rottundra said, “We should just melt the entire Forest to the ground and burn what remains. Maybe create some reservations out in select areas, full of certain lifeforms that we wish to come back, when we instead demand that Erick regrow the whole thing with his [Exalted Rain]. This is a much better idea, and we should discuss this greater plan more than you all have been willing to discuss.”

Redarrow said, “There are too many artifacts and too much history in the Forest for us to melt it all down. I will not allow such a thing to happen. If we move forward with this plan of yours, know that I will not support such an action, and I doubt the small deliberations will support it, either.” He added, “And besides that, we’d have to get a full tribe accounting before we went on melting, and that would be a disastrous headache if there ever was one.”

Heral-ken said, “We won’t be destroying the whole Forest to just regrow the whole damn thing. There are too many horrific nasties out there, and I will not have them allied against us when they see that we are the only parts of the Forest not burning.”

“There would be no alliances against us, Heral-ken. They are just monsters and dragons.” Rottundra said. “Besides, this is an idea that would take years to complete, and years to back off from if it seems we were upsetting things that should not be upset. And besides that! With the Shades gone, we might actually get to work on turning the Crystal Forest back into a real forest, and unless we want the Crystal Forest to become another Forest forest, then we must seriously consider purging all of the current Forest, before it can look right over the mountains, see a fresh green land, and expand into the fresh green that has been denied to it for almost a thousand years.”

“Freeze it all to bitter shards.” Icebrand said, “I would agree with this plan.”

“I would see the Forest burned, too.” Firebrand said, “But perhaps, only when we have Yggdrasil on our side. A World Tree would do much to quell whatever might boil out from the green after we start applying the heat.”

“There is merit to delaying this plan until we have more of an actual plan,” Leaf-cutter said. “I would like a thirty-year projection of the long term consequences done up by at least a hundred prognosticators of tier 6 quality or higher. We could ask the Geodes for some projections, too. There is no need to be hasty with this. A long term view is exactly what we need to take, if we are to mulch the whole Forest. Which, for the record, I see as a good thing.”

O’kabil said, “I, too, would like to see a long-term prognostication of what would happen if we adopted Rottundra’s alternate plan.”

Steel-Branch said, “Melting and burning the entire Forest, only to regrow it seems like the plot of a play. Adopting such a plan would be asking to get murdered by every Dragon, Twisted Vision, and horde hiding out in the Green.” With a jubilant laugh, he said, “And I love it! Bring it on! We can weather these storms, and we can bury them all in lightning and fire and rot.”

Icebrand said, “And ice!”

Wyrmrest spoke, “I do not like this idea. It is too hasty by far.”

O’kabil offered, “Adjourn, then, while more prognostications and small deliberations are undertaken?”

Rottundra rustled with a small joy, as he said, “I have never before thought that we could change the world. But then all the Shades died to their own god. It truly does seem like anything is possible, doesn’t it?”

“It does!” Nosier asked, “But if we do this, then we do not need Erick for the first part. Leave him to the side, and let us consider the Complete Destruction of the Forest. My mages could use the resources. We should not be paying him for anything else besides regrowing it all.” He added, “Maybe by then some of our own religious types will have gained that [Exalted Rain] through Atunir. I hear she’s giving it out now, too.”

Home perked up. “Really? When did this happen?”

“Yesterday, in her grand church in Fortress Rad-binder, in the Kingdoms.” Not allowing further off-topic discussion, Wyrmrest continued, “I disagree with the idea of cutting Erick out completely, Nosier. We need him to work with us on something, and soon, so that Yggdrasil can see how a proper Arbor acts upon the world, and how we act upon our communities.”

“Well when you put it like that…” Nosier said, “Then yes, we need to work with him on something.”

A small round of agreements passed through the discussion.

Wyrmrest declared, “Then we should vote upon the extinction of the Moon Reachers, and the Deathsoul Shrooms, for this is the plan that has been vetted by the small deliberations, and for this plan we very much need Erick’s magic. We will put aside the Idea of Complete Destruction and Regrowth to a full prognostication effort, to be completed in a satisfactory manner by all involved. What say you all?”

There was more discussion, but more of logistics and clarification than of any real substance.

Soon enough, the Arbors of Treehome came to a decision.

- - - -

Erick was done reading, for now. He did not like the ethics of Veird. Much too violent and much too dense, in his opinion. So for now, he was mostly just waiting for other people, and Arbors, to make decisions about the future of the Forest. He almost went back to reading, but there were things he could be doing besides reading, or magic making, or spying on other people. Or getting high on blueweed, he thought, as he looked at the blunt in his fingers.

He could be making music!

Which is why he had Kiri go out and get a few supplies. Those supplies were now sitting in front of him, taunting him, because he wasn’t exactly sure how, exactly, to record music. Oh! He knew the theory behind it all, with the little grooves in the vinyl that then became sound. But how to turn sound into those little groovy grooves? And that thought brought up another.

Listening to music back when he was a teenager, both by himself and when he was smoking out with his friends in one of his friend’s garage-turned-bedroom. They’d all get together every time they could...

Erick blew out blue smoke, and smiled to himself as old songs came back to him. Janet Jackson. Michael Jackson. Madonna. Whitney Huston. Looking back on it, Erick had to laugh. His entire group of friends was queer and none of them knew till later in life.

Ahhhh. And here came the bad memories. Erick felt a spike of pain, as he recalled one of his friends dying of HIV right after he had Jane. George was his name. He and his boyfriend both died of that disease, or rather, from complications from that disease. This was back at the turn of the millennium, and though HIV treatment was leaping ahead, it wasn’t fast enough, or cheap enough, for some people.

Looking back on that, and with the benefit of so much time and space between him and those events, Erick linked up those facts with his own unwillingness to actually fuck around with anyone on Veird… Or even back on Earth, for that matter. Erick certainly looked at all the pretty people whenever he wanted to look, but when was the last time he actually fucked around with anyone?

… Seven years ago? With that woman he flirted with all the time, over at the county clerk’s office? Marissa? That was her name. Marissa Collins. If she hadn’t moved, maybe something would have come of that. But even then, they had flirted for five years before anything shifted in that relationship, and Marissa had been the one to initiate it. And then she up and moved two months later!

Had it really been seven years since he had… any sort of relationship with anyone? Physical, or otherwise?

… Had time really gotten that far away from him? Shit. It had!

That thing with Al and Mog in the Red Dream did not count. That was a very nice experience, but it did not count.

Erick took the cigarette out of his mouth and extinguished it with a flicker of [Fireshape]. Or at least, he tried to. The end still glowed.

“Oh. Right.” Erick spoke to the air, “O’kabil? Can I get some Shaping permissions, please?”

Erick felt something shift in the air. Some power in the walls turned off. Erick tried a [Fireshape] again. The cigarette stopped burning. He nodded, then spoke, “Thank you. I’m gonna need those permissions for a while, if you could please. I’m gonna try to make some music.”

The misty Domain in the hotel room fully vanished.

“Now. Where to begin with those groovy little grooves?”

Erick faced an incredible uphill battle, and he knew it. Modern recording systems, back on Earth, were made off of wires and electricity and vibrating parts that were all built upon other understandings which were built upon even more understandings that Erick barely understood. He knew the direction he had to take, though.

“I just have to have vibrations and then I need to record those vibrations and then I need to be able to play them back. All without the use of magic in the end result.” Erick put on a happy voice to fool himself into thinking that this would be easy, and said, “Simple.”

[Metalshape] turned some steel into a cone—

“No. Not that way.”

Erick started with the base—

“But how to get the turntable to turn without a motor? That’s a whole level of society that just doesn’t exist yet.” He stopped what he was doing, and said, “I need to figure out how to record the music, first. I can just manually turn the thing, for now.”

He went back to the cone, and considered vibrations.

And then he asked Poi, who was sitting across the room from him, “No one has ever invented non-magic-based recording and playing? Really?”

Poi looked up from his book, and said, “Really.”

Erick returned to his cone, and said, “Then that’s no help— Wait! I got it!”

A flat circle of metal became slightly domed, and a little arm came out of it. More metal wrapped around the outside, but it was then Erick knew he needed to use other materials, too. This type of machine was not possible without rubber, at least. But he had not asked Kiri to gather rubber.

He asked Poi, “Is rubber a thing that exists?”

Poi took several moments to answer, “Not really— I mean. Yes. It does exist. But… No. Not the kind of rubber you want. You’d have to invent that, too. We do have rubber vines, if you want some rubber from those.”

“Rubber trees would be better, wouldn’t it? Why would someone make rubber vines?” Erick said, “With trees, all you do is score the outside and they leak rubber.”

“With the vines, you cut the end, put that end into a bucket, and the entire thing pumps rubber to the bucket.”

“… That works, too.” Erick looked around through the light and found Kiri in her room, upstairs. “Kiri! Can you go get some rubber? Sorry, I should have thought of this beforehand.”

Kiri called out, “I’m on it.”

Erick returned to his recording cone as Kiri flickered to light, vanishing from her room. With that part soon to be settled, he returned to his metal cone, and the ‘cymbal’ with the arm attached to the dome. He stared at the pieces for a moment…

“Oh!” He moved fast as everything suddenly clicked. Metal flowed, as he mumbled, “This part goes here, and this goes here, and then this arm cuts the surface— And I can make a diamond cutting head to cut the steel! And a play-back head will just be of a softer metal than this one! HaHA!”

Over half an hour, Erick molded metal, defined some diamonds, worked with wood for some of the parts he would replace with rubber, and eventually, rolled some rubber into some ribbons and made some O-rings to keep certain things separate from other certain things. Soon, a large, thin-metal, acoustically amplifying cone was connected to the would-be vibrating cymbal, which was surrounded by separating rubber. A small cutting arm arced out of that cymbal, onto a rolling cylinder of glass, because steel was too hard for the diamond to cut (producing grooves which were too small) as the vibrating head vibed back and forth. It was thick glass, anyway; it wouldn’t break that easily. The cone and arm and upper parts barely weighed as much as an apple, which was good, because Erick had to suspend that entire half of the construction on a tension-spring metal arm that held it at exactly the right height above the glass cylinder, which was the bottom half of the construction.

With a happy heart, and with Poi and Kiri watching, Erick turned the crank at the bottom, which both spun the glass, and moved the upper half at a constant rate across that glass. Diamond carved into glass, making an awful screeching sound—

“Ah. Damn.” Erick said, “I thought I fixed that. That’s going to ruin it all… But I can fix that.”

Another half an hour later, Erick had worked out that screeching kink by switching to a glass disk. The problem with the cylinder and the automatic moving of the cutting head across the glass surface, because Erick had created a single swinging point for the cutting head, which arced across the cylinder like how disk record players worked, but for a cylinder, he’d need to figure out some perfectly straight method of moving the cutter, and he didn’t want to do that. Going back to a flat disk removed all of that unnecessary problem. And besides! Disks were easier to reproduce from a mold than cylinders were, and the end goal was mass-produced music.

Time to test it!

Erick put his face into the metal cone, had an Ophiel crank the wheel to the device with a bit of Handy Aura, and listened to the sound of nothing, as the diamond head cut into the glass.

He spoke, “Hello, World. This is Erick Flatt speaking. Test. Test. One, two, three.”

Ophiel stopped as Erick pulled his head back out of the cone. They had only gone through eleven revolutions of the disk, forming almost a dozen lines of spiral on the glass surface. Erick stared at the disk for a moment, wondering. Imagining.

It was the work of three seconds to switch out the cutting head with the play-back head. Kiri watched, enthralled. Poi’s eyebrow ridges were high on his head, as he regarded the scene.

Erick moved the head back into the starting position, and carefully took control of the turning wheel, himself. He spun the disk, and listened. He barely heard his success.

“Hello, World. This is Erick Flatt speaking. Test. Test. One, two, three.”

It was crackly. It was imperfect. It was not what he remembered when he thought of records and music. But it was a start. Erick smiled wide, and reset the player. He turned the crank again, listening to himself again.

Kiri said, “Well that’s certainly something I’ve never seen before. You’re going to put a lot of musicians out of business.”

Erick laughed much, much louder than he ever intended. Kiri frowned for the briefest of moments. Erick almost thought he was going to have to explain it to her.

But then her eyes widened. “OH! They can record music and sell it the world over. Right. You did say that, didn’t you.”

“You got it!” Erick said, “And this is just the prototype. The proof of concept. The thing I made in an afternoon with the wrong materials, and barely any ability! Gods above, magic is wonderful.”

Poi asked, “How good are you going to make it before you show the world?”

“I wanna record something,” Kiri asked, her emerald eyes glittering with hope. “Please?”

Erick stepped away from the machine, saying, “Go for it!” He said to Poi, “As soon as I can get it to work as well as I can, then I’ll showcase it to a few select people.” He added, “[Control Machine] might be just what is needed to make great recordings, or maybe some other specialized spell. And that would be good to control some of the creation of these records. But I want anyone to be able to play them back—”

Kiri had been waiting by the machine, patiently, after replacing the glass disk, but she couldn’t help but glare a little at Erick as he continued to talk. Erick shut up, grinning. She handed him the disk he had recorded on, saying, “This is important. Maybe not right now, but for the future, it’s already a historically important item.” She added, “If this ‘record player’ thing sells well.”

Erick took the disk, and set it aside, saying, “I think it will sell really well. Everyone likes music, right?”

Kiri nodded, but all of her attention was on the recorder. She was just waiting for Erick to stop talking. When he did, she recorded what was possibly the second-ever record on Veird, saying, “Hello! This is Kiri Flamecrash speaking! Test! Test! Three bees with keys and peas, squeeze and sneeze round breezy knees.”

Erick held back his giggle till she was done, then he asked, “What was that?”

Kiri responded, “A nursery rhyme,” as she flipped out the recorder heads and moved the needle back into the start position. She stepped away, saying, “Here goes.”

With a bit of her own [Telekinesis], the recorder began to play back her words, which sounded fine, but the nursery rhyme was more buzzing than anything intelligible. Still, her smile never left her face.

Erick said, “We can make a better one.”

“Of course!” Kiri exclaimed, “But even this much is amazing!” She suddenly stared at Erick. “Do you know how to make a computer? You talked about them once and then you brought that one back from Ar’Kendrithyst…?”

“Barely. A record player is an application of simple physics, but a computer is that, and a lot more.” Erick said, “I must have seen several videos on how a computer works, but I couldn’t tell you how any of the parts actually connect together, or anything, really. Besides. Veird needs electricity and—” He paused, as another thought came to him. He asked Poi, “Didn’t those people who showed up informing us of Hocnihai’s death talk about electricity in the Wasteland Kingdoms? And lightbulbs?”

Poi nodded. “They did. They also offered to host you for a while.”

Erick said, “Well then we have to go there!” He added, “But maybe not right yet.”

Kiri asked, “So what was the methodology with this recorder?”

Erick brightened, as he began speaking to his apprentice, saying, “I will start at the beginning. Sound is just vibrations in the air; an oscillating pressure wave of dense and not-dense particles that…”

- - - -

Three hours later, and Erick was on a roll.

The fidelity of the recorder was not the best, but it was able to reproduce intelligible spoken words through the power of [Control Machine]. With a little bit of magic, Erick empowered the device to turn as he wanted, keeping all the cutting parts in perfect motion and in perfect alignment, allowing the playback to be as best as it could be, all without motors or any actual electronic control. This, however, was about as good as it was going to get. Erick was likely going to need to figure out electricity and transistors and circuitry if he wanted better recording devices, and that was rather far above him, at the moment. Someone else can do that. Or maybe he’d tackle that problem later? He could certainly experiment with electricity if he wanted. He had made that [Battery] spell way back during his time on Oceanside for just that eventual purpose, after all.

For now, what he wanted to do was recreate another 1800’s technology: the camera! As long as it hadn’t been done before, that is.

He asked Poi and Kiri, “Can either of you two think of any machines that recreate pictures of objects? Or magics, if there are no machines.”

Kiri said, “[Telepathy] images. [Lightshape] control. [Watershape] with paints. There’s a [Paintshape] that some painters use to recreate what they see with their eyes, or other senses. Lightward paintings.”

Poi said, “There are lightboxes, but they only produce basic images that most painters will then turn into paintings using the methods Kiri has stated.”

“Those are little more than sketching assistants.” Kiri said, “Like using a microscope to help you see the yeast that you have to [Grow] to make [Fermentation Ward].”

“People who use lightboxes still have to use [Lightshape] to fry the image onto the backplate; this is correct.” Poi added, “But those lightboxes are rather close to what Erick is envisioning.”

“Oh?” Kiri said, “Then my mistake.”

“This is good!” Erick said, “Next question: Are there alchemical solutions that perhaps turn into the colors they’re exposed to, or something like that?”

Kiri said, “If there were, I do not know. Alchemists tend to be rather secretive about their work, but practically any first-year alchemy student would know how to make a mana or health potion. I think what you’re looking for is rather specific, though.” She added, “Someone has likely tried to invent a ‘color fastening potion’, though, for use in lightboxes.” She perked up. “Oh. That seems like a very logical step, now that I’m thinking about it.”

“… And now that I think about it,” Erick said, “I’m not sure I want an alchemical solution, anyway. I want something completely non-magical…” His voice trailed off, as he thought.

Kiri and Poi watched.

After a few moments, Poi offered, “We could go buy some lightboxes? Maybe you could make a contribution to portraiture simply by making a better lightbox?”

Kiri looked at Poi, and said, “I’m sure he could. All the best artists I’ve ever heard of make their own lightboxes. Only the richest people buy them.”

“Oh oh OH!” Erick teased, “Well then! As one of this world’s rich persons, I simply must go out and buy one of them ‘boxed lights’!”

All Erick got were blank looks.

Erick mumbled, “Maybe I’m funnier than I think I am.”

“Always a possibility,” Kiri teased.

Poi said, “I’ll go wake Teressa.”

Erick frowned. “We don’t have to, do we? They’re both exhausted.”

Poi leveled a look at Erick, and Erick backed off.

In twenty minutes, they were out the door with Teressa in tow. Erick tried to apologize, but Teressa was having none of that. Five hours of sleep was more than enough, and besides, it was past lunch time.

Teressa said, “We spotted this one place by Wyrmrest that we have to try. They should be open for dinner, though.”

“Oh?” Erick asked.

With a soft smile, Teressa said, “Yeah. My…” She stumbled on her words, but then she just came out and said what she needed to say, “I have a great-aunt who married into Wyrmrest when I was a kid. I had forgotten about her until I saw Wyrmrest and Jane and I walked that way as we came back last night. I think it’s her restaurant.”

“Then we have to go there!” Erick agreed, “Absolutely!”

Teressa let out a small laugh, then nodded. And then her eyes went wide. “If it’s not her place, then I don’t want to eat there. I do not miss my tribe’s cooking.”

Erick laughed.

Teressa continued, “It was ‘throw everything in a pot and boil it for 5 hours’ stew every night. Very boring.” She added, “But the portions were good for the price.”

- - - -

With the subject of money coming up, Erick remembered he owed a certain goddess a certain number of grand rads. A quick flap of Ophiel’s wings brought the [Familiar] into his house, in Spur. A quick stretch of light grabbed two grand rads out of a pile that Erick had stored in the room below Jane’s mage tower. With a quick prayer sent to Rozeta, two brilliant sharp-edged jewels, each the size of a head, vanished.

Erick got no receipt, but then again, he wasn’t expecting one—

A blue box appeared.

--

Total debt remaining: 0 grand rads

Thanks~

--

Well okay then.

- - - -

They didn’t actually stop for lunch, but they did partake of the many vendors selling food on many different corners. Kabobs of meats and veggies. Candied apples. Roasted nuts. There was even cotton candy, which Erick just had to get because it felt right. That cotton candy even tasted like how he remembered: way too sweet.

- - - -

The people in the front foyer of Hotel O’kabil knew just where to send Erick, Kiri, Teressa, and Poi. The shop, called ‘Boxed Light’ was a popular place, located in the informal ‘mage district’ of Treehome, which was Arbor Nosier’s entire District. That particular Arbor had a great deal of love for all things magic, and Erick instantly felt a bond there. Upon reaching Nosier’s land, Erick stopped, and stared, and confirmed what he had felt when he heard of Nosier’s love of magic.

Nosier was a sea of green hovering in the sky, connected to thick branches that dropped thick trunks throughout all of his District. Around each of those trunks were mage towers. High class mage towers of stone, too, with five or six of them encircling each propping root, each cluster forming almost what Erick thought of as a proper city block, complete with skyscrapers. All of the outlying areas dwarfed the construction around the center, though. The central trunk looked like a tiered cake, which reminded Erick a little of Kal’Duresh, or the Palace District of the Brightwater.

This place was much nicer than both of those other places, by far. The air was cool, the sunlight filtered through the leaves above, and Triumph lights were strung up everywhere, while the tree that Nosier resembled was like seeing a friend Erick hadn’t known he had misplaced.

“He’s a banyan tree.” Erick gazed up at Arbor Nosier, and smiled. “I love banyan trees.”

Kiri walked on, down the stone-paved road, saying, “It’s this way.”

Erick followed.

‘Boxed Light’ was a happening place, alright. The store itself was almost a minor shopping center, with dozens of people walking through dozens of aisles where paints and fabrics and brushes and yes, lightboxes, were all on sale for the discerning customer. Most of the people in the store wore clothes much like Erick; nice enough, but not that nice. There were employees wearing brown, but almost every one of the customers had old paint stains on their clothes, which… was odd.

Erick asked, “Doesn’t [Cleanse] take off paint?”

Kiri led the way toward the back, where they kept the lightboxes, saying, “Not always. All professional painters use minorly magical paints specially created to make it so [Cleanse] doesn’t work on them.” They passed a display of smaller paints. Kiri pointed at them, saying, “Those are the non-magical pigments meant for practice work. You can [Cleanse] those.”

“But when they dry? [Cleanse] still doesn’t work on the special paints?”

“Uh.” Kiri guessed, “Finished paintings become objects in the manasphere?”

Poi said, “Using [Cleanse] near paintings is still a sure way to accidentally ruin them.”

Erick went, “Hmm.”

A short orcol woman in brown, who was still taller than Erick, came up to them saying, “That is correct, sir. But we do have paints that are especially resilient toward [Cleanse], and even if you accidentally tag one with that spell, you can be sure to [Mend] the problem away. Can I help show you those paints?”

They were close by the lightboxes, so Erick pointed, saying, “I want one of those, and I want to know how they work.”

The saleswoman’s eyes lit up briefly, possibly with greed, as she happily said, “Of course, sir. Right this way.” She plucked a thin book off of a shelf of similar books as she moved behind a counter that blocked the fancier-looking lightboxes from the rest of the room. She set the book down on the counter, saying, “This is an introduction to optics for the painter. Recommended for all lightbox beginners.” She halfway turned to the lightboxes, asking, “Any idea which sort of project you’ll be working on?”

“I’m very new at this, so just one second…” Erick opened the book, and flipped through it to get an idea of what he was looking at.

After a good twenty seconds, Erick knew that these lightboxes worked like primitive cameras, exactly as Kiri and Poi had said, but there was no film to these ‘cameras’. Some of the more delicate and high-class ones required a practitioner to use [Lightshape] and [Fireshape] to make [Radianceshape], which was then flickered in a flash across the target scene to be reflected through a nice set of lenses in the lightbox, onto a backplate made of thick paper.

Those smaller, portable lightboxes were just the first part of a two-part process, if you wanted a real painting of a good meter by meter size, though. For the largest paintings, you needed a special room set up with much larger canvases, where a special lightbox used the smaller picture taken with the portable lightbox, to project onto that larger canvas. [Radianceshape] was used here, too, to facilitate this transfer. Some lightboxes had this dual functionality built in, but according to the book, it was better to have two different lightboxes of high quality instead of one middling box of middle quality.

None of that allowed for full-color photographic quality work, though. All that a lightbox helped with was the transferring of a basic image of a scene, which was then painted over by the artist, using their own expertise and talent.

Erick looked up at the saleswoman, and said, “I want to produce full-color pictures of about hand-sized, with one click of one button. No need for painting or any of that. Is this possible?”

The woman lost a little bit of her smile. “You can do this. You just have to have certain specialty spells and other products on hand.” She reached back and pulled out a smaller booklet, saying, “This details how to make [Perfect Painting]. It is a tier four spell involving [Lightshape] and [Watershape] for [Paintshape], which is then combined with [Prestidigitation] and [Telekinesis] for [Painting], and then taken to new heights with practice and skill, to make [Perfect Painting]. Using this spell, some of our paints, and one of our Painting-class lightboxes, you can achieve your goal.”

Erick tapped a finger on the second book, saying, “I’ll buy this book, too, but you misunderstand. I want a mechanical way to produce perfect paintings. Or rather, I’d prefer not to use paint at all. I just want the color of the printing paper to change to the proper colors. Full fidelity. One click of a button.”

The woman regained her smile, but Erick could tell was an expression she reserved for when she suffered fools. She said, “We have no artifacts of this level, but I heard Ar’Kendrithyst is open to the public. Perhaps you should delve into the Enchanter’s Laboratories.”

And yeah, that was an insult. Framed politely, but meaning anything but.

“Apologies. I am not making myself understood.” Erick said, “I want paintings at the press of a button, with no magic involved at all. A pure physical process. No artifacts necessary.”

“Ah. Now I think you should talk to Rozeta, or one of the other gods. Maybe they can help you on your divine quest to ruin all honest painters the world over.”

Okay. So. Erick realized he might have been a bit… pushy. Or something. But there was no need for that sort of blatant insult. So, perhaps unwisely, Erick decided to pursue her insult. He hadn’t ever taken art history lessons, but he did see a fair bit of art over his year of life on Veird, and this woman’s argument that photography would ‘ruin artists’ was just plain wrong! A proper camera would just shift how art was made on Veird. ‘Realism’ and ‘landscape’ were not all that great, in his opinion.

Erick had seen a lot of art over his 48 years of living on Earth, too, after all.

Erick said, “Now there’s a fun argument. What do you think would happen if painters didn’t need to strive for realism?”

The woman huffed, then sarcastically said, “Why don’t you tell me, Seer.”

While Teressa and Poi had held back, as they often did, Kiri remained at Erick’s side, so this woman obviously did not understand that he was here with his guards. She did not understand who he was, and her rising voice proved that.

Not many people in the rest of the shop did, but they had started gathering ever since the woman began raising her voice, and insulting Erick. They watched the growing argument from around the corners of shelves, with their paint-splattered clothing, alongside other people in brown clothing, one of which Erick guessed was the saleswoman’s boss, just by virtue of his uniform being slightly nicer than the woman’s. That guy wasn’t willing to get involved, though. He had definitely seen that Erick was guarded by two other people, hanging back from the confrontation, and his eyes had gone really, really wide, upon seeing Erick. Almost no one in the room knew who Erick was, but the salesman certainly did. And yet, still, he did not get involved.

Erick said, “I’m not a Seer, but I know a bit about the painting styles of this world, and I have a few more that I’d love to show you that come from a different sort of world.” At that, the woman lost some of her annoyance. She turned questioning, but Erick didn’t give her a chance to speak whatever revelations were going through her mind. He quickly grabbed some rubber erasers from a bucket of them on the counter, and taking one in his hands, said, “Feel free to [Dispel] these if you want, but there’s a lot more out there than realistic painting.”

With the work of an intense second, recalling some of his favorite paintings he had ever seen back on Earth, Erick conjured a lightward of impeccable quality, reproducing something rather close to what a master painter had made many years ago.

Blues tumbled into whites, which swirled around yellow stars and a bright moon, while the sleepy countryside continued to sleep, and a spire of black bushes reached up toward the sky. Or at least Erick thought they were bushes. They could have been something else.

“This one is Starry Night, a Post-Impressionist painting by Vincent van Gogh, made about 150 years ago. That description is on the bottom of the painting. It’s very famous, and I think I’ve done it justice. Hopefully.” He moved the eraser, and moved the lightward, too, adding, “And it’s linked to the eraser, so it’s mobile— and also permanent.”

The woman looked at the lightpainting, her eyes going a little bit wider at the casual display of perfect lightward control. Or maybe it was at the lightpainting itself. Or maybe it was because of Erick, himself.

Erick set that painting aside by setting the attached eraser aside, and conjured Van Gogh’s Irises; a painting of blue flowers on green stems and leaves, growing in the dirt. “This one is another bit of non-realism painting.”

Then he conjured The Kiss; A man draped in golds of black and white surrounds a woman of gold and color, they are in love, they are framed by a darker gold and supported by rising flowers.

Erick said, “Art Nouveau. ‘New Art’. This is another broad category. This one is called ‘The Kiss’.”

He conjured an image of a woman reading a book that almost looked like stained glass, but highly stylized, and very close to realism. He said, “Alphonse Mucha’s Daydream. Also Art Nouveau. Also one of my favorites. Actually, I like that whole style, a lot. Most of what I remember comes from that art period.”

Erick conjured several more paintings done in the same style, of people, of advertisements for soft drinks that didn’t exist (yet, maybe), of flowers, of animals. “This whole style is very easy to play around with. It’s been copied a lot back on Earth, but I haven’t ever seen anything like it on Veird.”

By now, the saleswoman had gone pale, and quiet, as she realized who she was talking to. Erick tried to be as nice as possible with his tone and his words, but realistic painting was rather stale, in his opinion. If this helped to liven up the art out there that he had seen, then this was good, right? The people in the audience were certainly interested in his display, with most of that interest eventually shifting toward the paintings Erick was conjuring.

A skinny young orcol man, dressed in clothes that were stained with hundreds of paints, looked upon ‘Daydream’ like he was seeing the face of a goddess. His jaw held slack, his blue eyes sparkling with an inner light.

Erick conjured some of Picasso’s work, explaining, “Another abstract style. It’s called Cubism, and I remember a lot of it, and I like it, but there’s a lot of cultural stuff that just is not in the paintings that you have to understand in order to understand them. This particular one is called Guernica, by Pablo Picasso, and it’s about the horrors of war.”

A lot of eyes focused on that painting.

Erick moved on.

His next set of paintings were of things right next to him, but taken a magnitude higher; crisper, sharper, more more. He said, “These are just examples of Hyper Realism of things I see around the room. It’s a nice style. You probably already know this one.”

There were more people in the audience now. Maybe double as many as had been in the shop before. With a glance through Ophiel that he had left outside, and small, Erick saw that more people were rushing down the street, coming this way.

Oh. This wasn’t what Erick wanted.

He stopped himself there, saying, “And I am terribly sorry for throwing all of that on you, but there’s a lot more to art than Realism. In my experience, anyway.” He gestured to the books on the table, asking, “How much for these?” He gestured to the lightboxes in the back, asking, “And one of those? A medium-grade one.” He had spied the inner workings of many of them with a casual blink of mana sense and his [Greater Lightwalk] while he was talking. They were all about the same, as far as he could tell. He said, “Maybe that one?”

The saleswoman steeled herself, and said, “I am terribly sorry Archmage Flatt, for treating you like I have.”

“I’m sorry, too. I probably took that a step too far.” Erick asked, “So let’s just let bygones be bygones? How much for the stuff?”

Professionalism took over, as she looked to the lightpaintings, and said, “Boxed Light could never accept money from you. Take the books and whichever lightbox you wish. With deepest politeness, I would simply ask if you could grace us with one of your lightpaintings, if you could.”

It was a deal that favored Erick in a way that he was not entirely comfortable with accepting. But she was trying to save face, and Erick could respect that. He said, “You can have them all. I made them permanent because I was hoping to give them to you, anyway, if you liked them. I cannot claim credit for what others have done. Except for the Hyper Realist lightwards. That style is not mine either, but those particular images did come from me.”

The woman bowed, then reached back, and grabbed the lightbox Erick had indicated before. She handed it over, saying, “Thank you for coming to Boxed Light, Archmage Flatt.”

Erick took the head-sized ‘lightbox’, saying, “Thank you for being here.” He glanced behind him to see Teressa and Poi flanking him and the entire shop filled with people. He turned back to the saleswoman. Saying, “Pardon us, but we will be taking the quick exit.”

The woman nodded, as Kiri grabbed the stuff, and Erick grabbed his people with a light touch.

- - - -

“I didn’t know you knew art!” Kiri exclaimed, when they arrived back in their room.

Erick shrugged, saying, “I hadn’t thought to try recreating anything from Earth before, so that was a surprise to me, too.”

Kiri set down the lightbox and the books, asking, “Could I get a copy of that Arat Nervo stuff?”

“The translation is just ‘New Art’.” Erick said, “I’m pretty sure there is something similar to it on Veird, right?” He felt a sudden stab of embarrassment. “Ah. Shit. Was I talking trash? I barely know anything of the art styles of Veird.”

Kiri said, “Me either, but Realism is the main one, right?”

Poi said, “Nature Art is a big one. Other than Realism, Nature Art is probably the largest art style on Veird at the moment. And for a long time, too. I think you’d know them as ‘Landscape’.” His voice took on the air of an easy lecture, as he said, “Then you have Monster Horror, which is a niche style depicting the casual violence of the adventuring life. A lot of emotion in that one. Fantastical is a look to the ancient past, with people imagining what the universe was like pre-Sundering. That one has never been too much in favor, but you can find it in some places. And ‘Realism’ is a truly broad category.

“There’s ‘As you see it’ Realism, which is from the point of view of a person watching a scene. There’s Hyper Realism, which is one or a few objects or faces drawn out to massive proportions, with every detail visible. Very similar to the one you showed in there, Erick, with the lightpaintings of paint brushes in bottles and tubes of paint, done with an unnerving eye for detail. Coincidentally, it’s the same name, too. Then there’s Flowing, which is a Realism style similar to those Van Gogh lightpaintings, but much more based in real objects and people. Then there’s…” His voice trailed off.

Erick smiled, as he listened to Poi. Kiri and Teressa just looked at him like he was suddenly naked in front of them.

Poi suddenly paused. He reluctantly said, “… I like art.” He shifted the subject back to Erick, saying, “You probably started a small cultural revolution with what you did, just by virtue of the ease at which you popped out those light paintings, the breadth of style, the audience, and recent world-wide events.”

“Maybe I did!” Erick found himself taking a great deal of joy in that, as he added, “Did you see the face of that one kid when I popped out Daydream?”

Poi said, “When I spoke of a cultural revolution, I was not exaggerating.”

Kiri and Teressa gained some odd looks, and Erick did too.

Erick said, “I thought you were being dramatic?”

“Not at all.” Poi frowned a little, then said, “You are very famous, and… Your skill at creating those lightpaintings cannot be undersold. You probably handed that shop a good hundred thousand gold.”

Erick waved him off, saying, “They weren’t my art, anyway.”

“Two hundred thousand gold,” Poi said.

Erick winced a little.

Kiri smiled though, as she shrugged. “It is what it is.”

Teressa added, “You did say that you liked those styles a lot, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get solicitors looking to sell you art.”

Erick asked, “That’s all it takes, huh?”

Poi added, “The Headmaster is fond of Fantastical, so despite a lot of people never knowing what the Old Cosmology used to look like, that style still survives to this day. It is said that he buys whatever he sees if the art remotely resembles something he saw from before the Sundering. Sometimes he commissions pieces, too. Sometimes the gods commission Fantastical art.”

Kiri said, “Oh, yeah! You can make a lot of money if your personal Fantastical style is any good.”

“Huh.” Erick thought for a moment, then turned his attention to the lightbox he had ‘bought’. “So you know how to use these, Poi?”

Poi said, “If I did, I would have said something.”

Erick teased, “It’s hard to know sometimes!”

After giving a perfunctory nod, Poi stepped away, back to his book he had left sitting beside his seat. Teressa signed off as well, heading back to bed for a nap, while Kiri stayed with Erick, and they began playing around with the lightbox.

Not half an hour in, and with a good two dozen ‘pictures’ taken of the room and his people, which were mostly just sepia-toned flash-shadows burned onto the paper attached to the backplate, Erick declared, “This is not what I want, but it has all the moving parts.”

Kiri pointed out the problem, saying, “You just need to invent a non-magical method to record light.”

“A way to record green, red, and blue light, which can each form a different image, which can then be transferred into some… other… medium…” Erick lost his train of thought, then regained it, saying, “And then I need to combine all of those into one coherent whole! Easy.”

Kiri pointedly glanced over to the recorder, saying, “This one might be easier, for now. One technology at a time?”

Erick agreed, “One technology at a time.”

And then, when his soul finally felt better and he wasn’t wincing after casting too many spells, he’d get back to making magic. That was the plan, anyway. Erick hoped nothing too horrible would come up in the meantime.

- - - -

The seventh iteration of the record player was likely as good as it was going to get. The base rotated at 35 revolutions per minute, with each record having a theoretical run time of 20 minutes. They hadn’t recorded anything that long, but Erick had let one run for that long just to time it all, even though Kiri said that she calculated the time from the angles and the surface area at being 20 minutes; they didn’t have to actually run that test. But Erick ran that test anyway. The 10 centimeter band of playable space on the 30 centimeter diameter glass seemed to be at the sweet spot for recording and playback purposes. Any closer to the center of the disk and the sounds became unintelligible.

Erick listened to the words he had recorded, and replaced the needle on the arm with the previous needle. The thirty-eighth needle sounded slightly worse than version thirty-seven. Then he set it into the starter groove, and cast [Control Machine].

The record player soundlessly began to turn.

‘Music’ erupted from the horn above the player.

“Bum da bum da bum tish tish tish bum da bum.”

It was a nothing song, made by Erick and Kiri and Ophiel each contributing to the recording. Erick got the medium sounds, Kiri got the highs, and Ophiel supplied the deep bass. And it all came through.

Kiri said, “I can’t really tell the difference between 38 and 37.”

“I can,” Erick said. “And yet...”

Bah! This wasn’t great. It wasn’t perfect. But he would have to settle for this mechanical sound. This thing was a purely analog machine, though, so this was as good as it was going to get.

Kiri said, “I thought the last three machines each sounded good, too.”

“Yeah…” Erick said, “It’s not going to get better than this. Not with the level of what I know, anyway. I’ll have to experiment with magnets and electricity another day.” He looked out the window. The sun was a few hours till setting. He asked, “What does everyone want for dinner— Oh wait! Teressa? Teressa?”

After a few moments, Teressa poked out of her room. “Dinner?”

“Yes. Your great-aunt’s place. Is it open? Want to go?”

“… Yes.”

She did not sound very sure of herself.

Erick asked, “Is it actually her place?”

“Yes.” Teressa said, “I checked. It also isn’t very popular because… It’s not.” She offered, “How about I just go say ‘hi’, and then we pick somewhere else to actually eat?”

Erick said, “That’s fine, too.”

- - - -

Teressa was right. This place wasn’t very popular at all. The day was practically into the dinner hour, and the diner only had a dozen people, with room for a dozen more. The little restaurant wasn’t in the best location, being on the outskirts of Wyrmrest’s District, so maybe that was the problem? There was certainly more than one item on the menu, but it all seemed to be different types of curry, so at least it wasn’t as bad as Teressa had made it out to be. Sure, the only thing for sale was ‘stew’, but there were a dozen varieties.

The place smelled like curry and fresh bread, and that was fine by Erick. Maybe they would eat here? That would be fine. Jane certainly seemed to perk up as she caught the scent of something incredibly spicy on the air.

But as soon as Teressa stepped inside the place, the idea of having a simple evening fell through.

An elderly orcol woman behind the cash register saw Teressa and her mouth dropped open. She yelled, “TERESSA REDNAIL?!”

The entire restaurant turned to see Teressa.

Teressa, with her green face flushing darker, said, “Hello, Auntie Arathani. Yes. It’s me.”

The woman shot out from behind the counter, shouting, “Oh my dear child!” She ran right at Teressa, her billowing dress, white hair, and body flopping as she ran, arms wide, right at Teressa, crying out, “You’ve finally come back to the Forest!”

Teressa caught her great aunt in a hug, not bothering to correct the woman as they shared a private moment, in a public space. But when Auntie Arathani’s face was buried in Teressa’s chest, Teressa frowned, and Erick saw it was going to be a difficult conversation.

Arathani pulled away, saying, “Let me look at you!” She grabbed at Teressa’s arms, marveling at her muscles, and then at her face, marveling at her eyes, saying, “You’re as big and as strong as I remember!” She finally realized that there were more people than just Teressa, as she boggled down at Erick, Kiri, Poi, and Jane. With a grandmotherly voice, she said, “You all look like you could use some food! Come! Sit!” She grabbed Teressa’s hand, dragging her toward a great big table, saying, “You and your new adventuring group is always going to be welcome here, Teressa, my dear child.” She giggled and laughed, saying, “I’m so glad you’re finally better!”

Teressa’s momentary good cheer evaporated like it had never been. But she put on a strong face and said, “They’re not… I’m not...” She changed her mind about whatever it was she was going to say, and said, “I have good news, Auntie Arathani.” She pulled out the kill notification for Perri, the Witch, and handed it to the older woman.

The old woman blanked as she saw the notification. And then she touched it, like she was touching a tombstone, which, in a way, she was. Her voice became a whisper, “Is this… Is this hers?”

A man came out from the kitchen, looking concerned, asking, “Arathani?”

“Yes; this is that Shade’s Kill Notification.” Teressa said, “I got it from the man who killed her. The Witch is—” Her voice hitched. “The Witch is dead. The bitch who killed our family is gone. There’s not even ashes to piss on.”

Arathani blinked out tears as Teressa spoke. She breathed hard, as the man from the kitchen came over and put his hand on her shoulder. Arathani grabbed his hand with one of hers, while her other gripped the Witch’s notification like it would fly away if she let go.

The man looked to Teressa, asking, “I didn’t believe it, but it’s true? The Shades are really dead?”

The entire restaurant was silent. Some of the people watched Teressa, Arathani, and the man. Most looked away. But as the seconds ticked by, some of them noticed Erick. One of them recognized Erick for who he was.

“They’re mostly dead, Uncle Yogdrick.” Teressa said, “Seven Shades of the city still live, as well as the ones that were outside of Ar’Kendrithyst during Shadow’s Feast. But the Witch is dead, for sure.”

“Yogdrick.” Arathani stood up straight, and turned to the man who was her husband, saying, “Let’s break out the good brandy.” She rounded on Teressa, “You must stay the night— Have you had dinner yet? We have dinner! Eat here. All your friends, too!”

Teressa started, “Uh—”

“We’d love to!” Erick said, wholeheartedly, right as—

Jane said, “We’d love to.”

“Yup,” Kiri said, as Poi added, “Sure.”

“I guess we’re staying for dinner, Auntie,” Teressa said, “But we already have a place to stay.”

“Fine fine. Good.” Arathani wiped a tear from her eye, as she rushed Teressa for another hug. With her head on Teressa’s shoulder, she told Yogdrick, “The brandy, sweetie.”

“Right!” Yogdrick headed back to the kitchen, repeating, “Right.”

Erick sat down to a large, empty table, along with everyone else, except for Arathani and Yogdrick, while Teressa fielded questions from her great aunt like a woman deflecting [Force Bolt]s. ‘How did you get this notification?’ ‘How can you believe it?’ ‘What have you been up to?’ But what finally broke the camel’s back, was an event that took a few minutes to become fully realized. It started with some guards in wooden-looking armor taking position outside of the restaurant's doors, which Arathani did not notice right away, because some people asked for their bill. That forced Arathani to give up her line of questions for Teressa, to give the people their bills and send them on their way.

It was then she noticed the guards. She put her hands on her hips and demanded to no one in particular, “What are those two doing outside my diner? Standing there like that! They better not stop people from coming to my diner!” She almost went to walk out the door, to confront the guards, but—

Another trio of patrons needed their bill. And then all of them did. Arathani was suddenly apologetic to all the people leaving, for some of them hadn’t even finished eating yet. But they all paid their bills as quickly as they could. On their ways out, more than a few people glanced at Erick.

One of them said to Arathani, “Congratulations on your family reunion.”

Arathani said, “You don’t have to leave because of that!”

“It’s for the best,” said the man. He bowed to Erick, saying, “And thank you, sir.” The man rapidly left, following the rest of his small group.

Arathani turned to Erick. “What was that about? Do you know Rupar?”

“Never met the guy,” Erick said.

“Then why—”

Teressa sighed, almost too quiet to hear, then said, “Auntie. I haven’t actually introduced my friends yet.”

“Oh! Where are my manners! This Triumph of Light has me all aflutter with that news from Spur and now you’re showing up at my door! It’s been a strange week so far.” Arathani stood straighter, then glanced around, saying, “And where is that husband of mine with the brandy! Whatever.” She came back to the table, saying, “It is such a pleasure to meet you all. Are you all part of Teressa’s new adventuring group? Would you like something to drink before we break out the brandy? Tea? Or water? Beer?” She gestured at the suddenly empty restaurant, saying, “Looks like we have some room for a proper reunion. And you can tell me what you’re going to do with your life, now that your vendetta is done!”

Teressa winced, then said, “Auntie Arathani Wyrmrest, I’d like you to meet a few people.” She gestured around the table, saying, “Poi Fulisade, my Squad Leader.”

Arathani paused, narrowed her eyes a little, and said, “Uh. Squad Leader? Hello, mister Fulisade.”

Poi nodded. “Ma’am.”

Teressa continued, “Kiri Flamecrash, a private in Spur’s Army.”

Kiri nodded. “Hello.”

Teressa rapidly said, “And Jane Flatt, also a private in the Army, and Erick Flatt, my assignment and boss and friend and the person who gave me the Witch’s Kill Notification.”

Jane calmly smiled, saying nothing, as Arathani’s eyes bugged out and she temporarily stopped breathing.

Erick said, “Hello, Teressa’s great-aunt. I must say that the smells in here are quite nice.”

And then Arathani narrowed her eyes again, and almost spat at Teressa, “That’s not a nice trick to play on an old woman, Teressa! If you were twenty years younger I’d tan your hide—”

Erick spoke, drawing Arathani’s ire, saying, “It’s true, ma’am. The Witch is very much dead, and unless she has a back-up body and soul somewhere —which I wouldn’t put past someone like that— she’s gone. Even if she did come back, she wouldn’t be a Shade anymore, which means she’d be a normal criminal, with much less power.”

“… Oh.” Arathani said, “And here I thought your eyes were just…” Her voice trailed off.

Yogdrick had paused just as he came out of the kitchen doors, holding what was likely a large bottle of liquor. When Erick finished, Arathani breathed a bit, then she walked over to grab the bottle from her husband.

She started pouring glasses, not looking at Erick, as she said, “That is quite a tale.” She quickly finished pouring seven shots, drank one of them right quick, and brought the bottle and the glasses to the table, adding, “I’m not partial to believing fantastical things, like all the Shades are dead, but I can certainly believe that the Witch had a back-up body like in those stories about necromancers and shit.” She set the glasses on the table, and took one for herself. “So what do you all want for dinner? On the house, for sure.”

Teressa relaxed, then managed to get out, “Whatever’s good, Aun—”

But the front door opened, ringing a bell above the entrance as it moved. An elderly man with slicked-back white hair walked in, dressed in a green robe with white gems studded on the fabric. This was why the guards were outside the door. Erick was wondering if that small action was a friendly hand from Wyrmrest to prevent another incident like what happened at Boxed Light, but those guards were actually clearing the way for an important person. That was Erick’s second guess at why the guards were there.

Arathani saw the man, and her lips turned into a hard line. She bowed, right as Yogdrick also bowed.

Yogdrick said, “Welcome to our restaurant, Chieftain Wyrmrest.”

The Chieftain spoke, “Thank you for welcoming me into your place of business. Now, if you don’t mind, I would perchance speak with one of your guests.” He looked to Erick, asking, “Sir Archmage Flatt. Would you mind speaking with me for a short while—” He gestured to the side of the room, toward an empty table, saying, “Over there is fine with me, if it is acceptable to you.”

“… Certainly.”

- - - -

Erick sat at a table across from a man he had never met before, but who was apparently a big-wig around here. He’d have to be, with a title like ‘Chieftain Wyrmrest’.

Erick began with, “So what’s your actual name? You can call me Erick, by the way.”

The man put on an easy smile, and said, “Peron. Thanks for taking the time to meet, Erick. I apologize for interrupting a family moment, but it is my hope that this should only take a few minutes. It is regarding the plan for the annihilation of the Moon Reachers and a few other monsters out in the Forest.”

Everyone at Teressa’s table went silent. They were already whispering to each other, with most of that whispering being between Arathani and Teressa, but now there were no sounds at all, except for Jane shooting back a shot of Arathani’s brandy.

Jane went, “Woo! That’s strong!” And then she tried to restart their own conversations.

Erick was thankful for that. He focused on his own conversation, which suddenly seemed like either a suddenly appearing [Force Trap], or a bridge to a better future. He asked, “Is there some part of this plan that needs amending? Or something? I already said I wouldn’t do it without everyone’s agreement and assistance, but I hope that everyone chooses correctly. Now that the monster-makers and the Shades are mostly taken care of, a targeted extinction of certain monsters might actually work.”

Peron said, “Theoretically, I and many of my compatriot Chieftains approve of this targeted extinction event. Theoretically. But it has come upon us too fast, and we really would like to be more cautious about this sort of thing. None of us want to be responsible for clearing out a predator from the Forest, only to have worse things take over, and for the best solution to those new problems to be to reintroduce Moon Reachers from another continent.” He added, “Those creatures really are some of the world’s best predators. But. Barring all of that… Is this something you could actually do?” He rapidly added, “Not to disparage my own intelligence network, but hearing is different than seeing.”

Erick saw where this was going. He asked, “Do you have some smaller targets that you wish gone, first?”

Peron’s smile was purely political, as he said, “We do have some smaller targets. The Cult of Melemizargo. You’re just as capable at finding people as you are at finding monsters, unless I am mistaken.”

Erick suddenly said, “No. Nev— Wait.” Erick stopped talking, and winced. “Sorry.” Erick said, “That was a reaction. Not my answer.”

Peron slowly nodded, once. He waited for more. His politician face never shifted from anything other than calm listening.

Erick said, “I don’t want to hunt people. But I will hunt for them and allow your people to take care of them, if, and only if, you can prove their murderous intentions, or a history of such. I will help you to hunt down the worst offenders; Hunters, murderers, terrorists. Those sorts of people. I will not help you to kill simple cultists. And yes! Before you say anything else, there are simple cultists. Some of my people in Candlepoint are simple cultists, because Melemizargo was there for them, when no other gods were. And yes, I fully understand that it was Melemizargo who did what he did to the people of Candlepoint, but some of the people of Candlepoint still revere him, and all they usually do is leave out pastries on darkened shelves, or light tiny candles inside dark rooms. That is the full extent of their cult activities and I have no doubt that this is the full extent of the cult activities of many of the people of this city and land. A lot of cultists get into that worship just to ask for a way forward in the night that doesn’t end with their death, or for trials to grow stronger. Not all of them make monsters or war or horror.” He thought for a second, then added, “That’s my answer. It’s probably not my full answer, but that’s my answer for now.”

Peron had listened, his face betraying almost nothing. Erick could tell that he didn’t like his answer, though. There were some deeper, more hateful emotions buried under that professional facade, and they were buried deep.

Peron said, “I was not aware that you were a cultist yourself.”

Those were fighting words, but Erick would not rise to them.

“If you see every peace-loving person as an enemy, then we are going to have a rough time.”

“I want you to kill Treant, too.” Peron said, “He’s to the north east, right now, on the edge of Steel-Branch’s territory.”

“… Oh?” Erick had an Ophiel rapidly lightstep in that direction, as he said, “One second.”

In a matter of moments, Erick found Treant.

It was hard not to. The man was surrounded by bloody, 300 meter long wyrm corpses, gathered in a massive pile with tails and heads and flayed spines twisted and splayed out all across each other, in the center of a large clearing within sight of Steel-Branch’s steel-and-cloud canopy. For some strange reason, the entire arrangement reminded Erick of a plate of multigrain spaghetti. The blood and gore even looked like a meat sauce, if one were to look at it all from very far away. It was surreal, actually.

...Or maybe Erick’s stomach rumbled at all the good scents currently around him, and his mind went somewhere weird. The scents around Ophiel were certainly not good at all. Erick remembered that smell from when he hunted wyrms with Teressa, Poi, Kiri, Jane, and Rats. It smelled like a sweetened movie-theater dumpster.

And yet, there Treant stood, right on top of it all, calling out toward Treehome, repeating the same phrases over and over again, “… me, Treehome! I ask for forgiveness! I ask for a task to earn that forgiveness! Hear me, Treehome! I ask for forgiveness! I ask for a task to earn that forgiveness! Hear me, Treehome!…”

His voice was full of hurt. Glowing white tears streamed down his face, turning pink as they mixed with blood. He had lost his bark-like skin somewhere between the last time Erick had seen him, and this time, but the rest of him looked the same. Black hair. Short kilt. Brown skin.

And then he spotted Ophiel, for Erick made no attempt to hide him.

Treant’s raw voice turned toward Ophiel. “Erick! What can I do to make amends?” He instantly added, “You owe me! You did this to me! And I gave you those Stat fruits! Help me!”

Erick spoke through Ophiel, rapidly saying, “I don’t have time for a therapy session with you right now, and I will not speak on your behalf. Not yet. And besides! I have no experience with helping people find forgiveness after they’ve murdered hundreds of thousands of people. There’s just no coming back from what you did right now. So why don’t you just keep doing good in the shadows, and maybe that will eventually outweigh the bad. In like, a hundred years. I don’t know. I’m not the one that you wronged. Not really. You got a Divine Quest, right? Just do that.”

Treant listened, and then he collapsed to his knees. He cried, silently, his shoulders shaking.

Erick recalled that Ophiel, and returned to his own senses. He looked to Peron, and said, “Good luck with that guy. If he becomes an actual problem, then… We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I think he’ll just murder more monsters, though, and that’s a win for you guys.”

Peron silently regarded Erick.

Erick waited.

Peron said, “Every single person he harms is on your head.”

“Then every single person he saves is my joy, too.” Erick said, “I knew what I was getting into when I Blessed them into Empathy. You’re merely reaping the main benefits. So unless this posturing is for someone else’s benefit, then I would appreciate a bit more honesty and forthrightness. Is ‘chieftain’ a political appointment, or a familial thing?”

Peron’s mask did not slip. Had Erick hit the right mark? This guy was good at keeping a straight face.

Erick called over to the other table, asking, “Is Chieftain a political appointment?”

While everyone else’s mouths suddenly shut, Poi called back, “The designation of ‘Chieftain’ is indeed a political appointment. Peron won seven years ago, and is up for reelection this year. He has won the last three times in a row, but it’s been close each time.”

Peron sighed, almost too quiet to hear, or see.

“Thank you.” He turned back to Peron, saying, “You wish for a win? Then how about you help me take care of the terrorists, Hunters, and murderers in your town, instead of trying to tackle the Shade in the area who is rather misguided in his helping, but he’s still helping.” He added, “I’ll have to see the files myself, as well as talk to your Guardmaster, while using a truthstone. If that’s okay with you?”

Peron said, “I need Treant dead, Erick. You just aren’t understanding. But that is okay. For now.” He stood up, and Erick stood up with him. Peron said, “You’ll have your lists, and your interviews with Guardmasters. Truthstones are acceptable. I’ll even command my people to open themselves up to whatever Mind Mage probes you demand, so that you understand that we are not lying, or demanding something unreasonable when we ask for the eradication of the Cult.” With hard eyes, Peron said, “I wouldn’t send an archmage against unnecessary targets, Erick. I hope you can understand that I only have the best interests of my people in my heart by the time the long-term prognosticators come back with the long-term monster eradication plans.” He put a hand on his chest, and bowed ever so slightly, saying, “Thank you for meeting me on such unexpected notice, Archmage Flatt.”

Erick copied the man’s gesture, and said, “Thanks for coming to talk to me, Chieftain Wyrmrest.”

The Chieftain left the diner. His guards outside followed him. The trio of them stepped down the street three steps before they all vanished in a star-filled blip.

Arathani rushed the restaurant door. With a turn and a click, she locked the entrance, saying, “Holy gods! So many important people today! I’m all frazzled.” She turned to Erick, asking, “You okay? What am I saying! Yes, you’re okay. Sorry about that—” She fell into what was obviously an old standby mode, asking, “What can I get you to drink?”

Erick smirked, saying, “A beer.”

“A beer for the archmage!” She rushed toward the kegs on the side of the room, where she started filling a drink, and mumbled, “A beer for the archmage. Never thought I’d say that.”